World Chess Rapid & Blitz Qualifier: You Can Play if Rating 2300+

The World Chess Championship for Rapid and Blitz qualifiers will be held in Astana, Kazakhstan from July 1-5. The qualifiers are open to all players who have a rating of at least 2300. Applications have to be sent by the national federations only.
Participation fees
2300 - 2399 –100 USD
2400 – 2499 – 60 USD
2500 – 2600 - 35 USD
Above 2600 – no fee
Applications for participation are accepted before June 20, 2012.

The Rapid Chess Qualifier would be held as a nine-round Swiss chess tournament with the following time control: 15 minutes + 10 seconds. The top three winners will get free hotel accommodation costs and plane tickets to the world chess championship. Hotel costs and plane tickets for the world chess championship in the blitz section are free for the first three winners of the qualifier. 

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Try Chess King to Improve Your Game Play

Chess King is a very affordable (Rs 2,500/- for limited time) and very powerful chess training software. Chess King comes with Houdini 2 - the strongest chess engine on the planet. With Chess King you can solve puzzles, play chess against Houdini, analyse your games, prepare for a particular opponent and access more than the five million game database called GigaKing. Here is a video by Steve Lopez explaining what is Chess King.

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Tal Chess Video - Carlsen, Nepomniachtchi Ignoring Pretty Girls?

Here is a video from the 7th Mikhail Tal Chess Memorial that began in Moscow on June 7. The event had a unique method of drawing lots for deciding pairings for the first round. A special blitz chess event was held to decide the first-round pairings. Alexander Morozevich won the blitz event on tiebreak ahead of Magnus Carlsen. Here is a video of the first day by Eugene Potemkin.





Do you think chess stars Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi ignored the pretty girls?

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Asian Junior Chess: Srinath, Ivana Win Gold, Pujari Wins Bronze

Indian chess is showing the way to the world. N Srinath of India, Ivana Furtado and Rucha Pujari of India have won top honours at the Asian Junior Chess Championship in Tashkent. N Srinath won the gold in the open category and his first Grandmaster norm. Uzbekistan's Nikita Khoroshev was second and Kazakhstan's Ayan Akhmetov was third. 

 

The prize-winners at the Asian Junior Chess in Tashkent.

Also, Ivana Maria Furtado won the gold in the girl's section with Rucha Pujari picking up the bronze. Vo Thi Kim Phung of Vietnam got the silver. Phung and Pujari were tied for second but the former won the silver on the basis of tiebreak points. Ivana has earlier won the World under-8 twice over. Ivana earned her WGM norm from the event. Pujari has recently won the women's tournament in Sangli, India.

Srinath won the event in the penultimate round itself. He has earlier won the under-12 world championship in Belfort in 2005. Srinath had been runner-up at the Asian Junior Chess in 2011 when, in Sri Lanka, another Indian Shyam Sundar had won the title.

Final placingsOpen: 1 IM N. Srinath 8/9; 2 FM Nikita Khoroshev (Uzb) 7; 3 Avan Akhmetov (Kaz) 6.5; 4 FM Aravindh Chithambaram 6; 6 Ankit Rajpara 5.5; 8 IM Swayams Mishra 5.5...31 players.
Girls: 1 WFM Ivana Furtado 7.5/9; 2-3. WIM Vo Thi Kim Phung (Vie), WFM Rucha Pujari 6.5 each; 5 WFM J. Saranya 6; 6 P.V. Nandhidhaa 5.5; 7 WFM R. Bharathi 5; 13 WIM Pon N. Krithika 4.5; 14 CM Bhakti Kulkarni 4.5...23 players.

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Istanbul Chess Olympiad: Turkish Chess Fed Bans Officials from 7 'Anti-Fide' Federations

The Turkish Chess Federation has banned arbiters from seven countries from officiating at the Chess Olympiad due to take place from August 27 to September 10 in Istanbul, Turkey. The Federation has announced that they would not allow arbiters from France, England, Germany, Georgia, Ukraine, Switzerland and USA because these federations "launched or supported court cases against FIDE" which led to financial losses to FIDE and loss of funds that were meant for chess development.

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Tal Chess Memorial Round 1 - How Aronian Beat Nakamura

The 7th Tal Chess Memorial began at Pashkov House in Moscow with four of the five chess games ending in decisive results! Alexander Morozevich beat Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Grischuk beat Luke McShane, Teimour Radjabov beat Evgeny Tomashevsky, and Levon Aronian beat Hikaru Nakamura! The only game that was drawn was played out between Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik. 

The Tal Chess Memorial is being held from June 7 to 18. Game days are 8-10, 12-14 and June 16-18 with breaks being on June 11 and 15. The live video broadcasts starts every day at India time 4.30 pm. The time control is as follows: 100 minutes for the first 40 moves of the game and 50 minutes for 20 moves with 15 minutes before the end of the game with an increment of 30 seconds for every move beginning from the first move. 

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