The European Chess Club Cup 2013 will take place on 19-27 October, 2013, in the conference center of the 5-star Rodos Palace Convention Resort which is regarded as one of the finest deluxe hotels on the island of Rhodes.
Rodos Palace offers luxurious accommodation, exquisite dining facilities and numerous recreational amenities, on a superb location just 2.5 km from the Medieval City of Rhodes!
From each National Club Championship in European countries, one (1) to four (4) clubs qualify to the European Club Cup, depending on the strength of each national event. The European Club Cup will be held in 7 rounds for both categories (open/men teams with 6 boards and women teams with 4 boards), played with the Swiss system.
The time control will be 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. Players may only agree to a draw after the 40th move has been made by black.
According to FIDE regulations, the European Club Cup offers the possibility for players to achieve GM, IM, WGM and WIM norms based on 7 games.
The winners of the European Club Cup (currently SOCAR Azerbaijan) and the European Women’s Club Cup (currently Cercle d’Echecs de Monte Carlo) qualify directly to next year’s European Club Cup.
The total amount of 51,000 EUR, provided by travel agency AT Holidays, will be awarded to the winners of the European Club Cup, in both team and individual rewards! The prize distribution is described below in the official regulations of the event.
Do not forget to consider the event’s sponsor AT Holidays when planning your next trip to Greece.
Special prices @ official hotel, the 5-star Rodos Palace
***** 53 euros per person per day in a double room, including breakfast, lunch and dinner (full board). ***** 78 euros per person per day in a single room, including breakfast, lunch and dinner (full board).
All registrations and bookings in Rodos Palace will be made through the Organising Committee and AT Holidays. The deadline for club registrations and bookings is 19 August 2013.
How to reach the island of Rhodes
The international airport of Rhodes (IATA code: RHO) is connected daily with many European capitals. The major airlines serving Rhodes are Olympic Airways and Aegean Airways. The sea port of Rhodes is also connected via ferry boats with Athens (Piraeus) and the nearby Turkish sea ports of Marmaris, Bodrum and Fethiye.
The Organising Committee will provide bus transfer from the airport and the port to Rodos Palace Hotel on the days of arrival and departure, in accordance with the official regulations.
The official website of the European Club Cup 2013 is http://www.rhodes2013.org Tournament Director: IO Nikos Kalesis – Tel.: (+30) 6938326161 Fax: (+30) 2641500112, Email: eccc2013rodos@gmail.com
Lothar Maximilian Lorenz Schmid (10 May 1928-18 May 2013) is a German chessgrandmaster who was born in Dresden. He is best known as the arbiter of several World Chess Championship matches. Also a collector of chess books and paraphernalia, he owns the largest known private chess library in the world and has a renowned collection of chess art masterpieces and chess boards and pieces from all around the globe.
Lothar Schmid played for West Germany at eleven Chess Olympiads.
Gata Kamsky of New York won his fourth U.S. Championship title after defeating fellow GM Alejandro Ramirez in a two-stage playoff. Both had 6.5 of 9 points in the 24-player, 10-day event in St. Louis. Irina Krush of New York finished 8-1 and won the women’s championship round robin, defending her title, her fifth in all dating back to 1998.
Ramirez, Timur Gareev and Alexander Onischuk, who took second, third and fourth, all are from Texas. Of the New England players, Larry Christiansen of Cambridge tied for sixth and Sam Shankland, a student at Brandeis, tied for 12th. Others with ties to the region included Robert Hess (student at Yale), tied for 14th, Alexander Ivanov of Newton, and Jorge Sammour-Hasbun of Rhode Island, both tied for 20th, with 3-6 in the ultra-strong event.
Two changes were announced last week to the USCF rating system, effective this weekend. One affects the number of effective games for players below 2355 (99 percent) to enable ratings to go up or down more quickly, changing the K factors for various skill levels. The second only affects higher rated players in fast time controls, now that play is rated in four ways, based on time controls and correspondence games, each with separate ratings.
Carissa Yip, 9, of Chelmsford, has qualified for the www.chessKid.com 2nd Online National Championship, June 14-17, sponsored by www.chess.com. The sections were doubled from two to four this year, and each will be an eight-player round robin, Carissa in the under-age-10 group. ChessKid.com offers a free chess curriculum download suitable for both classroom and informal instruction of youngsters by parents.
The 82nd Mass. Open will be next weekend at the Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel in Marlboro, with six rounds, two each on Saturday through Monday. On each day there will be a scholastic side event, all detailed at www.masschess.org. Also on the site this week is a statement by Richard “Doc” Kinne, the incoming editor of Chess Horizons, announcing his new format and publication dates and deadlines.
Results of Norway’s “supertournament” that ended yesterday can be found at www.norwaychess.com. Two Americans, Kamsky and Hikaru Nakamura, are next competing in the FIDE Grand Prix in Greece, Tuesday until June 4 (www.fide.com).
David Vigorito of Andover won last weekend’s 42-player Beantown Open in Braintree, and Jesse Nicholas of Newton won the Boylston Chess Club of Somerville’s May Grand Prix. Carissa Yip was clear third, gaining about 50 rating points.
Answer to quiz: Black wins big time with 1. ... Na5 and white’s queen is trapped. The game from 2011 at the Metrowest Chess Club of Natick is presented in the www.tacticstime.com e-book of 1,000 positions, which will be available in print later this year at www.newinchess.com.
There has recently been a large increase in the problems caused by the registration of new players. These problems include duplicate registration, delisting and relisting and wrong federations and these cause a lot of extra work for FIDE. In order to try and solve these problems, FIDE intends to institute the following changes in registration and licensing which will have to be approved by the Executive Board in September. The aim of these regulations is to make the job of Federations and FIDE easier.
In order to ensure that all players who wish to play can play, FIDE intends to introduce a new category called FIDE (FID) to cover those who are, for whatever reason, without a Federation. These players cannot take part in FIDE and Continental events and must adhere to any regulations made by the Federation of which they are a citizen. In order that players are encouraged to join their own Federations rather than play as FIDE, FIDE will charge any player €60 to be so rated. However FIDE does understand that there are circumstances at present where players are unable to be members of a Federation.
The new regulations to be approved are as follows:
1. All National Chess Federations (NCF) shall be required to register their Players with FIDE. The FIDE Regulations on Registration, Transfers and Eligibility shall apply.
1.1 All players who already have a FIDE ID Number (FIN) before 1 July 2013 shall be considered to be registered and licensed.
2. The NCF (or FIDE) shall issue the FIN if the Player does not have one at the time of registration. NCF will register the Player with FIDE by providing information containing the Player’s Name, Gender, Place & Date of Birth, Citizenship and Contact e-mail. It is optional if a Photograph or a ID such as a Passport can be provided. On the FIDE Rating List, information on Player’s Name, Gender, Year of Birth shall be included.
3. A Player who registers to compete in any FIDE rated competition shall be required to provide his FIN. If the player has no FIN, then the Organizer must follow one of the options below:
3.1 Request the Organizer’s NCF to register the player and provide a FIN under Organizer’s NCF flag. The FIN must be provided before the tournament is submitted for rating. FIDE will inform the player of his FIN via his contact e-mail.
3.2 If the player without a FIN claims or provides proof of citizenship or residence in a different country other than the Organizer, then the player can only be allowed to play after:
3.2.1 registration with his appropriate NCF, or
3.2.2 acquiring a provisional license under FIDE flag.
4. If the FIN is acquired according to art. 3.2.2, the player shall provide the information required in art. 2 and to pay €60 either directly to FIDE or through the Organizer. FIDE or the Organizer shall issue the FIN and a provisional license under FIDE flag bearing information from art. 2 above.
4.1 The provisional license under FIDE flag expires on 30 June the following year. Before 1 July, the license must be renewed with payment of €60 to FIDE without further notification from FIDE, failing which, the license is annulled.
5. A tournament report will not be rated if there are players without a valid FIN. Federation’s Ratings Officers should ensure that all players have a valid FIN before sending the tournament to FIDE to be rated.
6. Whenever a NCF delists and subsequently re-lists a player, the NCF shall pay FIDE a fee of €25.
Italy: Corruption Charge Mayor Loris Cereda Cleared - of Cheating at Chess By Umberto Bacchi | May 17, 2013 2:36 PM GMT
An Italian politician accused of both corruption and cheating at chess has had his name cleared - at least in the board game world.
An appellate panel of the Italian Chess Federation (FSI) has quashed its January decision to ban Loris Cereda, a former mayor of the northern town of Buccinasco near Milan, for allegedly using dark glasses fitted with a hidden micro camera at three tournament games.
Some of Cereda's fellow players had accused him of using the special glasses after witnessing a sudden improvement in his game.
The glasses allegedly sent live images of his opponent's moves to a powerful chess software programme which then dictated, through a secret earpiece, the correct counter-move.
Cereda was transformed from a mediocre amateur player into a local Garry Kasparov, his accusers said.
The appeal panel has now acquitted Cereda over lack of evidence and reintegrated him into the chess world.
"I am very happy about that," Cereda told IBTimes UK. "It remains the sufferance for the big impact that the first wrong decision had on the media so creating a big damage for me and for the chess world."
"I've taken up training again, but now I have [to face] some other professional and judicial commitments. As soon as I'm on the safe side, you'll see me back on the 64 squares," Cereda, a member of Berlusconi's People of Freedom Party, said.
Cereda is facing corruption charges after he was allegedly filmed taking a bribe to approve the construction of a car park next to a shopping centre. Police said he took two separate kickbacks for a total of €32,000 and was also bribed with two Ferraris and a Bentley.
Milan prosecutors have demanded a four-year and four-month jail term for Cereda, earlier this week.
LUSAKA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Zambia chess players will not take part in the 2013 African Chess Championships because Chess Federation of Zambia has failed to raise funds to send the team, the Zambia Daily Mail reported on Thursday.
Zambia was expected to send four players for the championships which kicks off on Friday in Tunisia.
"Unfortunately, the team is not going. We have not managed to get sponsors for the team to travel," Chanda Nsakanya, Chess Federation of Zambia secretary, was quoted as saying by the paper.
The official however said the country will send the players for a tournament in Tanzania.
IM Andrew Martin Presents: The French Defense, Rubinstein Variation IM Andrew Martin Presents: The French Defense, Rubinstein Variation Posted on May 17,2013 By William in Strategy & Game Review, Chess Openings, All Articles w/ Videos, Beginner's Corner. IM Andrew Martin states that former World Chess Champion Mikhail Botvinnik described the French Defense as a difficult and dangerous opening, although IM Martin still believes the French Defense to be a very versatile and effective opening weapon for beginner and intermediate players. In the below chess video excerpt from the chess DVD ¨French Defense, Rubinstein Variation: Busy Man's Chess Openings¨ IM Andrew Martin presents the main benefits of[...] Psycho Knock-out Chess with GM Maurice Ashley and Daniel King Posted on May 15,2013 By William in Strategy & Game Review, Chess Openings, All Articles w/ Videos, Classic Games (Pre 2010). The following chess video excerpt reflects some of the most exciting chess games and commentary every caught on tape. GMs Maurice Ashley and Daniel King explain incredibly tense battles between Super-GMs Alexander Morozevich and Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik and Vassily Ivanchuk, and Viswanathan Anand and Garry Kasparov from the 1995 Intel Grand Prix in Moscow, Russia. This footage is unforgettable as the viewer is treated to a highly enter[...] Crushing Black with the c3 Sicilian by GM Ron Henley Posted on May 13,2013 By William in Strategy & Game Review, Chess Openings, All Articles w/ Videos. The c3 Sicilian is an extremely powerful sideline for white against the Sicilian Defense, rapidly deviating from the main lines via the move order 1. e4 c5 2. c3. White's main idea is very simple in this opening set-up - establish a strong center by preparing the d2-d4 advance and avoid the massive theory associated with the main lines of the Sicilian Defense. The c3 Sicilian is also known as the Alapin Sicilian and has been employed by countless[...] Win with the Colle Opening by IM Andrew Martin Posted on May 10,2013 By OnlineChessLessons.NET Contributor in Strategy & Game Review, Chess Openings, All Articles w/ Videos, Beginner's Corner. The Colle Opening is a quiet opening for white that is based on an extremely sound positional foundation. In the Colle Opening, white is not trying to dominate his opponent early in the opening and trying to win with a spectacular tactical shot in less than 20 moves. Rather, white is aiming to take his opponent out of opening theory and into new and different types of positions. In the below chess video excerpt from the chess DVD ¨The Colle Openi[...] OnlineChessLessons.net is a producer of thousands of free chess articles and free chess videos by FIDE chess masters. They recently released the renowned Empire Chess series that has been taking the chess world by storm. Please consider checking out their chess blog and chess shop with tons of free updated previews.
Metropolitan Chess, Inc. hosted a Grandmaster norm round robin tournament from May 08 to May 12, 2013.
This tournament was the 26th in its series and was held in Suite C855 of the California Market Center on 110 East 9th Street, Los Angeles 90079. The tournament was organized by Ankit Gupta, FA, IO.
The tournament was a 6 player double round-robin (all play all), with rounds scheduled as follows – 8th: 1:00 PM & 7:00 PM, 9th: 11:00 AM & 5:00 PM, 10th: 11:00 AM & 5:00 PM, 11th: 11:00 AM & 5:00 PM, 12th: 10:00 AM & 4:00 PM
GM Magesh Panchanathan took clear first in the tournament finishing with 6.5/10.0. NM Madiyar Amerkeshev earned an IM norm with a final result of 5.0/10.0.
The tournament was sponsored by California Market Center, Fashion Business, Inc, Chess.com, MonRoi, LawyerFy, the Law Offices of Steinfl & Bruno, EventForte Inc, and Betty Bottom Showroom.
Keep updated with events by Metropolitan Chess, Inc, by visiting www.metrochessla.com
Russia's Karjakin Wins Norway Chess Tournament By MARK LEWIS Associated Press STAVANGER, Norway May 18, 2013 (AP)
Russia's Sergey Karjakin won the €100,000 ($130,000) Norway chess championship on Saturday after drawing against Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria.
Karjakin needed only a draw against Topalov to take the top prize after the world No. 1 player Magnus Carlsen failed to win against Levon Aronian from Armenia, ranked No. 2.
Karjakin led the nine-day tournament from the beginning, winning his first four games and starting the day on 5.5 points, half a point ahead of Carlsen. He took over five hours to secure the draw.
Playing white, Karjakin handed an early initiative to his opponent with a passive bishop move to e3, giving Topalov hope of a first victory in this tournament.
As the Governor of the Region of Central Macedonia, it is a great pleasure for me to welcome all participants to the "FIDE Grand Prix" 2013 in Thessaloniki.
We are happy and honored to be the hosts of such an exceptional sporting event and to welcome the top chess players from around the world in our region. Just as in the case of other numerous sporting and entertainment events held in Thessaloniki and in Central Macedonia, we will do our best to make the "FIDE Grand Prix" 2013 one of the best organized and exciting chess events in the world.
I am certain that the chess fans of Thessaloniki and Central Macedonia will attend and support with enthusiasm the "FIDE Grand Prix". I am also confident that the organizers and the citizens of the City of Thessaloniki will welcome the participants and will provide any assistance needed so that the "FIDE Grand Prix" will be held under the best possible conditions.
It is my wish that through this sports meeting, the participants will not only experience magnificent chess competitions but also have the opportunity to meet and appreciate in person both the unique historical and the modern character of Thessaloniki and Central Macedonia.
I would like to congratulate the "FIDE Grand Prix" organizers for choosing the City of Thessaloniki for hosting this tournament.
I strongly believe that this occasion will mark the beginning of a fruitful and fertile collaboration with FIDE in forthcoming events. To all the participants, I salute your commitment and I wish you all the best in the games.
Enjoy your stay in the City of Thessaloniki.
The Governor of the Region of Central Macedonia Apostolos Tzitzikostas
The last round of the first Norway Chess Tournament finished after more than five hours of chess. Sergey Karjakin finally drew his game against Veselin Topalov to claim overall victory at the event. Magnus Carlsen signed an uneventful draw with Levon Aronian, Viswanathan Anand lost with black against Wang Hao and Hikaru Nakamura got shared second place thanks to his win over Jon Ludvig Hammer.
Sergey Karjakin fulfilled the expectations after his great start and finished the event on sole first place after drawing Veselin Topalov with the white pieces today. This game was the longest one of the round and was not a peaceful GM draw by no means. Topalov finished on -1 after drawing eight games and losing against Anand in the third round.
The game was a Sicilian Najdorf. Topalov chose to leave his king in the center protected by the f6-f7 doubled-pawns formation. With a completely blocked position in the center and kingside, Topalov started looking for chances on the queenside. Karjakin defended correctly and fenced-off the danger. The players made a repetition on move 50 in a position where the Russian is a pawn up.
The two best rated players in the world faced each other today. Magnus Carlsen needed a win over Levon Aronian to get, at least, a chance to catch Karjakin if he drew with Topalov. However, to look for a win with the black pieces against Aronian is not the easiest thing in the world. The Armenian played solidly and exchanged a lot of pieces out of the opening to get a draw on 30 moves.
The overall result of the event for Carlsen can be evaluated as slightly positive. He recovered from a slow start and finished on shared second place. However, the Norwegian always shoots for first, and especially in the first edition of this super-tournament, in his home soil. On the other hand, Levon Aronian finished on +1, which might also not be enough for his ambitions. He comes from winning the Alekhine Memorial and tiredness might be a big factor at this point.
Viswanathan Anand got his fifth decisive result in the event. This time, he lost against Wang Hao with the black pieces. The world champion also arrived with a chance to catch the leader but ended up falling against the creative play of the talented Chinese. Anand finished a point behind the leader on 5/9 and Wang Hao left the bottom side of the table to finish with an even score.
The game was a Symmetrical English where white played fearlessly, going for a line with g4 and e4 included. The dynamic position that arose fit the style of the Chinese, who handled the complications better than his opponent. Anand sacrificed a queen for a rook and bishop and tried to defend an inferior position. However, Wang’s passed pawn on the queenside was the decisive factor that forced the Indian to resign on move 38.
Hikaru Nakamura finished yet another event on second place after defeating Jon Ludvig Hammer with black. The American repeated his +2 performance from the Gand Prix in Zug and, thanks to these two results, is now on sixth place in the live ratings list. He will be shooting for first place at the upcoming stage of the Grand Prix in Thessaloniki, which stars on Tuesday.
Teimour Radjabov and Peter Svidler finished the tournament with a draw. The Russian played the Gruefeld with black and faced a not-very-ambitious setup by white. The players signed the peace treaty after 31 moves.
