News Archive - 2010 [2009 2008 2007 2006 2005]

 

 

10th March 2010

Atticus and FS Dortmund on Tour 2010

Some members of FS 98 Chess Club Dortmund plan to visit Liverpool and Atticus Chess Club this Spring (exact dates tbc). They will be staying together in a hotel and would like to explore the city for a period of seven days. We intend to play them in a friendly/competitive match and there will be an opportunity for informal socialising. More information will be available soon.

 

Anyone who would like to visit Dortmund in September 2010 is asked to register their initial interest by sending an email to Martin Blasczyk (martin.blasczyk@t-online.de). Pit Schulenburg (FS 98 Chess Club Dortmund) would like to know by the end of January/beginning of February roughly how many members of our club are planning to visit Dortmund. Click for more details.  

 

28th February 2010

4NCL Rounds 5 & 6

Click to see photos and video from rounds 5&6 from Divisions 1-3 at the Barcelo Hotel, Hinckley Island, Leicestershire.

 

27th February 2010

Ciudad de Linares 2010, 12-25 February

Complicated tiebreak rules made all kinds of scenarios possible, but in the end it was clear. By beating Gelfand in a tense game, Topalov won outright as Grischuk drew with Vallejo Pons.

 

This year the tournament involved six players, two short of the usual eight and took place February 12-25 in Andalucia, Spain.

 

Veselin Topalov (2805), Levon Aronian (2781), Boris Gelfand (2761), Vugar Gashimov (2759), Alexander Grischuk (2736) and Francisco Vallejo Pons (2705) are playing.

 

Rounds started at 16:00 CET (15:00 GMT); rest 17th & 22nd. Rate of play: 2 hrs/40 moves, 1 hr for 20, then 20 mins for the rest of the game, with 30 secs increment from move 61. The Sofia rules for offering a draw apply in Linares for the first time.

 

Final table

 

 (30 Games)  • Official site • LIVE broadcast • PGN Games • Reports

 

16th February 2010

Success at the Frodsham Congress 12-14 Feb

U200: Luke Boumphrey 3/5, David Odunaiya 2½/5, Phil Hopkins ½/5; Minor: (U125) Steve Burge 4/5 (Runner up) and Tom Lawton 3/5. Well done to them.

 

12th February 2010

Game Over: Kasparov and the machine

Feb 10 2010: Following the screening of this famous DVD at FACT there followed a very engaging talk by David Robertson, Professor of Public Policy at JMU. David (left) was the principle organiser of Liverpool's hugely successful chess tournaments 2006-8.

 

The very appreciative audience, some with very little chess knowledge others with long standing club experience, all enjoyed his thoughtful and incisive analysis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9th February 2010

More Gibtelecom photos and video

There are some additional pics from rounds 1&2, and some of the hotel itself, from this year's Gibraltar Masters here. Click to see some short videos of the Masters and Challengers.

 

8th February 2010

Atticus at the Stockport Rapidplay, 7 Feb

Open: John Redmond 3/6 (+2 =2 -2); Intermediate: 2nd= Phil Hopkins 5/6, £45.00; Minor: 1st David Odunaiya 6/6, £120.00 .... 137 players in 5 sections.

 

1st February 2010

Gibraltar Festival 2010

John Saunders reports: English grandmaster Mickey Adams has won the 8th Gibtelecom Masters after a four-player play-off. He did it the hard way, losing the first game of his semi-final against German GM Jan Gustafsson and having much the worst of the second game before Gustafsson blundered a piece. There followed an Armageddon game, with Adams obliged to win, which he did in some style. In the other semi-final Paco Vallejo Pons of Spain won his first game quite comfortably against Chand Sandipan of India. He was comfortable in the second game but Sandipan fought back to the point where he should have won, only the make a terrible blunder which cost him the win.

 

The final saw Adams in his best form, soon securing a strong advantage which he carried through to victory. In the return, Vallejo Pons got a bad position but his attempt to mix the game up cost him a piece and he could only draw. The two-game mini-matches were played at a time control of 10 minutes with 10 second increments and the Armageddon game at 5 minutes to 4.

 

The 8th Gibtelecom tournament took place at the very plush Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar. The Masters event started daily at 15:00 local time (14:00 UK) and had a remarkable line-up of talent including Gata Kamsky, Etienne Bacrot and Mickey Adams (the eventual winner).

 

Full details and pairings for each round can be seen on the official site where you can see photos and video. More photos here.

 

1st February 2010

Corus 2010 from Wijk aan Zee

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The top seed and leader of the A-Group, Magnus Carlsen, drew his final game, as did his main contenders, which left the 19-year-old Norwegian the sole winner of the tournament. His FIDE ranking in the next list will most likely be the second highest in history. Kramnik and Shirov share 2nd-3rd. In the B-Group Anish Giri was first, ahead of top seed Naiditsch.

 

There were three main sections in the Corus event GM-A, GM-B and GM-C. There are also some amateur sections. English interest was centred around Nigel Short who played in the A section: average rating 2719 and David Howell in the B section: average rating 2629

 

 

 

In his blog for Arctic Securities Magnus wrote:

 

I’m happy to say I won the Corus 2010 A group in the end with 8.5/13 points, ahead of Kramnik and Shirov at 8 and Anand and Nakamura at 7.5. Having described my last round blunder and subsequent save against Short in London in December as a narrow escape, I could better have reserved the phrase for today. As white against 17-year old F.Caruana I settled for a closed Roy Lopez position out of the opening, but he defended precisely and the position was fairly equal. In the middle game I found a plan that I thought would leave me with a nice initiative, but had calculated horribly wrong and ended up in a very difficult position. Instead of suffering without counterplay, I sacrificed a pawn to activate my pieces. The knight endgame a pawn down was difficult, but we both thought it should be possible to hold with precise defence. In the fifth hour of play he allowed a line that drew fairly directly, while he could have made me suffer a while longer.

 

In the meantime Kramnik had drawn with Karjakin and Anand with Van Wely, while Shriov against Dominguez was a sharp fight that turned out to be a real thriller. With very little time on the clock, Shirov found an incredible resource that turned a desperate-looking position into an unclear one. Dominguez made a blunder and offered a draw. Shirov didn’t see the winning line either and accepted with seconds left in a clearly winning position. After the traditional prize ceremony with pea soup there was a closing dinner for the players and organisers in the A-group hotel. The famous Dutch football star Edgar Davids is a chess enthusiast and he came to the hotel for a long chat which I really appreciated. Now I’m looking forward to a week of vacation abroad before returning to Norway.

 

• Official site • Video reports • All games

 

18th January 2010

4NCL 2010

Divisions 1-3, rounds 3&4 took place Saturday and Sunday at Barcelo Hotel, Hinckley Island, Leicestershire (16th & 17th January). LIVE games were broadcast on Saturday (14:00) and Sunday (11:00). Click for all results and PGN games.

 

6th January 2010

Hastings Congress 2009/10

The Masters ended in a fourway tie for first place, between Mark Hebden of England, British Champion David Howell, Andrei Istratescu of Roumania, and Romain Edouard of France.

 

 

 

Joint winner: GM Mark Hebden

To nobody's great surprise, the two leaders, Hebden and Istratescu, halved out in 11 moves. This left them safely ensconced in the clubhouse on 7 points, from which they could observe the attempts of the various 6-pointers to catch them up. Gormally-Drozdovskij never looked like ending in anything other than a draw, but Romain Edouard defeated Simon Ansell with Black, to join the leaders.

 

Finally, in the last few minutes up to the first time-control, they were joined by David Howell, whose opponent lost the thread in the time-scramble. - Steve Giddins

 

1st= GM Andrei Stratescu, GM Romain Edouard, GM David Howell, GM Mark Hebden all scored 7/9.

 

 

 

 

1st January 2010