Cat and mouse games are typically played within action films — but in the case of two high-octane projects from Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox, it’s happening around them.
Pavel Eljanov is one of those players who is either super-hot or (by super-GM standards) mediocre; he rarely seems to lurk around 3rd place in elite tournaments. It's still early in Shamkir, but he's off to a great start with 2/2, today defeating Pentala Harikrishna with the black pieces.
Although all the games were drawn, it was still a good, hard-fought final round. The game of the round was Fabiano Caruana's battle with Levon Aronian. Caruana tried a bit too hard to make something happen, and the result was that he lost a piece.
I don't recall exactly how many games Wesley So had played without a loss in Classical chess - it was 50-something, I think - but that streak is at an end. His game with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov had been approximately equal most of the way, and after 38 moves it was still equal.
Not a bad run at all for the great Armenian! Levon Aronian entered round 6 (of 7) with a full point lead over early leader Hou Yifan, world champion Magnus Carlsen, and world #4 Fabiano Caruana. Neither Car made it into fourth gear - the champ drew a sharp...
Grenke will have a run for its money when it comes to publicity in the chess world, as the Gashimov Memorial in Shamkir gets underway in a few hours. Here are the round 1 pairings:
The Korchnoi memorial event in Zurich finished a few days ago, and Hikaru Nakamura won this combined rapid & rapid event. (The first stage was a slow rapid: 45' + 30", and the second was 10' + 5"...
If so, please donate to this blog!
If you're looking for the ultimate chess status symbol (a clause that's hard to type with a straight face), however, you can lay down a cool $14k - or more precisely...
With Social Analytics (available for Netvibes Premium dashboards), you can easily explore your social data and generate custom charts in just a few clicks. Answer questions like: What is being said about my brand online?
61st Southend Congress
Play started this morning in the 61st Southend Congress, at Southend Adult Community College, Ambleside Drive.
Entries are one up on last year at 124, with 67 competing in the FIDE Open, supported by four ECF graded sections.
