Tal Chess Memorial With Carlsen, Aronian, Nakamura, Kramnik Begins in Moscow June 7

Misha - Mikhai Tal

It's time to play strong chess in Moscow all over again from June 7 at the Mikhail Tal Chess Memorial beginning with - hold your breath - Magnus Carlsen,  Hikaru Nakamura,  Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Teimour Radjabov, Alexander Morozevich,  Fabiano Caruana,  Alexander Grischuk, Evgeny Tomashevsky and Luke McShane. 

The opening ceremony will be held on 7th June, at 18.00, in the playing venue at Pashkov House, st. Vozdvizhenka 3/5.

The Tal Chess Memorial is the first super chess event of the year after the recently concluded Anand-Gelfand World Chess Championship. It is also a major tournament before the upcoming Candidates Chess Tournament that would decide the next challenger for the reigning World Chess Champion Vishy Anand.

The organisers are going to try a unique plan to decide the drawing of lots. All the players will take part in a blitz chess tournament - with a separate prize fund - for deciding the starting seeding for the main tournament based on the blitz chess results. 

Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian were the joint winners of the 2011 Tal Chess Memorial. Both had earned 5.5/9 points, but Magnus Carlsen had won the chess trophy on better tiebreak. 

Mikhail Tal was a Russian-Latvian chess grandmaster and the Mikhail Tal playing style was all about creativity, attacking, and daring combination play. Mikhail Tal - often known as Misha - was the eighth world chess champion.

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World Chess Rapid Winners Stefanova, Kosteniuk, Koneru Press Conference Video

Former women's world chess champion Antoaneta Stefanova has just won the Women's World Rapid Chess Championship in Batumi, Georgia. Another former women's world chess champion Alexandra Kosteniuk won the silver medal. India's best woman chess player ever Koneru Humpy won the bronze. Here is the press conference video of the three super women chess players.





The women's world chess championship in blitz has also begun at Batumi. You can watch the second day's play live at the official website from India time 4.30 pm.

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Tiebreak Chess Game 2 Anand-Gelfand played Kasparov Style

Efim Geller - Chess before
computer prep!

Legendary World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov has been following chess keenly even after his retirement from the sport. In an interesting comment on the recently-concluded Anand-Gelfand World Chess Championship 2012, Kasparov referred to his own game played in 1979 against Efim Geller in the Russian National Chess Championship. You can read about Gary Kasparov's comments on the recently-concluded World Chess Match at Crestbook. But, before you surf away, here are both the games: the second Anand-Gelfand tiebreak and the Geller-Kasparov chess game from 1979. You can replay the games in our flash chess game player. (Note by blog admin: Post-mortem of chess games played is a done thing in the chess world and not a criticism of the players themselves.)


Efim Geller-Gary Kasparov, 1979, 1/2-1/2

Viswanathan Anand-Boris Gelfand, 
World Chess Match Tiebreak Game 2, 1-0


Isn't chess amazing... like bridging time and universes, like navigating through dimensions... and returning to oneself over and over again, to the same moments mirroring back to us, on the chess board and in life? 

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World Blitz Chess for Women in Batumi - Watch Live Today at India Time 4.30 pm

Top seed
Anna Muzychuk

The Women's World Blitz Chess Championship 2012 begins in Batumi, Georgia within a few hours today and you can watch all the action live at the official website of the event: http://e2e4.ge/index.html. Fifty players are taking part including India's Koneru Humpy who is the second seed and Harika Dronavalli who is seeded ninth. Top seed is Anna Muzychuk of Slovakia.

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Chess Quote Trivia Contest - Win A Chess Gift

You could win a copy of the latest Black and White Chess Magazine or a special chess gift this week if you could tell us to whom does the following chess quote belong and when he said it, or to whom! Send your entries along with your address to editor@blackandwhiteindia.com before June 10.

"If I win a tournament, I win it by myself. I do the playing. Nobody helps me.
If you don't win, it's not a great tragedy - the worst that happens is that you lose a game."

Enjoy the chess contest! 

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Sunday Top 3 Chess Videos - Gelfand, Netanyahu, Filatov

Even as World Chess Champion India's Viswanathan Anand and his Challenger Israel's Boris Gelfand get home to grand welcomes, chess videos are being watched by thousands on YouTube. We just picked Sunday's top 3 chess videos with most number of views - relating to the Anand, Gelfand 2012 World Title Match.


The first video is about Gelfand landing at Ben Gurion Airport, the second is about Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu watching Game 12 of the Anand-Gelfand match, and main sponsor of the World Chess Championship Andrey Filatov speaking about future chess sponsorship plans.











You might also like to read one of our previous Anand, Gelfand World Chess 2012 Match post: Who Is Andrey Filatov?

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