Test Your Blitz Skills - Solution

In this post, we presented a Grischuk game position. Here is the full game. Why is 10. Nd5 best? Analysis in a few days.

1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e5 4. Nge2 Be7 5. g3 exd4 6. Nxd4 d5 7. e5 Ng4 8. Bf4 c5 9. Ndb5 d4 10. Nd5 O-O 11. Bg2 Qa5+ 12. Qd2 Bd8 13. Nd6 Qxd2+ 14. Bxd2 Nxe5 15. Nxc8 Re8 16. Nd6 Re6 17. Nf4 Nd3+ 18. Kf1 Nxf4 19. Bxf4 Nd7 20. Nxb7 g5 21. Nxd8 Rxd8 22. Bxg5 Rde8 23. Bd2 Nf6 24. Re1 1-0

The Excitement of Blitz

See this SF Gate article on the World Blitz Championship to learn about the "rock star swagger" of blitz players!

GM Kavalek Needs Fish

GM Lubomir Kavalek publicly pleads to receive salmon in his latest column. He reviews GM Yasser Seirawan's latest book and gives it the thumb up. GM Seirawan is one of the very best at explaining top-level chess to non-master players. He is also a very nice person, and can often be found on Playchess.com winning blitz games against the rank and file players that many GMs just ignore. We should all send fish to GM Kavalek because his column in the Washington Post is an excellent chess column.

Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess

Probably the best-selling chess book of all time, Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, is now available free on Bobby Fischer's web site. If you go there, be forewarned... Bobby says many things that may offend you.

The Immortal Game

The Immortal Game: A History of Chess by David Shenk is reviewed by the Star Tribune and by the New York Times.

Test Your Blitz Skills

In honor of Alexander Grischuk's blitz championship win this past week, let's look at a position from a blitz (5 minute) game he played in 2004. The opening moves were

1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e5 4. Nge2 Be7 5. g3 exd4 6. Nxd4 d5 7. e5 Ng4 8. Bf4 c5 9. Ndb5 d4

We have the position above. Grischuk played the best move. What did he play?

The Quest

Chess will be featured on CNN's The Quest.

World Blitz Championship

The tournament to determine the blitz chess world champion has been completed. Grischuk beat Svidler in the tie-break game. Rounding our the top half of the final standings were Radjabov, Anand, Polgar, Gelfand, Bacrot, and Carlsen. Of the top 8, 4 are from the old guard and 4 are relatively young and still improving. I have high hopes for the future of top level chess.

Swiss System - Good or Bad?

Most professional sports tournaments use elimination (knock-out) tournaments, but chess uses the Swiss system where everyone keeps playing all the rounds, with winners playing winners and losers playing losers. Is this a good system? Not everyone thinks so.

"[The Swiss System] is flawed, dangerous, and demeaning to our stature as grandmasters," said GMs Torre, Antonio, and Paragua when explaining why they didn't enter a tournament to earn spots on their national team.

More College Chess

GM Gilberto Hernandez of Mexico has accepted a chess coaching position at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College.

World University Chess Championship

The World University Chess Championship has just been completed in Nigeria. China wins; Iran places; Netherlands shows. Top player was China's GM Bu Xiangzhi.

Test Your Tactics! -- Solution

A few days ago I presented a tactics problem. Now we reveal the solution to you. 1...Rh1 is the only winning move. If Black goes back to stop the b-pawn then White has drawing lines. But now look at 2. b7 Rxd1 3. Kxd1 Kd3 4. b8=Q c2# Beautiful! It is always nice to mate with pawn, but right after opponent gets a queen is even more special. If 3. b8=Q then after 3...Rc1+ the White King moves to the b-file and Black wins easily here also.