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.
The rules are simple - send us your questions and see them featured in Natalia's Q&As column!
Q1: What do you think of the recently completed Candidates and would you like to see a challenger determined differently?
A1: As far as I can judge from message boards (both Russian and English), this tournament was deemed by the general public as boring and disappointing due to a large number of draws, early elimination of the favorites and Carlsen's refusal to take part. However, draws are part of the game, and I also agree with Grischuk that the aim of such events is to determine the challenger, not simply confirm what the fans want. Gelfand's victory was well-deserved and yet another proof that loyalty to chess can pay off even if you are over 40 y.o.
Regarding the format: I believe a double round robin would work best.
Q2: How strong should a chess coach be? Does it make sense to hire a non-titled one?
A2: The three main questions you should ask yourself when choosing a coach are: a) is he qualified enough in the chess sense to teach? b) does he know how to teach? c) is he motivated well to work hard? Of course, a non-titled player can teach one the rules and basics, but if you are planning to become a titled player or at least a strong club player, you had better find someone with a title. Also, keep in mind item b) - not all strong players are good at teaching. Some of them lack the social skills and experience, or simply detest the process itself. Thirdly, motivation is extremely important. Payment is only part of it. The perfect situation is when a coach is genuinely interested in the student's progress and not just getting his paycheck for showing opening traps two hours a week.
Q3: How long will the Russian domination in chess last?
A3: It's hard to say how chess will change in the future, so it's not easy to answer this question. Generally speaking, chess is most popular in countries that: a) respect intelligence b) care for sport achievements c) are relatively poor (chess doesn't require too much investments as compared to many other sports) d) have a specific set of values - not financial success-based. Based on that, I believe Russia, China and India will have good chances in the future. Chess.com had a similar poll - here are the results.
Q4: What do you like more: opening/middlegame/endgame?
A4: The terms are very relative. Nowadays when we say that we are "working on openings" we often mean opening, middlegame, and sometimes even endgame. However, I prefer creativity and improvisation to home preparation, so the answer is probably middlegame.
Q5: How do I get a FIDE rating? I know I will have to play in a tournament, but how to I check whether it's FIDE-rated?
A5: You had better ask the organizer if the tournament is rated by FIDE and review the rules here. Also, don't forget to check out if the event is on the official list, as all the events are pre-registered nowadays. In June FIDE decided to publish rating lists monthly, so you won't have to wait long. Good luck!
Q6: What was your biggest upset/win?
A6: Do you mean the most painful defeats/pleasant victories? Or technical difference between ratings, i.e. winning against someone rated 200 points above (300 points below)? Anyway, sorry, I don't keep track of such statistics.
Q7: What do you think of FIDE's decision to decrease the rating floor to 1000?
A7: I find it dubious. The point was probably to accumulate more fees and increase the player base. However, I don't see why anyone would want to get a rating in that range. 1000 is, I guess, the level of a person who has played a few friendly games in his life (i.e. complete beginner). Why would they want to attend a serious open and play with clocks for hours each day to get rated? Also, some quick Maths: it's easy to get to 1600 after playing and studying chess for a year (that's a 600 points boost). And if you get a 1000 rating, by winning a game against an equally-rated opponent one gets 7.5 points. That is, to gain 600 points one will have to win 80 consecutive tournament games! Naturally, that's unlikely, so the way from 1000 to 1600 will probably take many-many years instead of one. Not to mention that underrated players are a pain in the neck for pros, who eventually lose rating points on them.
For example, when I got my first rating (2159 in year 1999) the floor was 2000, and people who had an international rating were considered "cool". Club players were after national classes (A, B,C, etc.), not rating. It actually made more sense, in my opinion.
Nadezhda Kosintseva became the 25th woman in the history of chess to become a GM.
Now both sisters have the highest chess title
The 2nd quarter Presidential Board-2011 was record-breaking in terms of the number of new title-holders. Here are the most eminent ones (GMs and WGMs):
Shocking Truth: How Many Living Grandmasters Can You Name?
Written by Administrator
Tuesday, 07 June 2011
Peter Zhdanov: Omg, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the result of a random street poll (with people naming only Kasparov and Karpov), but this is Chess.com!
Natalia Pogonina: Maybe they thought the question was "How many GMs do you know in person?"? Otherwise, Chess.com has a few grandmaster columnists, to start with.
Peter Zhdanov: No, in this case things would have been much worse!
Winning in chess is not only about reckless attacking and playing for checkmate from move one. Often it is easier to start with gaining a material advantage and then converting it. Today we will be discussing an interesting way in which you can get a serious edge trapping the opponents piece. The consequences of this action are usually one of the following: a) the trapped piece is captured b) the trapped piece remains locked in the cage and is like a prisoner who cant help his army.
These are the most typical means of trapping pieces:
1) Limiting its mobility using pawns/pieces and attacking it/locking it out of the game.
2) Chasing it to a bad square or corner of the board, where its mobility will be limited.
3) Luring the piece into ones own camp and cutting off the ways for retreat. Your opponent is urged to play actively, e.g. capture a poisoned pawn, and after that the trap is closed. A classic example is offering a pawn sacrifice (e.g. b2/b7) to trap the queen or seriously hinder its mobility.
Naturally, the hardest piece to trap is the queen, as it is the most mobile piece. However, when there are many pieces on the board, it is sometimes possible to trap it. Heres a fresh example from the Candidates Matches where Boris Gelfand got his queen cornered by Kamsky:
Rooks are less mobile, and sometimes can be trapped using just a few pieces. This is due to the fact that diagonals are not available to them. Recently I witnessed a nice game at the Russian Club Cup where a rook got cornered:
Bishops mobility can be decreased using pawns, as, unlike knights, they cant jump over such obstacles and, unlike queens and rooks, files and ranks are not available to them. Here is a classic example of a trapped fianchettoed bishop:
Knights on the rim are grim, so the best way of trapping them is to get them to the edge of the board and lock them out. Myriad endgames have been won in this fashion:
It is worth remembering that not only misplaced pieces can get trapped, but also active ones. Heres how it happened in my game vs Ikonomopulu from the recent Womens European Chess Championship:
Black got in trouble after making a strange move 15Kf8, thus hindering the coordination of the pieces. Another blunder was to trade bishops on g5, after which the active knight on g4 suddenly got trapped. There was no way to save it, but Black should have tried to at least get some compensation for it. Instead, she chose a way that led to a quick loss.
Recently Viswanathan Anand gave his second and ex-FIDE World Chess Champion Rustam Kazimdzhanov a beating in rapid chess with a score of 3.5-0.5. This time as part of the Leon Chess Festival the formidable Alexei Shirov was to challenge him in a 6-game match.
The result was yet another convincing victory for the World Chess Champion: Anand won 3 games and drew 3. An amazing performance by a young father! Especially telling was the game that Shirov lost in 17 moves with White in the Caro-Cann. When asked about his impressions at a chess message board, the #1 Spanish GM mentioned that "hardly prepared for the match, as I wasn't motivated enough". Interesting was ex-FIDE World Champion Alexander's Khalifman remark about that: "For Vishy playing chess is as natural as, for example, breathing. He doesn't need any motivation. Alexei is more down-to-earth in this respect..."
T.V.Chess: The Master Game:Christiansen-Short 1982
Written by Administrator
Wednesday, 01 June 2011
Back to the future: I have never heard about these TV Chess series. Watching young Nigel Short and Larry Christiansen play and share their thoughts on the game is quite exciting!
The 12th Womens European Chess Championship was held in May in the hospitable city of Tblisi, Georgia. 130 participants, 9 of them with ratings over 2500 FIDE, 14 qualifying spots for the World Championship. For me it was the 8th WIECC (not counting junior ones), while the only person who has played in all twelve WIECCs is Maia Lomineishvili.
A new tie-break system was introduced this year at both the Mens and Womens championship. Apart from points, the 1st tie-break was performance and, very importantly, the tie-break matches (for gold and the qualifying spots) have been abolished. This measure makes one stay concentrated from round 1 to the very end, otherwise there is a chance to start poorly and guarantee oneself a low performance, which means saying goodbye to all competitive goals.
In fact, I did quite the opposite. I started out terribly just 1.5 points out of 4 and two consequent losses. However, I have gone through that before. In WIECC-2003 I got 1.5 out of 4 and finished at 6.5 out of 11. Luckily enough, that was enough to qualify for tie-breaks. After playing very convincingly there, I won a ticket to the World Championship. This time the situation was different though: no tie-breaks, and a guaranteed low performance rating (since I would not be playing as high-rated players as those on the top boards), so all I could do was try to switch to survival mode and score LOTS of points in the rounds to come.
Meanwhile, on the top boards a tough fight was going on. Viktoria Cmilyte has three silver medals from WIECC, and it was clear that this time she was motivated to win. She scored 5 points in the first 5 rounds! Then ex-WWC Antoaneta Stefanova won an important game vs her and caught Viktoria on points. Among other pursuers were the local girl Bella Khotenashvili and Womens Blitz Champion Ekaterina Lahno.
Nonetheless, after round 9 Cmilyte became the sole leader of the tournament and won the WIECC-2011 quite impressively. 2-4 places went to Stefanova, Danielian and Matveeva. Elina had been playing at top tables throughout the event, while the experienced Svetlana started with 0.5 out of 2.
In rounds 5-9 I scored four points and realized I need to win the last two games to qualify (when I pointed that out to David Pruess, he replied reassuringly: Well, then win them!). Why not? Two victories brought me to 7.5 out of 11 and sharing 5-13 places. This event turned out to be very tiresome and tense for me, but at least I reached my minimum goal and qualified for the World Championship.
After the tournament some participants decided to stay and take part in the Womens European Rapid Chess Championship. Lacking the energy for this, I decided to head home.
The following game was played in round 2 against Kharatyan Anakhit. After drawing with White in round 1, I was determined to put up a fight.
After having equalized in the opening, I made an inaccurate move 16b4 and could have ended up being worse. However, my opponent missed a nasty blow 20d5 and failed to come up with the right decision. My active play based on sacrificing two pawns led to a success, although it wasnt guaranteed.
