English Chess Forum

In fact, Aronian was able to hold the balance comfortably. Topalov opened up the attack on the kingside, but Aronian countered on the centre, and was even able to push a passed pawn on the centre, on d2. Topalov kept the position balanced with a perpetual.
Kramnik looks to be in trouble.

The next big shock. Aronian missed a tactic, and was probably now losing. Topalov may well have captured the wrong pawn (28.Qxa5 would have given a nassive outside passed pawn,instead of slightly waekening Black's kingside, with 28.Qxh7), and Aronian as a result still has defensive chances. It will ...

Apologies first of all for mixing up the first and second names of Shakhrayar Mamedyarov - if indeed readers have noticed. Mamedyarov at the moment looks to be the first player to hit the basement at speed. He must surely have been badly affected by his sudden loss of a queen against Aronian. Today ...

Scores after round 2: +1 Anand, Kramnik, Svidler = Aronian, Topalov -1 Shakhriyar, Karjakin, Andreikin Early days yet. Aronian must be relieved to have bounced up quickly from his minus score. Shakriyar quite simply missed that after his knight retreat to e7, the queen on f6 was going to be trapped ...

The official website can easily be found by links through eithrt TWIC or Live Chess Ratings 2700. And of course this is of use for various other major events.

Jonathan, Well yes, stockfish gives White a clear edge, but do you trust the accuracy of this engine? Check it out on Houdini, which can easily be found on the official webite. After 20...Qc6 21.f3 Rxe5 22.Qd2 Qd7 (houdini) 22...Qd7 23.Bf2 Re2 24.Kf1 Rxe1+ 25.Rxe1 Rxe1+ 26.Bxe1, Black is equal, or a...

Other completed games drawn, although one suspects that had it been so early in the tournament, and players having not sufficiently warmed up, Svidler could have played for more. Aronian is however in trouble. His knight, after trying to recapture a pawn on a4, is about to drop. Indeed, while writin...

Anand seems to be making some degree of progress against Aronian. He has the bishop pair, with slightly the more active pieces, as we start to get closer to the endgame. Aronian thought for a long time after his 24th move, eventially opting for passivity. Surprising that he opted for the exchang of ...

The only time you should really talk during a tournament game is if you're offering a draw. Once could argue that its very distracting which I found one time when playing a regular Sussex player of Polish extraction at Hastings who took great delight in loudly pronouncing "schach!" whenever the opp...

On the eve of the first round, a warm-up exercise to limber up. Look at the extremely critical round 12 game, Aronian versus Kramnik. Aronian sacrificed a piece, leaving Black's king under pressure. Aronian then decided to win back a pawn, 20.fxe3, as Black's advaned pawn was far too dangerous to ha...

It's Sunday night, and for once I want to think about something other than the world crisis, and the presuned terrorist bombings against China, and the far from veiled threat by Russia, against Ukraine. Time to relax. For the rest of the month, I would like to watch some really heavy high level ches...

Excellent reply by Paul on the random comments by the "armchair arbiter". I am baffled as to what Roger is trying to srgue. OK, there seems to have been a relatively amicable split between the Czech Republic and Slovakia. But what were the resemblences between the violent post-Tito collapse and the ...

Sadly, we can go well beyond Chris Kreuzer's suggestion of five million killed in the Second Congo War. In my life-time (I am no spring chicken), the death toll in Mao's “Great Leap Forward” have been generally estimated at around 40 million, between 1958 and 1962. There is no reason to believe ...

Horrendous times, yes, but sometimes we need to go beyond just saying that “this is dreadful”. I still have the chess-player's instinct that if a player has lost a game of chess, then that player must inevitably have made a mistake. The big analytical task is to find the losing blunder. If an an...

Listening to the radio, I was struck by the thought that there was the gap of at least a month between the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the start of the declarations of war. It was therefore not an immediate conflagration, and the diplomats and politicians had some time, though limited, to t...