Chess.com €50 Discount for ACO World Chess Championship 2014

The Amateur Chess Organization (ACO) and Chess.com have partnered for a special opportunity for discounted rates for the ACO World Chess Championship 2014!



Did you know that every chess player now has the opportunity to become a world champion?

 That's right! As we look forward to this November's “professional level” World Championship Match between Carlsen and Anand, the world's largest group of amateur chess enthusiasts (that's right, you guys) should know that there is also the ACO World Amateur Chess Championship to consider!

All players rated below 2400 can compete in the Championship, and this year Chess.com has partnered with ACO to offer members a very special discounted entry fee. 

The World Amateur Championships are broken into different 7 rating classes, ensuring that each player has a fair chance of becoming world champion in his or her class!

 About the ACO...

Don't know about the ACO?...The Amateur Chess Organization organizes events for amateur chess players all around the world.

The 1st ACO World Amateur Chess Championship (WACC) took place in Dubai in 2012 and had 72 players.

The 2nd ACO Championship was held on the Greek island Crete in May 2013, where 168 players from 28 countries participated.


The 3rd ACO World Amateur Chess Championship (WACC) will take place on the beautiful Greek island of Rhodes on June 7th-16th, 2014.

...And this year's championship is an “open tournament” (everyone can sign-up!) and has total cash purse of 5000 Euros!

Sections:A: 2200 – 2400
B: 2000 – 2199
C: 1800 – 1999
D: 1600 – 1799
E: 1400 – 1599
F: 1200 – 1399
G: Unrated – 1199

The winner of each rating group will become the 2014 ACO World Amateur Champion of their respective rating class.

Chess.com Members who register by emailing this address will receive the special discount of 50 EURO per player / entry!

acowacc@chess.com

More information can be found at the official tournament website!


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Women’s World Chess from Sept 10

Women’s World Chess Championship Match 2013 between the current World Champion Anna Ushenina of Ukraine and her challenger, Hou Yifan of China (former World Champion 2010-2012), is scheduled to start on September 10.

The drawing of colours will be conducted during the opening ceremony which will take place at 3 p.m. The player getting the white colour in game one plays game five with the black pieces). The time control is: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.
 

The winner of the ten-game match is the first player to reach 5.5 points or more. If the scores are level after the regular ten games, after a new drawing of colours, four tie-break games will be played, with 25 minutes for each player and an increment of ten seconds after each move.

If the scores are level after the four rapid games, then, after a new drawing of colours, a match of two games will be played with a time control of five minutes plus three seconds' increment after each move. In case of a level score, another two-game match will be played to determine a winner. If there is still no winner after five such matches (i.e. after ten games), one sudden death game will be played. This involves a drawing of lots, the winner being able to choose the colour. The player with the white pieces receives five minutes, the player with the black pieces four minutes, with an increment of three seconds per move from move 61 on. In case of a draw, the player with the black pieces is declared the winner.

The prize fund for this match is 200,000 Euros and will be split between the players as follows:
60% for the winner and 40% to the loser if the match ends within the 10 regular games. In case the winner is decided by tie-break games, she will receive 55% and loser 45%.

Anna Ushenina holds the title after the 2012 Women's World Chess Championship (knockout format) in Khanty-Mansiysk while Hou Yifan had a right to challenge her after she became first in the Grand Prix Series 2011-2012.

Anna Ushenina and Hou Yifan played their first game in 2006 during World Chess Olympiad (Turin, Italy) and the game ended in a draw. In 2007 another draw was signed during Russian team championship. Hou Yifan took the lead in their encounter in 2007-2008 when she won three games in a row. However, in the end of 2008 Anna Ushenina managed to outplay Chinese prodigy during the European Club Cup. Another draw in 2009 and the players stopped meeting over the board for the next 4 years, till 2013! Anna Ushenina defeated Hou Yifan with black pieces in their last encounter during Geneva Grand Prix.

Games between these two have been consistently hard-fought. Hou Yifan is one point ahead according to overall results. For her part, however, Anna Ushenina played 7 out of 8 games with Black and has victory in their last game at Geneva GP in 2013.

According to FIDE rating Hou Yifan (2609) holds the second position among women after Judit Polgar. Anna Ushenina (2500) is on 17th place.

The official hotel and playing venue: http://www.chunlanhotel.com/
The official website: taizhou2013.fide.com

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Adhiban wins Barcelona Sants Chess

Former world under-16 champion B. Adhiban, who recently went all the way to the third round at the Chess World Cup, has won the Barcelona Sants Open chess tournament this Monday. It's been a great run for Indian chess as Pentala Harikrishna recently won the Biel Chess Tournament, Parimarjan Negi won in Copenhagen, S.P. Sethuraman won Leiden and M.R. Lalith Babu won the Vlissingen event.

Adhiban was the only titled Indian in the 298-player contest and finished a point ahead of Lazaro Bruzon of Cuba. The second to fifth places were shared by Cori Jorge (Peru), Vladimir Potkin (Russia), Jan Gustafsson (Germany) and Firat Burak (Turkey) with eight points each. 

The tournament format was 10-round Swiss. There were two playing groups: Open A (all players eligible) and Open B (U2000). Open Internacional de Sants is part of the 10th Catalan Chess Circuit. -- Agencies

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World Jr Blind Chess Bronze for Darpan

Nineteen-year-old Vadodara boy Darpan Irani is back home after making a splash at the World Individual Junior Blind Chess Championship at Belgrade in Serbia.

At the event, organised by the International Braille Chess Association from August 21 and September 1, Darpan won a bronze medal — a first medal win in the category by India in 16 years since the country's blind chess federation was recognised by the international recognising body.

Darpan defeated his nearest rival from Serbia in the world junior individual braille chess championship to emerge third, missing silver medal by just half a point.However, Darpan is more than happy to have won the first medal for his country, and believes he could have done much better had he focused more on practising chess rather than on his Chartered Accountancy studies, which are equally important for him if not more.

"This is the first time India has won any medal in this category, and I am glad to have emerged victorious. It was a do-or-die situation in the last round, as drawing was not an option. Drawing would not have fetched me a medal," he said.

Though, this was the first time Darpan won big, it wasn't the first time he played at the international level. He played in Serbia in 2010 and in Greece in 2011

This was the first time he had travelled abroad without his parents accompanying him. "Organisers insisted on my parents accompanying me but I refused, because I would have to become independent someday. After a lot of discussions and deliberations, they finally agreed," he said.

Of the nine games that were played in the tourney, Inani could not perform well in the first four, which dimmed his chance to win gold. "There were some miscalculations due to time pressure, so I had to repeat moves. Moreover, I made some technical errors in between," he said.

Darpan already has several wins to his credit. He became the youngest person to win the national chess championship for the blind in 2010. -- PTI

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Kramnik wins World Cup: Final Video

Vladimir Kramnik claimed victory in the FIDE World Cup after he drew the fourth classical game in the final match against Dmitry Andreikin. The overall score in the match was 2.5:1.5 in Kramnik's favor. The former World Champion won the first game of the final match while the other three games finished in a draw. The former World Chess Champion didn’t lose a single game during the event and showed great play. He won four out of seven matches in classical chess and the three others in rapid. His opponents were G.Bwalya, M.Kobalia, A.Areshchenko, V. Ivanchuk, A.Korobov, M.Vachier-Lagrave and D.Andreikin.

 

FIDE World Cup 2013: video report Day 24 Final Game 4, with Susan Polgar, Kema Goryaeva and Anastasiya Karlovich.

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World Cup Semis: 3 Russians, 1 French

The World Cup semi-finals begin at India Time 6.30 pm in Tromso. The two ratings favorites in their matches - Peter Svidler and Fabiano Caruana - lost in rapid chess against Dmitry Andreikin and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave respectively in the tiebreaks on Sunday.

Photo: Anastasiya Karlovich

Peter Svidler lost the first game and didn’t manage to even the score in the second. Fabiano Caruana drew with White against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave but lost the second game. Three Russian players - Vladimir Kramnik, Dmitry Andreikin and Evgeny Tomashevsky - plus Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, will play in the semi-finals.

Playing with Black Maxime Vachier-Lagrave made a smart opening choice in the first game and managed to equalise quite easily. He was unsure if he chose the most precise way to make a draw but it seems Black was in no real danger during the whole game.

In the second game Fabiano Caruana chose the Dutch Defence but Black got a passive position without counterplay. White's main idea was to push e4 at the right moment and when he finally succeeded in carrying out his plan Black’s position collapsed.

Fabiano Caruana lost his chance to qualify for the Candidates via the FIDE World Cup. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave will play against Vladimir Kramnik, who knocked out Anton Korobov the day before.

Dmitry Andreikin successfully followed the same scenario as in the previous match against Sergey Karjakin. After two draws in classical chess he won the first rapid game against Peter Svidler. Neither Karjakin nor Svidler could level the score. In the second game Andreikin forced a draw in a better position and goes through to the semi-finals. Peter Svidler, the winner of the World Cup in 2011, leaves Tromso.

Dmitry Andreikin will play now against Evgeny Tomashevsky. Both players are from Saratov (Russia). The fight in the semi-final matches will be very tough as only two out of the four players will qualify for the Candidates Tournament in March 2014.

Time controls and rules
The time control for each two-game match is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move one. If the score is equal there are two rapid chess tiebreak games, played at a rate of 25 minutes for each player with an increment of 10 seconds per move. If the score is still equal then two accelerated games will be played, with a time control of 10 min + 10 sec. If the score is still equal two more games will be played at 5 min + 3 sec. If the winner is still not determined then a final Armageddon game with 5 minutes for White and 4 minutes for Black, with a 3 sec increment after move 60, will be played. In this game Black has draw odds (i.e. he wins if the game is drawn).

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Kasparov Secrets: Intuition, Discipline

Garry Kasparov : 'A game designed for me'
The chess grandmaster tells Al Jazeera the key to his success has not only been his talent but his discipline and intuition.

Acknowledged by many as the greatest chess player of all time, Garry Kasparov has been marching to his own algorithm his whole life.

Born in Baku in 1963, Kasparov has taken on the greatest champions and won. And since retiring from the game, he has been involved in a political battle with one of the most powerful and controversial men alive - Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia.

Sir David Frost travels to Abu Dhabi to join Kasparov on his mission to promote chess in the Gulf. Kasparov shares his secrets of the game, discusses milestones in his life and expands on why chess should be compulsory in school curriculum. He even offers a few tips to some of the young chess players.

 

Kasparov impressed his parents at a very young age, when he finished a chess game they were struggling to solve. "I knew it was a game designed for me," he tells Sir David.

After losing his father when he was only seven, Kasparov's mother dedicated her life to nurturing her son's talent.

For a young boy, there was no better place to be a gifted chess player than the former Soviet Union. The game which is 1,500 years old, was actively promoted by Soviet leaders as to them, chess was a way of demonstrating not only sporting but intellectual superiority.

By 1976, Kasparov had won all the Soviet junior titles, and by the age of 14, he knew he would be a real contender. "I knew I was good, even special," he says.

Kasparov tells Sir David the key to his success has not only been his talent but his discipline and intuition: "if you don't trust your intuition you will never become a good decision maker".

Strategising is a crucial element of the game and Kasparov can visualise up to 15 moves ahead. And demonstrating his exceptional memory, he recalls games and moves as far back as 30 years ago. Some of those games include headline-making matches against his arch-rival, Anatoly Karpov.

"Karpov is a very solid player, positional, quiet…. I'm totally the opposite… Any match of that calibre is a personal rivalry, period," he tells Sir David.

For five months in 1984, the two players battled it out but the International Chess Federation eventually intervened to call it a draw. Kasparov was furious and remains so to this day. He tells Sir David how he broke away from the federation, forming his own alternative, the International Chess Association. The institution did not last and it coincided with the demise of the Soviet Union.

But, the crumbling of the Soviet Union triggered a personal tragedy for Kasparov.

In 1990, Kasparov and his family, who are of Armenian descent, were caught up in the vicious programmes against Armenians in Azerbaijan, forcing thousands of ethnic Armenians to flee. And that is when Kasparov escaped to Moscow.

"The psychological trauma was awful - this thought is still painful" he says.

Following his move to Moscow, Kasparov engaged against a new partner - IBM's super computer, Deep Blue, which created huge interest worldwide.

But most recently, having retired from the game of chess, Kasparov has embarked on a new mission - to bring democracy and justice to Russia and to see Putin ousted from power. He tells Sir David of his treatment at the hands of Russian police, of being arrested and his time in a Russian prison, and why he was keen to stand up for the members of the rebel pop group Pussy Riot, who were jailed after an anti-Putin video.

Kasparov finishes his conversation with Sir David by telling him why he is now too old to play competitive chess and the show ends with an extraordinary twist on Garry Kasparov's future - he will no longer be returning to Russia.

The Frost Interview can be seen each 

week at the following times 

GMT: Friday: 2000; Saturday: 1200; 

Sunday: 0100; Monday: 0600.

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