Russian Grandmaster Alexey Dreev has put an end to Zoltan Almasi’s raging start of four straight wins at the 51st Reggio Emilia Chess Tournament. It was Capablanca variation of the Nimzo-Indian defence, where Dreev picked up the advantage by breaking Black’s pawn structure on the king’s flank.
Sad as it is, doping is so prevalent in sports that it comes to no surprise when an athlete is busted but chess? CHESS? Yes, folks, here’s the Great Chess Doping Scandal of grandmaster Vassily Ivanchuk, ranked …
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Indian Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran convincingly won the 28th Internacional Ciudad de Pamplona that finished this Sunday. Sasikiran, who was also top-seeded player in the tournament, secured the trophy with three consecutive wins in rounds 4-6, against Caruana, Vallejo Pons and Roiz respectively.
The World Chess Federation, Inc. has received approval for renewals of its registered tradenames and servicemarks, for The World Chess Federation as well as the servicemark “The World Chess Championship”.
FIDE gave up the rights to the servicemar…
The 5th Open International de Vandoeuvre took place on 26th-30th December. After nine rounds of play with Swiss system, GM Christian Bauer and GM Dmitry Svetushkin shared the first place with 7.5 points each, full point ahead of the chasing pack. The prize fund was 5.500 € worth, with 1.500 € reserved for the winner.
FIDE have published their latest official quarterly rating list for January 2009. The list includes all tournaments up to 15 December, but also includes FIDE organised events that finished later i.e. the Elista Grand Prix which concluded just 2 …
The Elista FIDE Office is pleased to publish the 1st January 2009 FIDE Rating List which includes tournaments up to 15 December 2008 and FIDE events such as the Grand Prix in Elista, Kalmykia which ended 28 December. Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria retained first place with a rating of 2796, an increase of 5 points from his performance in the Dresden Olympiad. His victory in the Pearl Springs tournament in Nanjing, China, which ended 22nd December, will be rated for April 2009, according to FIDE regulations.
Viswanathan Anand climbed to second slot with 2791, an increase of 8 points from October after his victory in his World Championship Match with Vladimir Kramnik last October in Bonn, Germany.
Vassily Ivanchuk (UKR), 2779, and Magnus Carlsen (NOR), 2776, retained their 3rd and 4th slots as Alexander Morozevich dropped from 2nd to 5th place with 2771.
Teimour Radjabov (AZE) with 2761 and Dimitry Jakovenko (RUS) with 2760, climbed to 6th and 7th, respectively, as Vladimir Kramnik dropped to 8th place with 2759 losing, aside from the World Championship result, an additional 5 points at the Dresden Olympiad.
Peter Leko (HUN), 2751 and Sergei Movsesian (SVK), 2751, round off the top ten.
Download the 1st January 2009 FIDE Rating List in text format. Search for individual ratings. Even before publication of the quarterly list, players can check in advance calculations of tournament submitted for rating and know their Expected Rating Change. The new list of top players can be found at http://ratings.fide.com/toplist.phtml.
The Elista FIDE Office thanks all National Chess Federations, Rating Officers and Arbiters for their help in producing the FIDE Rating List. The FIDE Rating List is based on all tournament reports around the world submitted for rating, from club events to World Championships.
We remind Rating Officers to please upload the pgn files of the tournament to the FIDE Ratings Server.
Players may make corrections of recent events, if any, through their National Chess Federation Rating Officer.
Casto Abundo
FIDE Rating Administrator
abundo@fide.com
GM Salo Flohr, one of the world’s best chessplayers between two Wars and a world title candidate, would celebrate his 100th birthday these weeks. He spent his best years in Prague, and therefore the city and the Prague Chess Society organized a rapid tournament and a party to his commemoration.
The last three rounds of the Elista Grand Prix saw only one decisive game in each round as the players either tired or simply decided to settle for draws. The decisive games and some of the harder fought draws can be found below.
The status of …
