1. Anand - Topalov (game #4). A brilliant game by Anand played at an extremely prestigeous event - the World Championship match. The game is so great that no words are needed to describe its beauty.

2. Gashimov - Grischuk. The game was played at the beginning of the year, but the impressions from it are still fresh. The king takes a walk around the whole board and leads its chess army to a win.

3. Anand - Topalov (game #7). Tension till the very last move. Veselin was on a roll, but Anand matched his skills, so the fight ended in an exciting draw.

4. Karjakin - Kramnik. A very Tal-like and inspiring game by Sergei.

5. Shirov - Jobava. An attack followed by a rook sacrifice looks very impressive. Alexei's maneuvers remind me of classical music.

6. Shirov - Mamedyarov. Shakhryar was in his cup of tea in this game. Mamedyarov's rook decided the game in his favor. 

7. Ponomariov - Naidtich. Nice calculation of all the lines and a very calm exploitation of a pin. A very refined game.

8. Radjabov - Gelfand. Outstanding preparation & a nice piece sacrifice. Even a few pieces managed to cooperate well and create a decisive attack.

9. Frolyanov - Nepomniatchi. An exciting draw with an awesome final and a post-mortem line in which the king was to travel into the middle of the board. 

10. Veskovy - Krylov. A breath-taking game in the Kings's Indian. The number of queens on board (including potential) knows very few rivals in the history of chess.

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Here are some general tips (as always in chess, there are exceptions) for each piece:
 

1. King. Good: in the opening and middlegame it should be castled, safely protected by pawns; active in the endgame. Bad: exposed and uncastled in the opening and middlegame; locked out of the game or far away from the main action in the endgame.
2. Queen. Good: active, participates in the main action, has lots of maneuvering space. Bad: passive, serves as a blocker for a pawn or a target for the opponent’s pieces.
3. Rook. Good: placed on open files, 7-8th (1-2 for Black) ranks; doubled rooks are especially powerful. Bad: no open files and maneuvering space.
4. Bishop. Good: there are open diagonals, attacks both flanks and has a nice “shooting range”. Bad: limited in maneuvering, blocked by pawns.
5. Knight. Good: placed on key squares, e.g. in the centre or near the opponent’s king (e.g. on f5 if Black castles short). Bad: on the rim of the board, on the 1^st or 8^th rank.
6. Pawn. Good: controls important squares and can potentially be promoted. Bad: isolated or doubled.

This is general advice, each particular position should be considered individually. Sometimes positional sacrifices occur that are connected with the dynamic strength of the pieces (when their value increases above their nominal value). Another important point is coordination of the pieces. Even if each piece is active on its own, but not coordinated and working together, their power decreases. The synergistic effect of well-coordinated pieces may often overpower armies composed of more valuable (in the nominal sense) pieces that aren’t cooperating well enough.

So, one of the main rules of chess is to keep all your pieces in the game (except for, maybe, the king). Always ask yourself a simple question: are all my pieces happy? If not, try to improve their placement. Coordinated pieces are much more powerful than lonely ones.
 

Rule #2 – try to worsen the position of your opponent’s pieces, hinder their coordination. One of the possible approaches is to limit the activity of the pieces and lock them out on one of the flanks, while attacking on the other. Create weaknesses in your opponent’s camp so that he/she has to guard them, thus limiting the activity of the pieces. The player who has more active well-coordinated forces is usually a clear favorite.
 

The following game has been played at the recent Russian Team Chess Championship vs WGM Vera Nebolsina.

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While in the ¼-finals only two games out of 16 were decisive, in the ½-finals all the 8 games were drawn. In fact, many of the encounters were quite interesting and fighting, but the quality of the play was so high that neither side prevailed.


Kamsky vs Gelfand

The rapid tie-breaks between Gelfand and Kamsky proved once again the banal saying that chess is 99% tactics. First Boris (Black) missed his chance to capitalize on his opponent’s misstep:

In another game Gelfand blundered terribly with a3??, and Kamsky took advantage of this mistake and scored with Black:

Just like in the classical part, Vladimir has been putting pressure on Alexander in the Kramnik-Grischuk rapid match, but incredible defensive skills of the former and his steel nerves allowed Grischuk to keep escaping like Houdini and draw game after game. Also, Kramnik seemed to be short on luck (or not up to the challenge) in some positions where extremely subtle play was called for:



White could pose serious problems for Black in Alexander’s severe time trouble by playing Rd1. Instead, Kramnik went a4 and missed the d5 break which allowed Alexander simplify the game and draw a rook vs rook+pawn endgame.


Kramnik vs Grischuk

Unbelievably, Alexander Grischuk offered a draw with White on move 8 (!) in the last rapid game. As the commentators joked, “Grischuk’s main idea is to survive until Armageddon and draw with Black”.  Meanwhile, Kamsky (White) missed a cheap tactical shot in the following position:

Later Gelfand managed to outplay Kamsky by creating aggressive connected passers in the center and has also reached blitz tie-breaks.

The blitz play-off turned out to be even more dramatic. Gelfand and Grischuk (two Gs) both won win Black against, correspondingly, Kamsky and Kramnik (two Ks). In the second game Kramnik was fighting rather desperately, but Grischuk obtained a commanding position and traded into a rook+3 pawns vs rook+3 pawns endgame to proceed into the Final. Gelfand was victorious in the second game to defeat Kamsky.


Boris Gelfand & Alexander Grischuk with Boris Kutin at the press conference

The press conference was also a delight to hear. For instance, Grischuk mentioned that "in Ancient Greece the Olympiads were held to determine the best athlete. And now the public declares - for example - that Aronian is the best, and if he doesn't win, then the system is flawed". Gelfand was asked if he feels the weight of his age and answered that Geller won the USSR Chess Championship & Korchnoi played in the WC Matches at an older age. He also noted that the media simply loves young prodigies (like So and Giri) much more since they are tired of writing about the old guys like himself and Ivanchuk. That makes some fans believe that only the young players understand chess, while the more experienced have lost their might.

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1)      Joanne Rowling is working on a sequel to "Harry Potter" called "Vladimir Kramnik".

2)      Vladimir's Kramnik's glasses is an artefact that increases one's FIDE raing by 500 points.

3)      One of the journalists asked Kramnik if he will start playing weaker without his glasses (see #2). Kramnik replied calmly: "What will happen if you subtract a constant from infinity?".

4)      While Kramnik's classmates were busy proving the Pythagorean theorem, little Vova proved that chess is a draw. 

5)      Vladimir Kramnik is not interested in all the chess positions, but all chess positions are interested in Vladimir Kramnik.

6)      Candid Camera asked a cute blonde to approach Kramnik, ask for knight odds, while being secretly assisted by Rybka. Kramnik, being a true gentleman, decided not to win and made a draw.

7)      Kramnik finds poker dull as his starting hand is always two kings.

8)      Yet another eminent grandmaster has been delivered to the asylum. He claimed he can beat Kramnik.

9)      Vladimir Kramnik doesn't wait for his opponents to make a move. Instead, he takes a walk and sends them the move using telekinesis when necessary.

10)   There is just one player whom Vladimir Kramnik agrees to draw on move one - Peter Leko.

11)   When Kramnik is playing in tournaments, book-makers don't offer odds for the winner.

12)   In 1990 Kramnik was surprised to learn that the Berlin Wall has fallen, and promised he will "fix it soon".

13)   After all, Botvinnik did create an artificial intelligence that plays chess. His name is Vladimir Kramnik.

14)   Some openings are called after eminent masters. Chess is sometimes called "the game of Kramnik".

15)   Vladimir Kramnik uses chess engines only to find out why annotators keep making mistakes when analyzing his games.

16)   The Drawmaster character of the ChessMaster series is a pitiful attempt to imitate Kramnik's play.

17)   Few people know that Deep Blue self-destructed after losing a chess match to Kramnik's tennis racket.

18)   One day Kramnik was invited to the world chess puzzle solving contest. After he handed in answers to all the FIDE albums ahead of time, he doesn't visit these events anymore.

19)   The statement "e4 is winning, d6 doesn't lose" is not against the laws of logic since it works only for Vladimir Kramnik. 

20)   The aliens who visited Ilyumzhinov have captured all the other planets of the Universe after defeating their best chess players. Unfortunately for them, Kirsan had Kramnik's phone number...

21)   Kramnik solved checkers while being in the maternity home.

22)   Kramnik says his wife plays chess on amateur level. Indeed, she still enjoys beating Rybka over and over again.

23)   Kramnik was named the best painter of all times since no one can match his drawing technique.

24)   Few people know that the Pepsi machine from the famous commercial that delivered a knock-out punch to Kasparov was just Kramnik wearing a special uniform.

25)   Kasparov, Karpov and Fischer all failed to make it past round 1 of the "Who wants to be a millionaire" show since the question was "Who is the greatest chess player ever?" and the options - a) Kasparov b) Karpov c) Fischer d) Kramnik

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1)      There are two types of positions in chess: those that Vladimir Kramnik remembers, or those which he has forgotten.

2)      Slyusarchuk wanted to register his record of remembering 30 million digits of pi with the Guiness book, but then he found out about Kramnik's existence.

3)      During school years teachers of literature didn't ask Vova Kramnik to recite poems by heart.

4)      Anatoly Karpov launched a new elite chess set. It features leading grandmasters as pieces, while the king is Vladimir Kramnik.

5)      Kramnik didn't lose his match to Anand. He was just checking if Vishy can convert such positions.

6)      Russia is working on a new super computer with an exceptional hard drive since no other machine can store Kramnik's analyses.

7)      New doping issue: kramnidii has been banned. This substance allows one to memorize 100 pages of chess lines with just one glance. The only person who is not invited for doping control is Vladimir Kramnik, as this substance is created in his organism by natural means.

8)       Houdini managed to beat Rybka after studying Vladimir Kramnik's games.

9)      When Kramnik isn't playing in tournaments, he is busy dictating the next set of tablebases.

10)   To deal with the draw death of chess FIDE introduced a new rule: players with the surname Kramnik have to give a pawn and a move in advance to their opponents.

11)   When Botvinnik was recruiting new students for his school, he asked Vova Kramnik if he can recall the move he made in the masters tournament in the 20's. Kramnik smiled and called out not only to move, but recited the games played on other boards as well.

12)   Magnus Carlsen is so popular in Norway he even got an invitation to the "Who wants to be Vladimir Kramnik" TV-show.

13)   Kramnik was paid a huge sum by IBM when they launched the Watson computer. Otherwise he threatened to start playing Jeopardy and ruin their plans.

14)   There are two types of moves in chess: chosen by Vladimir Kramnik and inferior.

15)   When Kramnik said during a press conference that he FORGOT the accident that occured in his game vs Ponomariov (when the clock stopped), the public couldn't stop laughing for quite a time.

16)   Kramnik was elected the spokesperson for Blancpain since he knows how to stop time. Radjabov became a victim of this recently. 

17)   The World Chess Boxing Championship is held only because Kramnik is not interested so far.

18)   Hot-tempered Kasparov fired Kramnik (who used to be his second) since he often made fun of his moves during sparring games.

19)   Danailov once won a game against Kramnik. Then he woke up.

20)   Kramnik knows all the theory not only in classical chess, but also in Fischer's.

21)   When Kramnik was invited to the Amber blindfold event for the first time, he couldn't understand what the difference was.

22)  Manufacturers of top chess engines stopped asking Kramnik to comment on the games as he gives ? marks too often when analysing their play.

23)   Once the public thought Kramnik has overlooked a tricky win in 37 plies. "Ok, I will give a mate in 57, and you will be sitting and staring at this like idiots" - thought Kramnik. 

24)   Even God is afraid of playing Kramnik. The games always end in a draw, but Kramnik still knows how to put pressure on the opponent.

25)   Few people know why Fischer didn't come back, and Kasparov left chess. But you do now, don't you?

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