Sweden is now a regulated market, which means that as a player you can only play at casinos with a license. See all regulated casinos in Sweden by Mr casinova.
Pogonina.com offers you a selection of some of the most informative and entertaining chess tweets from last week:
Quote of the week
Erdos, Antipov and Postny at 6.5/9
You never know
Anand-Gelfand: two draws so far
One of the things that can't be bought - time
What is more exciting for you, Levon?!
We also know
No comments
The future of world chess championships
Alexandra Kosteniuk: After all, the future of chess is tournaments. In matches the opponents are playing it safe, while in tournaments one has to win, take risks, aim for serious fights.
Kamsky-Svidler, spectacular for Peter's 26..Re2!! move, won the first prize as the best game played in 2011
ChessPro has published the final table of the best chess games played in 2011.
Here is the panel of judges, unique in terms of chess strength:
Valentina Gunina, Tatiana Kosintseva, Nadezhda Kosintseva, Viktoria Cmilyte, Natalia Pogonina, Olga Alexandrova, Natalia Zhukova, Ekaterina Kovalevskaya, Tatiana Grabuzova, Alexander Grischuk, Dmitry Jakovenko, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Nikita Vitiugov, Adrian Michalchishin, Sergei Movsesian, Viorel Bologan, Emil Sutovsky, Sergei Rublevsky, Alexander Riaziantsev, Artem Timofeev, Mikhail Kobalia, Miguel Iljescas, Evgeny Miroshnichenko, Mikhail Krasenkow, Vitaly Golod, Igor Lysyj, Sergei Ivanov, Andrei Zontakh, Ruslan Scherbakov, Mikhail Prusikin, Dmitry Kryakvin, Maxim Matlakov, Alexandr Shimanov, Alexei Korotylev, Vladimir Barsky, Sergei Zagrebelny, Konstantin Landa, Evgeny Gleizerov, Konstantin Sakaev.
Natalia Pogonina voted the following way:
1. Gelfand - Grischuk. In my opinion, Boris was one of the best chess players in 2011. His victory in the Candidates was both convincing and beautiful. The decisive fight against Grischuk, which I have watched live, was a thriller. Gelfand has shown a lot of passion in that game: 18.Nh4 and 19.f4 capturing the centre. Alexander couldn't find any counter-arguments. First place for great play and importance of the victory.
2. Shirov - Kramnik. It looks like Vladimir Kramnik can play any opening and still have some interesting ideas up his sleeve. Very strong, almost impeccable play by Black.
3. Kamsky - Svidler. 26...Re2 is the move of the year. An exquisite combination by the World Cup winner. This game deserves to be in the top-3.
4. Carslen - Gelfand. Exciting action. Until the very end if was unclear who was winning. Boris had good attacking chances, but was the last one to make a mistake and lose. Got to give credit to Carlsen's steel nerves.
5. Grischuk - Kramnik. To play such a game blindfolded is a serious achievement. A spectacular game by Grischuk.
6. Vachier-Lagrave - Carlsen. Maybe Carlsen didn't sense the dangers of the position at the right time, or was too self-confident about his defensive skills. It's unclear why he chose to play that way. Nonetheless, it doesn't lessen Maxime's achievement. The French GM has demonstrated a perfect example of boa constrictor technique - squeeze and take advantage of the positional weaknesses in the opponent's camp.
7. Sutovsky - Naiditsch. Are you bored of boring Berlin endgames? Do you want to see something spicy and energetic? Invite Sutovsky! Emil is known for his chess fireworks, and in this case he has demonstrated an interesting technique using just a few pieces.
8. Pantsulaia - Polgar. It was hard for me to choose between this victory by Polgar and her game against Iordacescu. Finally I decided to settle with the Pantsulaia game. It is memorable for a few brilliant sacrifices aimed at keeping the White king in the centre followed by an unexpectedly quiet play for domination. White didn't last long.
9. Korobov - Vocaturo. 18.Rd8 came like a thunderbolt. A very nice win by Korobov.
10. Aronian - Svidler. 2011 will be remembered not only by Svidler's Re2, but also by striking chess geometry from Levon Aronian. The White queen has devoured virtually all the Black pawns just like a tornado.
The final table & all the 43 nominated games can be viewed here.
In Part I and Part II we were discussing the first four rounds of the Russian Team Chess Championship 12. A few important clashes have happened already, but the most critical rounds are usually the final ones. The teams were competing not only for medals, but for qualification spots to the Eurocup.
In Loo (ironically, the name of the place we were playing) rainy days were replaced by sunny weather, this drawing an invisible line between the first and the second parts of the tournament.
In round 5 the following matches were played: St. Petersburg Economist; Navigator Chigorin Chess Club; SHSM-64 Universitet; Ugra Tomsk-400. Our team, Rakita, had to face Politechnik on board 5.
The Saratov team Economist was leading with a perfect score (8/8) and had huge chances to win the title. The crazy top game between Svidler and Morozevich ended in a draw, but it will still probably made it to the all-April chess hit lists. Four more encounters ended in a draw. Movsesian scored for St. Petersburg against Eljanov, thus granting a match victory for his team. Movsesian started with 0.5/2, but then pulled himself together and won 4 games in a row, including beating Motylev and Leko, with a final performance of 2814.
Photo by Mariya Fominykh, chesspro.ru
On board 2 Navigator drew Chigorin Chess Club; SHSM-64 crushed Universitet 5-1. The confrontation between Ugra and Tomsk was a matter of life and death in the sense that the winner had a chance to push for the medals, while the loser was out of contention and struggling to qualify for the Eurocup. Tomsk won with a minimal advantage: Sergey Karjakin defeated the European Chess Champion Dmitry Jakovenko with Black.
All the games in our match ended in a draw, except for my teammate Boris Savchenkos time trouble loss against Dmitry Bocharov.
Try to find the best continuations in these positions without looking at the answers and then check your solutions:
Maria Sharapova would like to learn how to play chess (picture)
Written by Administrator
Monday, 07 May 2012
Not the type of dress the European Chess Union would approve, but good for a start!
Tennis super star Maria Sharapova has posted this picture (see above) and a note on her FaceBook account (which has over 7,000,000 "likes"):
Here is what I was doing while in Stuttgart...no no, not playing chess, just taking walks in some of the parks and pretending like I knew what I was doing with a chess board. Would be nice to learn...perhaps it will help my patience.
We guess that many chess players will now be spamming Maria with offers to teach her how to play. However, please keep in mind that she is having a wedding with basketball player Sasha Vujacic on November 10th. Please don't be too persistent and annoying!
Nice story, how come we haven't reported on this yet?!
Day-count
Garry, maybe "the KGB" has taken over NYTimes?
Quote of the week
Always nice to see a regularly-run chess trivia
Another tournament victory for Vladimir Georgiev
Have we missed some of the best tweets? You can contribute to our next top-10 stories chart by retweeting the post you like and adding @Pogonina to the message so that we can see it.
The third round became the duel of heavyweights. SHSM-64 vs Tomsk-400, St. Petersburg vs Ugra. Saratov was facing a solid team Nagivator (Moscow) with Sutovsky and Sasikiran on the top boards. Given the short distance (7 rounds), each misstep would be critical. SHSM-64 drew Tomsk on all 6 boards. St. Petersburg Chess Federation sensationally lost to Ugra 2-4. On board 1 Jakovenko defeated Svidler with Black.
Svidler vs Jakovenko. Photo by Mariya Fominykh, chesspro.ru
Economist-SGSU scored 4.5/6 against Navigator. Our team drew Kazan. We were actually having a very tough time; the only player to save the day was Michail Antipov who won his 2nd game in a row.
Just like last time, here are some puzzles for you to solve. Be careful not to view the annotations before trying to figure out the continuation for yourself:
Round 4, the mid-point. I was playing pretty badly (0.5/3), so the captain decided to offer me a rest day. It turned out to be a good decision: I scored 2/3 in the remaining rounds and, which is much more important, played more confidently. Our team finally won a match against Atom. Meanwhile, the top teams were battling to the extreme. Economist defeated SHSM-64 due to Andreikins win over Potkin. Tomsk-400 lost to St. Petersburg Chess Federation 2.5-3.5. Ugra was stopped with a draw by Universitet (Belorechensk). Korobov lost to Panarin, and it looked like Ugra would even lose, but Dreev managed to convert a rook+knight+2 pawns vs the same material against GM Brodsky. This is absolutely unbelievable and spawned many jokes in different reports. Even Kramnik and Aronian had a hearty laugh after game two when Kramnik said something like: And then I was in a rook endgame with two pawns each and, remembering the recent game won by Dreev, I thought, ok, Dreev won it with one pawn, then two pawns is definitely winning. Of course, they were discussing a dead drawn position.
Why are we often calling unpredictable results womens chess, when a male GM can lose this position for Black?" inquired the official tournament reviewer GM Kryakvin.
After 4 rounds the standings of the top teams were the following (2 points for a won match, 1 point for a drawn match):
Economist-SGSU: 8/8
St. Petersburg Chess Federation, Navigator, Chigorin Club 6/8
SHSM-64, Tomsk-400, Ugra, Universitet 5/8
Many spectators started congratulating the mighty club from Saratov on their victory in advance. Little did they know how things were going to turn at the end of the tournament
Three more brain-teasers to give you a sense of what was happening at the championship:
FIDE May 2012 is special in the sense that 4 players have entered the 2700+ club for the first time in their life: Bruzon (2711, CUB); Inarkiev (2707, RUS); McShane (2706, ENG); Volokitin (2704, UKR) . Moreover, a few others have improved their personal records. You can check out the updated list of the highest-rated chess players of all time here.
Viktor Bologan won the 2003 Dortmund event and was rated 2700 in year 2005.
Now he is finally back to the 2700+ club!
Pogonina.com offers you a selection of some of the most informative and entertaining tweets from last week:
Have we missed some of the best tweets? You can contribute to our next top-10 stories chart by retweeting the post you like and adding @Pogonina to the message so that we can see it.
Alexandra Kosteniuk: WC in rapid and blitz; Grand Prix stage, Russia-China match, Swiss Championship, Russian Superfinal (maybe) and, hopefully, the Olympiad - my summer-2012 :)
Indeed...
The Kramnik-Aronian match in Zurich ended in a draw: 3-3 (+1 -1 =4)
Chess News: I am now ready for the season - interview with Vladimir Kramnik.
