CT-1(785) The First Daily Chess Newspaper on the Net Editors: GM Baburin, GM Scherbakov, IM Barsky, GM Golubev, IM Notkin CT-1(785) 1st January 2003 th HAPPY NEW YEAR! defeating his compatriot Vasily Ivanchuk in Moscow - 4½:2½. ear friends, the Chess Today Team wishes you a Happy and Einstein Group plc took over the rights Prosperous New Year – may all (contracts or arrangements) previously D held by the troubled Brain Games your dreams come true in 2003! Enjoy good health, enjoy life and, of course, Network for the Brains in Bahrain play good chess! (Man v Machine), Dortmund qualifier and 2003 Chess Championship match The New Year Day is always special – against Vladimir Kramnik. people reflect on what happened in the past year and try to look into the February 2002. future. This day has some magic and I would like to get some of that magic Five GMs - Gregory Kaidanov (USA), into this issue. Alexander Grischuk (Russia), Aleksej Aleksandrov (Byelorussia), Alexander We will leave aside tournament news Shabalov (USA) and Vadim Milov for a day or two and look at more (Switzerland) tied for first at super- global events. Let us start with a look strong Aeroflot Open in Moscow (with back at the most important events of 6½ out of 9). Kaidanov was first on 2002! tiebreak. January 2002. GM Eduardas Rozentalis (2598, Lithuania) won the huge open (678 Two rising Indian chess stars – players!) in Capelle la Grande with 7½ Sasikiran (2569) and Harikrishna out of 9. (2502) tied for 1st at Hastings, together with GM Barsov (2525, Uzbekistan) – Well-known chess author GM Edmar on 6½ out of 9. Mednis died (1937-2002). Viorel Bologan (2668) won a Loek van Wely drew his match vs. tournament in Pamplona with 7 out of Rebel – 2:2, all games were decisive 9, 1½ points clear of Radjabov and White won every game! (another rising star), Almasi and Andersson. March 2002. Nigel Short (2663) won his match Veselin Topalov and Boris Gelfand against Hannes Stefansson (2604) in tied for first at NAO Masters (cat. 18) Reykjavik - 4½:1½! in Cannes. The winners scored 6 out of 9. Elo-favourite Alexander Larry Christiansen and Nick De Morozevich had probably the worst Firmian tied for first at the US result in his career, finishing clear last. Championship in Seattle. Christiansen won the tie-break match. Garry Kasparov won Linares (cat. 20) – with 8 out of 12. Ruslan Ponomariov Evgeny Bareev won Corus tournament competed with his most of the in Wijk aan Zee with 9 out of 13. distance and finished clear second on Alexander Grischuk was second. 6½ points, proving that his result Adams and Morozevich tied for third results were justified. Kasparov won place. their mini-match 1½:½. Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov became GM Yasser Seirawan proposed a plan the new FIDE World Champion after on unification of the chess world. The This issue is prepared by GM Alexander Baburin; technical editor Ralph Marconi Subscription is 19 Euros for 4 months. For further details please refer to http://www.chesstoday.net/ CT-1(785) Page 1 of 8 Chess Today brings the latest chess news, annotated games and interviews directly to your mailbox, daily! plan got support from Bessel Kok. GM Sergei Movsesian (Czech Republic, 2624) won a category 16 GMs Jaan Ehlvest and Oleg Korneev, tournament in Sarajevo, ahead of Ivan won the strong Reykjavik Open with 7 Sokolov, Shirov, Dreev, etc. points out of 9. June 2002. GM Alexander Morozevich won the Amber tournament in Monaco Garry Kasparov won the FIDE Grand (blindfold and rapid chess) with Prix tournament in Moscow. In the combined score of 15 points out of 22, final he defeated Alexander ahead of Shirov (14½) and Leko Khalifman, while in the semi-final he (13½). Morozevich was best in beat Teimour Radjabov. However, blindfold chess, while Gelfand was both matches were not easy for best in rapid tournament. Kasparov. GM Sarunas Sulskis (Lithuania) won Nigel Short won a strong closed the strong Goodricke International tournament in Malmo Open in Calcutta. Vladimir Kramnik won a match in April 2002. advanced chess in Leon, Spain, against Vishy Anand - 3½:2½. Only one game Peter Leko beat Alexander Grischuk in was decisive. the final of FIDE Grand Prix in Dubai. Alexei Shirov was third. WGM Zhu Polish GM Bartlomiej Macieja won the Chen knocked out Ruslan Ponomariov European Championship in Batumi, in the first round of the event. Georgia. GM Alexander Onischuk, who settled July 2002. in USA, won a strong closed tournament in Siberia. Peter Leko won the Dortmund Qualifier. He beat Alexey Shirov May 2002. (2½:½). in the semi-final and in the final defeated Veselin Topalov Vishy Anand won a Rapid Chess (2½:1½), thus gaining the right to tournament in Prague, organised by challenge Vladimir Kramnik. Bessel Kok. In the final he beat Anatoly Karpov. Kasparov lost to China-USA match took place in Ivanchuk earlier in the tournament. Shanghai. The hosts won 20½:19½. Prague Agreement was signed by GM Ilia Smirin (2676, Israel) won Ilyumzhinov, Kramnik and Kasparov. closed tournament in Biel (cat. 16). There were immediate complaints from some top GMs, who claimed that GM Loek Van Wely won the Lost Boys the agreement left them outside of Open in Amsterdam with 8½ points World Championship for 2 years. out of 9 – 2949 performance! Young Cuban GM Lazaro Bruzon won August 2002. Capablanca Memorial in Havana. Etienne Bacrot won the French Russian GM Vadim Zvjaginsev (2645) Championship, defeating Joel Lautier had the best result of his career so far, in the final match. winning category 16 tournament in Essen (Germany) with 7½ points out September 2002. of 9 – 2905 performance! Peter Leko was second with also a great result – 7 GM Alexander Lastin (2625) won the points. This issue is prepared by GM Alexander Baburin; technical editor Ralph Marconi Subscription is 19 Euros for 4 months. For further details please refer to http://www.chesstoday.net/ CT-1(785) Page 2 of 8 Chess Today brings the latest chess news, annotated games and interviews directly to your mailbox, daily! Russian Championship in Krasnodar. Russia won gold in men's Olympiad in Bled (Slovenia), ahead of Hungary and The New Match of the Century took Armenia. place in Moscow on 8-11 September. It was a 10 round Scheveningen rapid In the women's event China won play (25 minutes + 10 seconds per again, though Georgia led for most of move) tournament between 10 players the tournament. But that team from Russia and 10 from the Rest of collapsed on the finish. Russia took the World. To the surprise of many, silver and Poland – bronze. ROW won 52-48! GM Yasser Seirawan was captain of the winning team. GMs Viktor Korchnoi and Yona Kosashvili won in Curaçao Open. Shirov was the top scorer – 7 out of 10!. 3Ks – Kasparov, Kramnik and GM Thomas Luther (2538) won Karpov had a negative result. German Championship. Humpy Koneru became the youngest December 2002. girl to become a GM, beating the previous record of Judith Polgar. GM Igor Khenkin (2603, Germany) won strong open in Dominican BOSNA Sarajevo won the European Republic with 7½ points out of 9, Team Cup, ahead of "Norilsky Nikel" ahead of peter Svidler, Sergei Volkov, (Norilsk), Polonia Plus GSM (Warsaw) Daniel Fridman and Hikaru Nakamura and NAO. (7 points). GM Eduard Gufeld (1936-2002) died GM Ilya Smirin won Israeli in USA from a heart attack. Championship. October 2002 Russian GM Filippov won in the Torre Memorial in Mexico. Etienne Bacrot beat Boris Gelfand in a match in France - 3½:2½. Only the Anatoly Karpov defeated his old rival last game was decisive. Garry Kasparov in rapid chess match in New York - 2½:1½. Anand and Xu Yuhua defended their World Cup titles won in Shenyang GMs Kasimdzhanov and Bologan China in 2000 as they won again in the share first place at Pamplona. FIDE World Cup in Hyderabad, India. In the final Anand beat Rustam ¤¤¤ Kasimdzhanov 1½:½. As I said, the New Year Day is somewhat magic and so today I want Vladimir Kramnik drew against DEEP to show you some truly beautiful and FRITZ in Bahrain – 4:4. He had an simply bizarre and weird positions – early lead (3:1), but then lost two enjoy our collection! games. Kudriashov – I. Ivanov USSR, 1979 Young Hungarian GM Peter Acs XIIIIIIIIY (2591) won category 17 closed 9Q+-+-trk+0 tournament in Netherlands. 9+P+-+-vl-0 9-+-zp-+-+0 November 2002. 9+-+P+-+-0 9-tR-+P+-+0 9+-+-+pzpp0 Boris Gelfand won rapid tournament 9-+-+-+-+0 in Cap d'Agde, defeating Anatoly 9tR-+-trNmK-0 Karpov in the final (2:0). xiiiiiiiiy White to play This issue is prepared by GM Alexander Baburin; technical editor Ralph Marconi Subscription is 19 Euros for 4 months. For further details please refer to http://www.chesstoday.net/ CT-1(785) Page 3 of 8 Chess Today brings the latest chess news, annotated games and interviews directly to your mailbox, daily! The last moves were 1.a8£ h3!!. XIIIIIIIIY Here White resigned despite being a 9-tr-+-+-mk0 queen up and able to get another one! 9+p+-vl-+p0 As you can see here, his decision was 9-+-zp-sn-tr0 quite reasonable: 9zp-zpPzpK+-0 2.b8£ f2+ 3.¢h1 g2+ 4.¢h2 ¥e5+ 9-+P+Pzp-+0 9+-+-+P+-0 5.¢xh3 gxf1£+ 6.¢g4 £g2+ 7.¢h5 9PzP-wQNvLR+0 £h3+ 8.¢g6 ¦g1+ 9.¦xg1 fxg1£#. 9+-+-+R+-0 xiiiiiiiiy 2.¦xe1 f2+ 3.¢h1 fxe1£–+; White's king is on its own and has 2.£xf8+ ¥xf8 3.¦b2 ¦xa1 4.b8£ h2+ hard time surviving the attack.