CT -30 5(218 5) The First Daily Chess Newspaper on the Net CT-305(2185) Wednesday, 1 November 2006 Test Yourself! World Chess News Shomoev - Sagafos Memorial of M.Chigorin S-Petersburg (1.23), 23.10.2006 Cap d'Agde, France. XIIIIIIIIY 8-+-+-trk+0 A grandmaster Rapid tournament 7zp-+-trpzpp0 is going on in Cap d'Agde, France. The knock-out stage has begun. The 6-+-+-+-+0 matches consist of 2 rapid games 5+-+-+R+-0 25+10 and blitz games in the case of 4-+-tRn+-+0 an equal score. 3zPL+-+-+P0 2-+P+-+P+0 Quarter-finals results: 1+-+-+-mK-0} xabcdefghy Karjakin – Zhao 2½-1½ Radjabov – Bacrot 2-0 Carlsen – Fressinet 2-0 Tishin - Belov Volokitin – Harikrishna 4-3 (Volokitin Memorial of M.Chigorin S-Petersburg won the Armageddon blitz game) (2.16), 24.10.2006 XIIIIIIIIY Semi-finals pairings (they will be 8-+-+-trk+0{ today): 7+p+-+-zpp0 Karjakin – Carlsen 6-+q+p+-+0 Radjabov – Volokitin 5zpNsn-wQ-+-0 4-+P+-+-+0 Official website 3+-+-+-+-0 2PzP-+-+PzP0 1+-+R+-+K0 Pune Rapid Knockout xabcdefghy Another strong rapid tournament is taking place in Pune, India, from 30th On This Day... October to 5th November 2006. The by GM Mikhail Golubev prize fund is rather high. It amounts to 514000 Rs. (Indian Rupies) which is Participant of five USSR more than $11000 (the first prize is Championships, IM Vasily Panov was 100000 Rs.). The participants include born on 1 November 1906. the Indian GMs Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Abhijit Kunte, Deepan IM Emil Ungureanu , a Romanian Chakravarthy, Pravin Thipsay, team member in three Chess Dibyendu Barua and WGMs Tania Olympiads (1968, 1970, 1972) was Sachdev, Swathi Ghate, Eesha born on 1 November 1936. Karavade. Russian GM Sergey Kishnev was Official website born on 1 November 1956. This issue is prepared by IM Andrey Deviatkin; technical editor Graham Brown Subscription is 15 euro for 3 months. For further details please refer to http://www.chesstoday.net CT-305(2185) Page 1 of 7 21th Open International Du >> When was the Touquet site was launched? A Swiss-system open tournament We started in late takes place in Touquet, France from 2001. We're looking 28th October to 3rd November 2006. forward to celebrating There are 6 grandmasters among the our 5th anniversary participants (the total number is 76): on December 10th of Burmakin, Kveynis, S. Savchenko, this year. Epishin, Radulski and Murey. >> Please, tell us how the concept After round 5 a group of seven of chessgames.com emerged, and players (Burmakin, Radulski, Epishin, who were the site founders. Murey, Kveynis, Giffard, Schuermans and Gharamian) are leading the In a way, we started with the name competition with 4 points. and worked backwards. You see, my very good friend (and strong chess Official website player) Alberto Artidiello, procured the domain name "chessgames.com" back in the mid-1990s, but hadn't Tal Memorial, Moscow done anything with it. I had been developing websites for several years The Mihail Tal Memorial will take with 20/20 Technologies, so we place in Moscow in November. The started talking about what he could do main event is a Category 20 all-play- with the domain name. Alberto had all. It will take place on November seen how java could be used to 6th-16th. There will be ten conveniently let users view chess participants: Svidler, Morozevich, games. This concept was widened to Aronian, Leko, Gelfand, Mamedyarov, include discussion forums, game Shirov, Grischuk, Ponomariov, collections, pages for openings and Carlsen. (Note that some players will tournaments, etc. come to Moscow directly from the Spanish team championship final, 20/20 Technologies had just finished which takes place on 3rd-4th developing a large financial site, and November.) we learned from that project how people love to be able to use a There will be also a blitz tournament database and post messages at the on 18th-19th November with same time. Searching a database can qualifiers on 16th and 17th November. be a daunting task, but when you can It is announced at the Russiachess.ru communicate with other people doing website that Anand, Polgar, Karpov exactly the same things you are, it and Kasimdzhanov will play in the suddenly becomes a community blitz event. experience. Interview with Daniel And so we took the idea of a database integrated with a discussion forum, Freeman of and applied it to chess. It was like a Chessgames.com marriage made in heaven. by GM Mikhail Golubev >> What is the site's policy Chessgames.com is an online chess regarding inclusion of new games database and one of the most into the database. 408,000 games impressive and unusual chess web (which you have as of now) is not projects around. In an interview for that much; from another point of Chess Today , some of secrets of their view some rare games by top success are revealed by Mr. Daniel players can be found there. Freeman, to whom we are very grateful. At chessgames, the ultimate purpose of the games is to start a discussion This issue is prepared by IM Andrey Deviatkin; technical editor Graham Brown Subscription is 15 euro for 3 months. For further details please refer to http://www.chesstoday.net CT-305(2185) Page 2 of 7 and foster a learning environment, 1,400 people watching the game live therefore we try to avoid poor quality from our site, and the game last over 7 games from creeping into the hours. At the end of the day there database. We prefer one of the players were 2,500 messages--five times to be at least master strength, but we bigger than the Game of the Century! do make exceptions. We're always happy to have games featuring Even more astounding was the fabulous tactics, interesting opening enormous interest in our latest feature: novelties, or that are highly illustrative The Chessgames Challenge . This is a in some way, even if played by correspondence game between the amateurs. Our users help contribute to chessgames users and GM Arno the database every day, and they Nickel. At the time of this writing there almost always excellent contributions, are 12,600 messages posted, and that's so we are starting to acquire many only after 18 moves. incredible games that are virtually unknown to the chess world. >> Do chess grandmasters contribute to your project, and if Some of our members transcribe old yes, in which areas? chess periodicals, books, and even personal score sheets, for inclusion We have no grandmasters on staff, but into the database. It's a lot of work, several grandmasters are regular but with so many people working at it, visitors. great things can be accomplished. Some notable players have donated We are committed to building our their materials to help enhance the number of games to roughly 750,000 site: GM Ray Keene has supplied us games, which is our estimate of the with many annotated games (many of total number of serious games ever them never published before), Dr. Eric recorded. I estimate we should Schiller provided us with some achieve that goal in 1-2 years, but we analysis and a large database of chess see no reason to rush this process. It's opening data, and GM Susan Polgar more important to keep the database visits our site to chat with members on free from erroneous games, duplicates, an almost daily basis. Canadian and poor quality games. champion Lawrence Day is also a frequent contributor. >> Which of the individual games in your database has most >> One of the free features at your comments by visitors, and how site is biographies of well-known many comments does it have? players. Who is doing this, highly useful, job? For the first few years, the answer to that question was always the same: Like Wikipedia, these are submitted by Fischer's famous game against Donald volunteer members that we call Byrne in 1956, the so-called " Game of "biography editors." The volunteers the Century ." Today it has 625 have done fabulous work here. The comments posted. Kasparov-Topalov biography editors cross-check each 1999 , which Kasparov regards as his others work very diligently, so best game, has always been close mistakes are hard to find and quickly behind. corrected. However, in recent years we've added >> Would it be correct to describe some new features which pushed ChessGames.com as something these games lower on the list. For one, like a "Chess Wikipedia" (but more we started broadcasting live games. specific than the real Wikipedia With members busy discussion the format allows) ? position in real time, we found that it's not difficult to see thousands of posts We love the idea behind Wikipedia, made in a single day. In Topalov- but we don't try to be like them. We Anand, San Luis, 2005 we had over are happy to think of ourselves as a This issue is prepared by IM Andrey Deviatkin; technical editor Graham Brown Subscription is 15 euro for 3 months. For further details please refer to http://www.chesstoday.net CT-305(2185) Page 3 of 7 "worldwide chess community"- a see enough examples of an ending place where anybody, from anywhere, played by grandmasters, you start to can come to discuss anything they see how the position can be won, or want about chess. drawn. >> Can you tell us, even if And then there's my personal favorite, approximately, how many the Sacrifice Explorer which lets you registered users the site has as of search games based on sacrificed now? material.