Tuesday 13 September 2016

The ChessMasters Tournament

It is here again live in Abuja

30 Contestants
1 venue
1 winner
1 big prize

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Saturday 30 April 2016

KING'S GAMBIT

A Complex Game with Simple Processes

What can you say about this... what I call Mallum's variation (Accepted, Bishop attack).


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Tuesday 19 April 2016

SIMPLE STEPS TO BECOME A CHESS MASTER

5 SIMPLE STEPS TO BECOME A CHESS MASTER
Before we begin let us take a short history class…
BRIEF HISTORY OF CHESS
What are the origins of the royal game? I will try to create a brief overview with as accurate information as possible.
500 – It is widely acknowledged that chess originated from India around this time.
500-600 – Chaturanga, a four-player war-related board game, flourishes in north-western India. This game is the “earliest precursor” to chess because it had two features that made it stand out from the crowd – different pieces had different abilities (as opposed to a game like checkers) and victory was centred around what we know as the king in modern chess.
600-640 – Historians believe chaturanga was gradually altered into shatranj, a two-player game, which became popular in northern India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and southern parts of Central Asia. After the Arabs took control of Persia in the 640’s, the rules of ‘chess’ (which probably went by another name) spread across Persia and neighbouring countries.
700 – Muslims invade Spain and introduce chess there.
750 – Chess reached China via Silk Road traders and Buddhist pilgrims, where they likely started to label the pieces on “inscribed disks” and placed pieces on the intersections of lines rather than inside squares. This probably evolved into the modern game of Chinese chess or XiangQi.
750-900 – Muslims took chess to North Africa and Sicily.
900 – The oldest recorded chess game is written in a manuscript. The game was between a Baghdad historian and a pupil.
900-1000 – The Vikings established the game in England and Iceland.
Description: http://chess.geniusprophecy.com/images/lewis-chessmen.jpg1000 – Chess is introduced to Japan and Korea. The game was also spread far throughout Europe as far north as Scandinavia. At this time, chessboards were often made of fine wood or marble.
1300 – The pawn acquires the ability to move two squares from its original square, although this was not fully assimilated into Europe until 300 years later.
1400 – Chess becomes known as the “royal game” as it was popular among nobility.
1475 – The counsellor was replaced by the modern queen, hence increasing the value of a pawn (due to its potential promotion to a queen). The chaturanga/shatranj piece called the elephant was replaced by the bishop. The rules of castling and en passant are introduced, but not widely accepted.
1620 – Gioacchino Greco, an Italian master, wrote about contrasting approaches to chess. He emphasised tactics and his games made a significant contribution on popularising chess.
1700 – Castling and en passant are acknowledged.
1749 – François-André Philidor of France, possibly the world’s best chess player for nearly 50 years, wroteL’Analyze des échecs (Chess Analyzed), a highly influential book.
1800 – The rook is universally acknowledged. Previously, in Russia it was a sailing ship and in other places, a warrior inside a chariot.
1849 – What would later be known as the Staunton chess set (a standard for international competition today) is patented.
1850 – Many minor disputes about the rules of chess are fixed up. An example is that it was sometimes unacceptable to promote a pawn to a queen if one already had a queen on the board.
1886 – First official world chess championship held, where Wilhelm Steinitz triumphed against Johann Zukertort.
1900 – Chess goes through explosive growth as players began to play professionally, prizes were larger and world championships were on offer. (In addition, your guide to this brief history of chess is born in this century.)
I laced together this timeline with information from Encyclopædia Britannica and World Book. There were minor conflicts in some of the information, but generally, the timeline worked out quite well.

Source: http://chess.geniusprophecy.com

STEP 1
To learn the game of chess, you have to get yourself a Chessboard
 The game of chess is played on an 8 x 8 checkered board and every spot on the board are marked for record purposes and learning. The horizontal lines are marked ‘a-h’ or ‘A-H’, while the vertical lines are marked ‘1-8’. Therefore, it is not out of place to say that to learn chess one must first get a chessboard because chess books and other study guide are full of annotated diagrams using these board markings to describe and analyze game play in PGN (Portable Game Notation) format. There are several different types of chessboards and chess pieces, some are made from glass, wood, ivory, electronic and polymer (rollup); they also come in various sizes and colors, this determines how valuable the chessboard can be. There are many places to go to purchase a chessboard:
a)      There are several good deals online. You can purchase a chessboard from #1,500 to #5500. To view variety of boards online CLICK HERE for the best deals
b)    The Electronic chessboard is one of the best learning tools as it automatically outputs PGN reports and the games can be printed as PGN for analysis.
c)     For exotic chessboards and pieces (Some are antiques and decorative) CLICK HERE
STEP 2
Get yourself a trainer or join a Chessclub
Joining a chess club can be very useful. You get to interact with other players; you also get access to the best coaches. This can provide you with the latest news of events in chess and can also be a source of motivation. There are several clubs and academies all over the country. Examples are Abuja Chess Club, Team Nigeria, Ilorin Chess Academy and a host of others. This interaction with other chess players is sure to improve your game.

STEP 3
To advance from Amateur to Beginner, get yourself a Smartphone
For some people, a smartphone is a very good option compared to a chessboard; with a smartphone, you can play chess from many apps with tactics lesson and game analysis. There are apps for different platforms but the best is Chess.com for both Windows Android an IOS.
Learn chess strategies! On blackberry you can download ‘LS Chess’ from the BB app store. The basic requirement for Chess app is a smartphone with 1G RAM. Smartphones are expensive, but for the best buy and affordable prizes CLICK HERE

STEP 4
Join online chess platforms and practice everyday

STEP 5

Download eBooks and other resources online and still practice everyday
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Monday 11 April 2016

THE ASIAN NATIONS CUP TOURNAMENT

WEI YI PLAYS ANOTHER KING HUNT GAME!

Last week India won the Asian Nations Cup, ahead of China. The young Chinese GM Wei Yi played another king hunt game, but dropped below 2700 in the live ratings.
The Asian Nations Cup, held for the 19th time this year, saw a record number of 22 participation chess federations. It was held 28 March-5 April at the Al Bustan Novotel in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates).
The men’s section was a 9-round Swiss with teams consisting of four boards and one reserve player. The women's section was a round-robin with ten teams. In both sections China was the defending champion, having won twice in a row (in 2012 and 2014). 
The tournament saw 28 grandmasters, 10 International Masters, 19 FIDE Masters and 3 Women FMs. The highest rated participants were Bu Xiangzhi (China, 2724), Wang Yue (China, 2718), Wei Yi (China, 2714), Le Quang Liem (Vietnam, 2709) and Baskaran Adhiban (India, 2663).
Even without its strongest players (e.g. no Ding Liren, Li Chao, Yu Yangyi or Wang Hao) the Chinese team was still the favorite. In the end they finished second though, behind India and ahead of Kazakhstan. India was playing with GMs B. Adhiban, S.P. Sethuraman, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, Krishnan Sasikiran and Deep Sengupta, so without Vishy Anand and Pentala Harikrishna.
The two teams met in the fifth round and it was India who won. Bu Xiangzhi won the gold medal on board one, but lost this important game as White to Baskaran Adhiban. It's hard to believe that he just blundered away his d-pawn and then his a-pawn, isn't it?
The winning team with L-R captain R.B. Ramesh, Krishnan Sasikiran, Deep Sengupta, S.P. Sethuraman, Baskaran Adhiban und Vidit Santosh Gujrathi. | Photo courtesy of Asian Chess.
Wang Yue leveled the score on board two with a great game. He showed that it is definitely possible to play for a win as Black in the Petroff from many positions. The knight is an absolute hero in this game. Bobby Fischer scored some famous wins on the side of the bishop in this type of endgame, but he would have preferred Black as well probably! 
However, China's rising star Wei Yi didn't have a very good day and was outplayed, as White, on board 3 vs Vidit whereas Sasikiran and Lu drew their game on board 4.
A much nicer game (which made the headline, after all) by Wei Yi was the following, from two days earlier. You'll surely remember his great win vs Lazaro Bruzon from the Danzhou tournament last summer? Well, yet again he dragged the enemy king towards him in his game with Dao Thien Hai:
Wei, Yi (2714) vs. Dao, Thien Hai (2481)
Asian Nations Chess Cup | Abu Dhabi | Round 3.3 | 30 Mar 2016 | 1-0
1. e4c52. Nf3d63. d4cxd44. Nxd4Nf65. Nc3a66. Bg5e67. f4Nbd78. Qe2!?(The main line goes 8. Qf3)8... Qc79. O-O-OBe7(Wei Yi himself played the more popular 9... b5in this position last year: 10. a3Be711. g4O-O12. Bh4Rb813. g5Ne814. f5Nc515. f6Bd816. e5b417. axb4Rxb418. exd6Qa5Wei,Y (2721)-Vachier Lagrave,M (2723) Leon 2015 )10. g4h6(10... b5)11. Bh4Already here it's not so easy for Black.
11... g5(11... Nxe412. Qxe4Bxh413. Nf5)12. fxg5Nh7A standard trick, but usually Black has the tempo winning .. .Ne5 as well (with the white queen on f3).
13. Bg3!The best way to deal with the situation. The bishop has done its job on the h4-d8 diagonal.
13... hxg5Already possible. Always a bad sign!
(13... Bxg5+14. Kb1Ne515. h4Be716. g5is no fun either. )14. Nf5!exf5(14... Ne515. Nxe7Qxe716. h4)15. Nd5Qb8(As it turns out, all this had been played before already 35 years ago: 15... Qd816. exf5Nb6?!17. Nxb6Qxb618. Bxd61-0 Fedorowicz,J (2435)-Kuligowski,A (2450) Ramsgate 1981 )16. exf5Ne517. Nxe7Kxe718. Rxd6!Not so difficult this time, but still rather spectacular.
18... Qxd619. Bxe5Qd520. Bg2Qxa2And now the finishing touch:
21. Bd6+!(21. Bxh8+also wins, but the text moves leads to a forced mate. )21... Kxd622. Rd1+Kc723. Qe5+Kb624. Qd4+Ka5(24... Kb525. Bf1+)25. Qc5+b526. Qc7+
China (in round 4) with L-R Bu Xiangzhi, Wang Yue, Wei Yi and Zhou Jianchao.
In general, Wei Yi's tournament was rather disappointing. He scored a 2543 performance rating over eight games (5.0/8) with three wins, one loss and four draws (all against lower rated players). His live rating has now dropped just below 2700.

2016 Asian Nations Cup | Final Standings

Rk.SNoTeamGames+=-TB1TB2
12India98101726
21China97111527,5
33Kazakhstan96211423
44Iran96031223,5
58Uzbekistan95131123
67Mongolia94231020,5
76Bangladesh95041020,5
89UAE 195041018,5
95Vietnam9414920,5
1011Kyrgyzstan9414919,5
1110Iraq9333918,5
1212Lebanon9414917,5
1316Afghanistan9414917
1414Oman9414915,5
1515Sri Lanka9324815
1613Jordan9405813,5
1717Palestine9315716
1819UAE 29315714
1920Nepal9054511,5
2018Kuwait9216511,5
2122Tajikistan9036313
2221UAE 39027210,5

In the women's section the Chinese team also dropped some match points (here the match with India finished in 2-2, and they even lost to Uzbekistan) but they won gold anyway. 

2016 Asian Nations Cup (Women) | Final Standings

Rg.Team12345678910Wtg1Wtg2
1ChinaphpfCo1l0.png1½323½3½3½4441529
2Uzbekistan2½phpfCo1l0.png102½32½4341422,5
3Kazakhstan13phpfCo1l0.png2½21½2½443½1324
4India241½phpfCo1l0.png1½2½24441225,5
5Vietnam½1½22½phpfCo1l0.png1½343½41122,5
6Mongolia½12½1½2½phpfCo1l0.png1½4441021,5
7Iran½1½1½212½phpfCo1l0.png444921
8UAE - 20000000phpfCo1l0.png22½34,5
9Sri Lanka0100½002phpfCo1l0.png225,5
10UAE - 100½00001½2phpfCo1l0.png14
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  • Source: CHESS.com
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