2012 London Chess Classic Round 3: Anand Allows Aronian to Escape with Draw

World Champion Viswanathan Anand and Dr J Bhagwati, High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom. More great photos by talented photographer Ray Morris-Hill at his website.

World Champion Viswanathan Anand failed to capitalise on chances that came his way and played out a draw with tail-ender Levon Aronian of Armenia in the third round of the London Chess Classic on Tuesday. Hunting for his first victory in a Classical Chess game since the last World Championship in May earlier this year, Anand got a better position with an extra pawn against Aronian but his opponent fought valiantly to split the points in the end.

World number one Magnus Carlsen of Norway played out a draw with co-leader Vladimir Kramnik of Russia while Michael Adams coasted to his second victory in as many games at the expense of top woman player Judit Polgar of Hungary.

In the other game of the day, debutant Englishman Gawain Jones shared the point with Hikaru Nakamura of United States.

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2012 London Chess Classic Round 2: Anand Escapes McShane with Draw

World champion Viswanathan Anand survived anxious moments before he salvaged a draw against Luke McShane of England in the second round of the London Chess Classic on Sunday. Having started with a bye, Anand had the advantage of playing white in the opener but the Indian ace could not find any real advantage and finally survived by the skin of the teeth to open his account.

World number one, Norwegian Magnus Carlsen registered himself as the highest-rated player ever in the history defeating second seed Levon Aronian of Armenia in a finely-crafted game.

Former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia made sure that Carlsen did not get a runaway lead in just two rounds and ground down Hikaru Nakamura of United States in a long drawn queen and pawns endgame. The other game between Judit Polgar of Hungary and Gawain Jones of England ended in an exciting draw.

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Kasparov Chess Exhibition, Lecture in Macau Today

Mr João Riquito poses beside the chess table conceived by Konstantin Bessmertny

Considered the “greatest chess master of all time”, Garry Kasparov is coming to Macau play a match against Xiong Junyang, a female Chinese chess master and two-time winner of the Chinese National Chess Championship in the junior category who resides in Macau.
The match is being organized by the “Riquito Advogados” solicitors’ office and is scheduled for December 2, at 2:30 pm in the STDM Auditorium, at the University Library of the University of Macau. The event is part of a series of activities as Mr João Riquito, who himself is a passionate chess player, believes “there are more interesting things to do than to deal with the law.” 

Thus the former World Chess Champion will not only come to play but also deliver a seminar on “The theory of decisions” the day before, on December 1st. This talk will take place at 11 am at the lawyers’ office; however, is only for members of the office and “a few selected guests.” 

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Asia's Biggest Chess Open in Kolkata December 3

In what is being billed as the strongest chess open in Asia, 36 Grandmasters and five women Grandmasters will be among 105 players from 16 countries taking part in the Rs.12 lakh Rose Valley Open International Chess Tournament to be played in Kolkata Dec 3-12. The field includes 13 Grandmasters who have FIDE ratings of over 2,600, Polish Radesk Wojtaszek (2,734) being the highest ranked player. Leading the Indian challenge will be former national chess champion Abhijeet Gupta.

The 25-year-old Super Grandmaster, a former world youth chess champion, has been one of the four seconds to world chess champion Viswanathan Anand during the Indian’s successful title defences in 2008 and 2010 and earlier this year.

Vietnam’s Le Quang Liem (2,705), Anton Koropov (2,702) of Ukraine, Netherlands player Sergei Tiviakov (2,663) are the second, third and fourth highest ranked GMs in the tourney to be staged at the Alekhine Chess Club, West Bengal sports minister Madan Mitra told a media meet here Sunday.

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Cat-astrophe Chess Video: Must Watch!

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Category-18 Chess in New Delhi with GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek as Top Seed

Former Indian national chess champion 

GM Parimarjan Negi with journalists.

The AIFC-AAI Chess Cup is being held in New Delhi, India from Dec 20-30, according to a press release. The six-player double round-robin format category-18 tournament will be played at the Airport Authority of India Club (AAI) here. his is the second edition of the AICF-AAI Cup, which was a category-17 event last year. The tournament was won by Fabiano Caruana of Italy in its inaugural edition and the player has subsequently moved into the top-10 of the FIDE world rankings.

All India Chess Federation (AICF) secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan said, "The list of players for this tournament is the best line up India have ever seen and we are expecting very tough competition in the ten days of the tournament."

This year's star attraction would be GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek of Poland. Wojtaszek is a top-50 player and would be looking to add valuable rating points to his tally. Leading the charge of challengers against him would be GM Anton Korobov of Ukraine, who boasts of a 2700+ rating and Russia's in-form player GM Evgeny Alekseev.

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