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TWIC Theory

TWIC Theory is an electronic monthly magazine with high quality articles delivered in PGN and PDF format on the 25th of every month. You can still get the back issues.


Number 35 September 2007. Benko Gambit - Main Line/ The Latest Trends in the post-Topalov period By GM Alex Finkel

Details: http://www.chesscenter.com/twictheory/

The Russian Championship SuperFinal includes Morozovich, Grischuk, Tomashevsky (top 3 in '07), and Svidler along with Jakovenko and Alekseev as top 3 by rating who did not qualify otherwise along with Maslak, Lastin, and Riazantsev who qualified from the higher league competition. Opening ceremony 2nd October, 1st round on the 3rd.

Games in PGN

Official site: http://www.russiachess.org/

Regular updates for the games during play.

	Silverlight Chessboard application by Martin Bennedik (http://www.bennedik.de/ Silverboard.html).

The new Schachbundesliga season 2008/09 starts this weekend 3rd-5th October and runs until March 2009. 16 Teams compete with team rosters of 16-18 players but only eight play each weekend,

OSG Baden-Baden is the big favourite with 16 Grandmasters in its squad headed by Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen. The strongest challengers are Werder Bremen with Shakhryar Mamedyarov and some strong ukrainian players such as Eljanov, Efimenko or Areshchenko and SV Mülheim-Nord with Dmitry Jakovenko, former world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov and the strong French player Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

For the first time all the games of the Schachbundesliga will be covered live in the internet. This service is for all chess fans for free.

The Website of the Schachbundesliga (http://www.schachbundesliga.de/index.aspx) serves as entrance site and from there you can go to the four playing venues and follow the games. In the first part of the season there is an additional match on Friday (the floating round 7), There will be 128 games at least.

Games in PGN from Sunday's Round 2 (Hamburg games not complete)

Games in PGN from Saturday's Round 1

Games in PGN from Friday's Round 7

Regular updates for the games during play.

	Silverlight Chessboard application by Martin Bennedik (http://www.bennedik.de/ Silverboard.html).

Rounds 1-2 of the 4NCL take place 4th-5th October 2008. Live coverage available.

Official website: http://www.4ncl.co.uk/ and live coverage: http://www.bcfservices.org.uk/livechess/4ncl/0809/index.htm

Games in PGN from Saturday's Round 2

Games in PGN from Saturday's Round 1

The Commonwealth Chess Championship takes place 28th September - 6th October 2008 in Nagpur, India. Nigel Short and Surya Shekhar Ganguly are the top seeds and both started with 2/2.

Official site: http://www.commonwealth-chess.com and games broadcast live at: http://www.monroi.com/watch/?tnm_id=1120

There were huge changes in the order of the players at the top of the list which was not a big surprise because of the closeness in ratings. Veselin Topalov moved from 5th to 1st and World Champion Viswanathan Anand made the reverse journey. Alexander Morozevich held on to 2nd place, Vassily Ivanchuk and Magnus Carlsen are at 3rd and 4th, Vladimir Kramnik drops to 6th. These top 6 clearly stand out from the rest and the recent drops of Anand and Kramnik probably reflect the nature of the build up to their world title match, they needed some practice but couldn't play their best opening ideas, rather than any objective fall in strength.

October 2008 FIDE Rating List

The 5th China vs Russia Chess Match took place 18th-27th September 2008, in Ningpo, China. 18th-23rd September standard (90+30), 24th-26th September rapid (25+10), 27th September blitz (3+2), no official site.

Standard timerate: China 26 Russia 24. (China Men 14.5 - Russia Men 10.5 - China Women 11.5 Russia Women 13.5)

Rapids. Russia Men won 13-7 (match points - 28-22). The Women tied 10-10 tie in match points and 25-25 - on individual results. No games available.

In the blitz-match proved stronger than Chinese men (14-6) and Russian girls (11-9).

Overall Russia won the match but I'm not completely sure on the scoring system they used for the rapids but the Chinese victory in the standard time rate games in the men's event will no doubt be regarded as the most important for them.

Games in PGN

Games and results are available at: http://www.russiachess.org/

There was a four way tie in the cup. Pentala Harikrishna took first on tie-break.

The SPICE Cup took place September 19th-28th 2008 at the Texas Tech Student Union Building. There was a four way tie in the cup. Pentala Harikrishna took first on tie-break. Eugene Perelshteyn was the defending champion.

Games in PGN

Official website: http://www.SPICE.ttu.edu

The 58th Hungarian Championship takes place in Nyiregyhaza (220 km east from Budapest) 12th-23rd September 2008.

The championship is an 16 participant, KO-system event with Zoltan Almasi (6 times Hungarian Champion) and Gyula Sax (Gold medalist of the Buenos Aires Olympiad, 1978).

Official site: http://www.hotelpagony.hu/ or more directly http://dodicsek.unsoft.hu/2008/0912ferfiko/menkoch2008.htm.

Hou Yifan and new world women's champion Aleksandra Kosteniuk Photo © Eugene Atarov.

The World Women's Championship 2008 took place in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria (Russian Federation), 28th August - 18th September 2008 with a prize fund of 450,000 USD. Aleksandra Kosteniuk defeated Hou Yifan in the final, which she dominated more than the 2.5-1.5 score suggests, with winning positions in at least two of the other games. The 24 year old Russian succeeds Xu Yuhua who went out in the second round of the knockout contest. In recent years China has dominated the event and Kosteniuk is the first Russian women's champion since Elisabeth Bykova (champion 1958-1962).

Sudden Death Playoff regulations: White shall receive 6 minutes, Black shall receive 5 minutes, without any addition. The winner qualifies for the next round. In case of a draw the player with the black pieces qualifies for the next round.

Games in PGN from the final

Games in PGN all games up to the final

Official site: http://nalchik2008.fide.com

http://www.chessdom.com/ has live blog coverage.

Round 2-4 results in TWIC 722

Round 1 results in TWIC 721

This years European Union Championships took place in Liverpool, England 9th - 18th September 2008. The prize fund was 30,000 pounds with 6000 pounds first prize. Jan Werle secured first place with a quick draw in the final round to finish on 8/10 after Adams drew early too. Short won in the final round to finish level with Adams half a point behind the winner along with Viktor Laznicka.

Games in PGN

Official site:  http://www.liverpoolchessinternational.co.uk            

Round 10. Photo © http://www.chessvibes.com who has on the spot reports.

The Chess Grand Slam Final took place in Bilbao 1st-13th September 2008. There were 6 players. The first qualifiers were the winners of Corus 2008, Morelia - Linares 2008, and Mtel Masters 2008 - GM Levon Aronian, GM Viswanathan Anand, and GM Vassily Ivanchuk. Then the 2nd place players also qualified GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Veselin Topalov and finally the best all-round player left Teimour Radjabov. Three points for a win and one for a draw rules are in effect.

Grand Slam Final Bilbao. Final Round 10 saw Veselin Topalov confirmed clear first place when he beat Vassily Ivanchuk in the final round. Topalov won the most games and lost the least, for a dominant performance. Carlsen and Aronian tied for second place after Aronian blew a great position and lost against Radjabov. Carlsen took second by virtue of beating Aronian twice in the competetion (better head to head). This win for Radjabov also had the effect of relegating world champion Viswanathan Anand to dead last.

Time control: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and another 60 minutes to finish the game.

Players were not allowed to agree draw without arbiter's permission. In case both players request it to him, the arbiter will make his decision after consulting with a technical assistant.

Official site for the event: http://www.bilbaofinalmasters.com. On the spot reports from http://www.chessvibes.com. Videos also from http://www.europe-echecs.com and http://www.chessclub.com/. Some commentary at: http://www.chessok.com/, Playchess.com and http://www.chessdom.com/ and a gallery of photos by Fred Lucas

Games in PGN

Both the official and a normal table are given below. The used the unusual scoring system of three points for a win and one for a draw. Rightly or wrongly I'm going to stick with 1, ½ and 0 in the actual results part of the table. Carlsen took second from Aronian due to head to head results.

The 61st Russian Championship Higher League takes place in Novokuznetsk 3rd-14th September 2008. The event is a qualifier for the superfinals held in October. The event is an 11 round swiss with some very strong players. Live coverage of all the games on the official site. Play starts at 3pm local time, but be aware its GMT+8 there at the moment.

Games in PGN

Official site: http://www.rcc2008.org/eng/index.htm

The 62nd Foire de Chalons-en-Champagne au Parc takes place 4th-5th September 2008. Play 4pm-7pm local time. Maxime Vachier Lagrave leads at the half way stage.

Coverage: http://www.europe-echecs.com

The 5th LGA Premium Schach CUP takes place 4th-7th September 2008 in Nuernberg, Germany. Live coverage at the official site.

Official site: http://live.schach.lga.de

The Tournoi international de Montreal took place 24th August - 2nd September 2008. The main sponsor was the EMPRESA Group. Yuri Shulman took clear first place with 6½/9.

Games in PGN

Official site: http://perso.b2b2c.ca/lesechecauquebec/tim2008.htm