Game of the Century

The Game of the Century - Chess game between Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer, which took place at the Rosenwald Memorial Tournament in New York City, New York on October 17, 1956. Bobby Fischer was only 13 years old in this photo as he was contemplating his famous Queen Sacrifice. For those of you that have not seen it please make your way to the Game of the Week. There is some great analysishere

Little did Bobby know what was in store for him as he was a young man, did you know what he had to endure? In case you did not know I am going to lead you to a few places that might surprise you.

BOBBY FISCHER WINS U.S. JUNIOR TITLE

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Fourteen-year-old Bobby Fischer of Brooklyn won the 1957 U.S. junior championship by the convincing score of 8.5-.5. The nation's youngest master gave up only one draw, to runner-up Gil Ramirez of San Francisco. Ramirez, who is simultaneously State Champion and State Open Champion, also lost no games to post a 7.5-1.5 score. Stephen Sholomson of Los Angeles, who lost to Fischer and Ramirez and drew one game, was third, 6.5-2.5. Ronnie Thacker of Richmond was fourth, 6-3, ahead of six players tied for fifth, 5.5-3.5.

I WAS TORTURED IN THE PASADENA JAIL HOUSE Tuesday afternoon, May 26, 1981!

by BOBBY FISCHER THE WORLD CHESS CHAMPION
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I know just the kind a world Mr Robert James Fischer would want to live in! I feel mighty proud to have lived in his time and be part of the chess world he help create.
Thank you Bobby, from someone deeply appreciative of what you accomplished in your chess career.

Twenty-one year-old Bobby Fischer of Brooklyn, six times U.S. champion, will play several simultaneous exhibitions in California during April. Fischer's first nation-wide tour is in the grand style and few previous appearances by grandmasters have been awaited as eagerly as Fischer's.

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Fischer - Spassky Rematch
Sveti Stefan/Belgrade, Yugoslavia
September - November 1992 $5 Million Prize Money. I say keep sport out of politics! To view these game go here

The World Cup 2007

126 participants of the World Cup have arrived in Khanty Mansiysk on November 23rd. The competition will be carried out as planned, starting November 24 to December 18. The winner of the World Cup receives the right to challenge the former world champion Veselin Topalov in a match.

Piercing the skyline and rising above the Russian city of Khanty Mansyisk, this mixed-use scheme will create an elegant and crystalline landmark, providing crucial new amenities for its citizens - a place for living, working and leisure, sheltered from the harsh Siberian climate. This place I assure you is really worth looking at. Where is Khanty Mansyisk click here


Below are some games for your enjoyment in analysis's mode: Teimour Radjabov of Azerbiajan, No. 8 is out by playing badly, I know we all have bad days but I wonder why he played such an ordinary game to start with! Results so far.

The pairings for the 4th Round are Karjakin-Nisipeanu, Bareev-Alekseev, Jakovenko-Aronian, Shirov-Akopian, Ponomariov-Sasikiran, Kamsky-Svidler, Adams-Carlsen, and Wang Yue-Cheparinov. Each player is already guaranteed $25,000.

Bartomiej Macieja-Teimour Radjabov 1-0

Alexei Shirov-Yuri Shulam 1-0

Alexander Onischuk-Predrag Nikolic 1-0

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Who is Kirsan Ilyumzhinov?

Ilyumzhinov maintains that in 1997 while he was on a business trip to Moscow he was forced onto a UFO. They took me from my apartment and we went aboard their ship. We flew to some kind of star. They put a spacesuit on me, told me many things and showed me around. They wanted to demonstrate that UFOs do exist.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is the head of FIDE and is in control of the chess world as we see it today, if you want to find out more about this person then please click here

Sunday in MOSCOW Kasparov Arrested!

Sunday in MOSCOW Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov will go to jail for five days after he helped lead a protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Kasparov's assistant says he was beaten during the demonstration that ended with protesters clashing with police.

Kasparov, with other protesters are demanding fair elections. Kasparov jailed over rally! This is a disgrace as far as I am concerned when the rally was legal!

Kasparov was forced to the ground and beaten, his assistant Marina Litvinovich said in a telephone interview from outside the police station where he was being held- CNN. The rally was legal but it was looked upon as a march according to Russian law was illegal!

News Update:

Garry Kasparov said he was doing fine and that he has been receiving acceptable treatment at the Petrovka 38 jail where he is being held until Thursday. Visits to the jailed opposition leader are still prohibited but he managed to exchange a few words with his mother Klara Kasparova at his Monday appeal hearing. He also received a few books and a chess set. (Perhaps this was allowed because the authorities would like to encourage him to leave politics and return to chess.)

On Saturday, November 24, a completely legal, officially sanctioned rally was held on Andrei Sakharov Square in Moscow, attended by about 2000 people, including Garry Kimovich Kasparov. The permit that the organizers had obtained allowed the event to take place from 13:00 to 14:00. During the rally, participants were essentially surrounded by a cordon of police, but were not otherwise provoked.

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What were the circumstances of Garry Kasparov’s arrest Sunday?

Karinna Moskalenko: This is the second time that Garry has been arrested. In April, he was arrested at rally which was unlawfully denied a permit. Sunday, the demonstration had all the permits, but the state's actions were completely unlawful. Even before the day’s events began, the OMON riot police were ready and waiting. Following the conclusion of the demonstration meeting, some of Garry’s supporters began a march to the Central Election Committee to present a petition to the authorities, but were quickly stopped by the police. Violence broke out and many were arrested. When Garry went over to see what happened, he was placed under arrest.


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About Putin's plans.


look here to see part of the rally where Gary Kasparov was arrested.

How Life Imitates Chess

Garry Kasparov author of "How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves - from the Board to the Boardroom" interviewed by Leon Aron.

Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov relates how his understandings of the game of chess effect other aspects of life. In "How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves - from the Board to the Boardroom" Mr. Kasparov chronicles his twenty year professional chess career and his political life as the leader of a coalition opposed to the current Russian leadership. Mr. Kasparov discusses his book with Leon Aron, the director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "Russia’s Revolution: Essays, 1989-2006."

View the video here I have seen this interview and encourage you to take a look into the life of Gary Kasparov through his best selling book that is dedicated to his mother. You will need to have Real Player to download the latest player go here. If you have seen it feel free to talk about it.

SPICE Cup International Chess Tournament

Held in memory of grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky

Samuel Herman (Sammy) Reshevsky (born Szmul Rzeszewski, November 26, 1911, Ozorków near Lodz, (then Russian Empire, today Poland) - died April 4, 1992, New York, USA) was a leading American chess Grandmaster. He won the U.S. Chess Championship six times outright, and lost a playoff for the title in 1973. Reshevsky was a Candidate for the World Chess Championship three times (1948, 1953, and 1968). Reshevsky was also a chess author.

Reshevsky learned to play chess at age four, and was soon acclaimed as a child prodigy. At age eight he was beating accomplished players with ease, and giving simultaneous exhibitions. In November 1920 his parents moved to the US to make a living exhibiting their child. He played in the 1922 New York Masters tournament.

As an adult however, Reshevsky was never a professional chess player. He temporarily gave up chess to enter the University of Chicago, and graduated in 1933 with a degree in accounting. He supported himself and his family by working as an accountant. His 1941 marriage to the former Norma Mindick produced three children.

Reshevsky was a devout Orthodox Jew and did not play on the Jewish Sabbath. His games were scheduled accordingly.

Reshevsky Quotes:

* "By playing slowly during the early phases of a game I am able to grasp the basic requirements of each position. Then, despite being in time pressure, I have no difficulty in finding the best continuation. Incidentally, it is an odd fact that more often than not it is my opponent who gets the jitters when I am compelled to make these hurried moves."

* His self-description, "My style is somewhere between that of Tal and Petrosian," is sometimes circulated as an ironic comment but makes more sense in its full context; from his book Great Chess Upsets:

"I am essentially a positional player, although I can conduct an assault with precision and vigor, when the opportunity arises. My style lies between that of Tal and Petrosian. It is neither over-aggressive nor too passive. My strength consists of a fighting spirit, a great desire to win, and a stubborn defense whenever in trouble. I rarely become discouraged in an inferior situation, and I fear no one."

The winner of this great tournament was Eugene Perelshteyn, a grandmaster from Massachusetts, he won the Spice Cup, a tournament at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Tex. He led from start to finish, scoring 6.5 out of 9. You just have to see his games! I must admit i have never heard of this GM before now.

View some really great games here


SPICE CUP Chess Tournament, Round 7

Chess Openings

The Catalan is a chess opening which can be considered to be White adopting a mixture of the Queen's Gambit and Réti Opening: White plays d4 and c4 and fianchettos the white bishop on g2. A common opening sequence is 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 d5 4.Bg2, though the opening can arise from a large number of move orders. ECO codes E01-E09 are for the Catalan.

The Catalan derives its name from Catalonia — nowadays a region shared mainly by Spain and in a lesser area by France — after tournament organizers at the 1929 Barcelona tournament asked Savielly Tartakower to create a new variation in homage to the area's chess history. It had been played a few times before Tartakower's usage in the tournament, however: Réti-Leonhardt, Berlin 1928, for instance, transposed into an Open Catalan.

Major changes in the rules of chess in the late fifteenth century increased the speed of the game, consequently emphasizing the importance of opening study. Thus, early chess books, such as the 1497 text of Luis Ramirez de Lucena presents opening analysis, as does Pedro Damiano (1512), and Ruy López de Segura (1561). Ruy Lopez's disagreement with Damiano regarding the merits of 2...Nc6 led to 3.Bb5 (after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6) being named for him as the Ruy Lopez or Spanish Opening.[3] Opening theory was studied more scientifically from the 1840s on, and many opening variations were discovered and named in this period and later. Opening nomenclature developed haphazardly, and most names are historical accidents not based on systematic principles.

The oldest openings tend to be named for geographic places and people. Many openings are named after nationalities, for example Indian, English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Scotch, Russian, Italian, Scandinavian, and Sicilian. Cities are also used, such as Vienna, Berlin, and Wilkes-Barre. The Catalan System is named after the Catalonia region of Spain.

Chess players' names are the most common sources of opening names. The name given to an opening is not always that of the first player to adopt it; often an opening is named for the player who was the first to popularize it or to publish analysis of it. Eponymic openings include the Ruy Lopez, Alekhine Defense, Morphy Defense, and the Réti System. Some opening names honor two people, such as with the Caro-Kann.

A few opening names are descriptive, such as Giuoco Piano (Italian: "quiet game"). More prosaic descriptions include Two Knights and Four Knights. Descriptive names are less common than openings named for places and people.

Some openings have been given fanciful names, often names of animals. This practice became more common in the 20th century. By then, most of the more common and traditional sequences of opening moves had already been named, so these tend to be unusual or recently developed openings like the Orangutan, Hippopotamus, Elephant, and Hedgehog.

More on Chess Openings

Kramnik Leads Tal Memorial

Mikhail Tal was born in Riga, Latvia. At the age of eight, Tal learned to play chess while watching his father, a doctor. Shortly thereafter he joined the Riga Palace of Young Pioneers chess club. His play was not exceptional at first but he worked hard to improve. Alexander Koblencs began tutoring Tal in 1949. Tal's game improved rapidly thereafter, and by 1951 he had qualified for the Latvian Championship. In the 1952 Latvian Championship Tal finished ahead of his trainer. Tal won his first Latvian title in 1953, and was awarded the title of candidate master. He became a Soviet master in 1954 by defeating Vladimir Saigin in a qualifying match. Tal graduated in Literature from the University of Riga, writing a thesis on the satirical works of Ilf and Petrov, and taught school in Riga for a time in his early 20s. He was a member of the Daugava Sports Society, and represented Latvia in internal Soviet team competitions.

The Russian Cup Men's Final Tournament takes place in the town of Serpukhov near Moscow from 5 to 16 Nov. The event is conducted with the support of the town administration. The tournament is played according to the knock-out system, with 16 highest-rated played beginning to play from the second round. The rate of play is 90 minutes to each for the whole game with an increment of 30 second per move starting from the first. If the score is equal, the rivals will play two rapid and (if necessary) two blitz games.

The round-robin tournament, where Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2787), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2785), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2755), Shakhriar Mamedyarov (Azerbajan, 2752), Alexei Shirov (Spain, 2739), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2752), Gata Kamsky (the USA, 2724), Evgeny Alekseyev (Russia, 2716), Magnus Karlsen (Norway, 2714), and Dmitry Jakovenko (Russia, 2710) are taking part, started on 10 Nov. Each round starts at 3 p.m. The playing days are 10 through 14 and 16 through 19 Nov.
The rate of play is 100 minutes to each player for the first 40 moves plus 50 minutes for the next 20 moves plus 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from the first.


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Vladimir Kramnik-Alexei Shirov 1-0

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Vassily Ivanchuk-Magnus Carlsen 1/2-1/2

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Vladimir Kramnik-Evgeny Alekseev 1-0

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Vladimir Kramnik-Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 1-0

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The chess games of Mikhail Tal