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Under the roof of the Palacio de Santoa in Madrid, with its heritage art and paintings on the walls and the roofs, Russian Grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi took another important step towards securing the right to challenge Magnus Carlsen yet against in next years World Championships of chess by taking a one point lead in the Candidates tournament after a draw against GM Fabiano Caruana.

After round nine Nepomniachtchi leads with 6.5 points and is followed by Caruana at 5.5.

However, the question is whether Carlsen will defend his title. The reigning world champion had said he may consider defending the title only if Frances Alireza Firouzja (Iranian born) tops the Candidates tournament. But Firouzja, a 19-year-old tipped for great things, is currently only in sixth place with four points. The current standings make the possibility of Carlsen opting out of the World Championship defence even greater. If that happens the winner and the runner-up of the Candidates will play each other for the title next year. But will the winner ever be able to emerge from the giant shadow of Carlsen?

Following a Nepomniachtchi game can make for great viewing because the Russian is one of the most expressive players on the tour. He had contoured his face in all sorts of ways during the World Championship game against Carlsen last year. What makes him unpredictable but also prone to a quick implosion is his unorthodox game and his instincts on the board. On Monday against Nepomniachtchi didnt remember the lines he had prepared. Yet he managed to pull off a draw.

I couldnt recall any of my prep because surely I have some but I just decided to play on my own, which I think was not the optimal way, Nepomniachtchi said.

However, Nepomniachtchi who blundered against Carlsen in the world championship, may not have to face such a formidable opponent next year if he wins the Candidates.

After retaining the title last year in Dubai, Carlsen had said: Its been clear to me for most of the year that this world championship should be the last. It doesnt mean as much any more as it once did. I havent felt that the positive outweighs the negative. For those who expect me to play the world championship next time, the chance that they will be disappointed is very great.

Carlsen had already said the reason for him looking to opt out was because he was unhappy with the format for the classical world chess championships as he believed it needed shorter time controls.

It is important for me to say that I do intend to play chess. I will continue to play chess, it gives me a lot of joy. But the world championship has not been so pleasurable.

Recently when asked during an Indian Express Idea Exchange about Carlsens decision to opt out, five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand had this to say. We have not had a situation like this since Bobby Fischer. Fischer quit the game and ran away. Carlsen, as I understand it, still wants to play other events but he wont play this one. My tendency is to believe him that he is serious but also when the moment comes to actually do it, he will hesitate because it is a big step. It will hurt the game for a while because after all you are losing a champion and it is a very strange transition. But eventually people will move on and the game will go on.

Original post:
Chess: Nepomniachtchi takes another step towards challenging Magnus Carlsen for the world title but will the Norwegian play at all? - The Indian...

The Chess Olympiad is the most respected team event in chess, first held in 1928. This year, the 44th Olympiad takes place in Chennai, India from July 28 through August 9, and Chess.com will be here with all the coverage. More than 100 countries will be competing to win gold, silver, and bronze medals and the Nona Gaprindashvili Trophy for best combined performance of the open and women's teams.

Chess.com will be covering this prestigious international event on all our usual channels: our Events page, ChessTV, Twitch, and YouTube. Don't miss a minute of the action!

It's been four years since the last Olympiad after the 2020 edition was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Back in 2018, GMs Ding Liren and Ju Wenjun led China to a sweep in both the Open and the Women's events.

Among the favorites in 2022 are China, host nation India, and the 2016 open champions, the United States, who will be represented in the open section by GMs Fabiano Caruana, Levon Aronian, Wesley So, Leinier Dominguez, and Sam Shankland.

Be sure to tune in to our coverage starting July 29! Let us know in the comments which countries and players you'll be rooting for!

Read the rest here:
Announcing Chess.com Coverage Of The 2022 Chess Olympiad - Chess.com

Shock waves rippled through the worlds zealous checkmating community when Nigel Short suddenly resigned as vice president of chess global governing body last week. Online speculators wondered if the move was a protest of Russias aggression in Ukraine or if there was some other scandal afoot.

The real reasons for the grandmaster stepping down June 21 are the people pushing pawns around in St. Croix, Short said by telephone while attending a tournament in Acqui Terme, Italy.

Short has alleged the United States Virgin Islands Chess Federation is fielding players who are not residents of the Virgin Islands and engaged in match-fixing.

Ranked 182 out of 184 participating countries and territories, the USVI is something of a chess backwater. That hasnt dampened a smoldering feud, however, between Short, the Federation, and the territorys alternative club, the USVI Chess Association.

The Lausanne, Switzerland-based International Chess Federation, known as FIDE (pronounced Fee-Day), launched an investigation into Shorts charges of match-fixing and issued a damning report June 4.

The Investigatory Panel found the best players in St. Croixs April tournament intentionally underplayed, allowing draws in matches they should have won. This gave the lesser players valuable points, raising their FIDE rankings and further validating the tournament, for which FIDE had issued a $5,000 grant. Although the report stopped short of asking the money be returned, it did strip the tournament of its FIDE rating and suggested further investigation.

Officious and legalistic, the highly detailed report stretches over 10 pages where, at times, the Vilnius, Lithuania-based investigators seemed disgusted.

There is really no need to explain this at all, as it is self-evident and an insult to chess, they wrote. The games are absurd, and hence the tournament does not merit a rating.

USVI Chess Federation President Margaret Murphy denied the charges and challenged the findings. In a nearly hour-long phone interview Sunday from her summer home in New Hampshire, Murphy said some of the suspicious matches ended in a draw because the better player had simply run out of time.

She said Short was out to undermine her and the USVI Chess Federation.

Ive always had a very good reputation in FIDE, Murphy said. Hes called me a liar. Hes called me a cheat. Hes called me a thief. I dont know why.

While FIDE agreed with Shorts allegation of match-fixing, they thought he went about it in an unseemly way, leading to his abrupt resignation.

Its not the first time Shorts blunt comments have upset the thin-skinned chess world. In 2007, Short was reprimanded for calling two FIDE officials dunderheads. In 2015, Short, a chess grandmaster since age 19, said he believed men were hardwired to be better chess players than women.

Not long after, Murphy said she had an intense verbal altercation with Short about the comment. She claims to barely remember the incident but that it may be the source of the bad blood.

On a recent goodwill tour through Latin America, Murphy said, Short met with the local federation wherever he went, with the exception of the USVI. She plans to fly to Panama soon to speak with a FIDE official about this and other snubs.

While Short alleged Murphy had failed to properly account for claimed travel expenses, Murphy said she has amassed 2,000 printed pages of evidence against Short and members of the rival USVI Chess Association.

The association launched in August 2021 as an alternative to the federation, said Gail Widmer, the associations secretary. Both are nonprofits registered with the Division of Corporations and Trademarks.

Widmer called the federation a clique dominated by cronyism, set up in such a way that Murphy could never lose power as gatekeeper to FIDE for Virgin Islanders. Widmer said association members chose her group even though FIDE does not recognize it.

Like Short, Widmer claimed the federation is violating residency rules for international play including that Murphy is a New Hampshire resident, not a Virgin Islander.

Widmer said only one player on the USVI team headed to Chennai, India, in July for the 44th Chess Olympiad is actually a Virgin Islands resident. Shes written to Virgin Islands Olympic Committee President Angel Morales, asking he appoint a team to investigate possible violations of the residency rules.

USVI Olympians have to be born in the territory or to Virgin Islands parents or live in the territory for at least three continuous years before the competition. Athletes under 18 may be granted special provisions if needed, according to the Olympic Committees bylaws and constitution.

While the Olympic Committee does govern chess in the territory, Morales doesnt hold players to the same residency standard as Olympic athletes. FIDE may call its competitions Olympiads, he said, but it isnt the same as the summer and winter Olympic games. The committee doesnt financially support chess players attending events.

Chess is not a sport that is in the Olympic games, Morales said. So, technically, we dont look into the requirements for each particular federation because there are 24 federations. We leave it up to the federations to do due diligence and, you know, follow their constitution as its written.

The USVI Chess Federation rewrote its constitution in March and registered it with the Lt. Governors Office in May. The residency rules require a national team player has a residence in the territory at least 183 days a year. Students in school abroad and military personnel stationed elsewhere are granted reprieve from the rule.

Morales suggested a few edits to the new federation constitution for clarity but didnt see any major problems, he said.

Not that it matters, Murphy said, because her reading of FIDEs rules is that any player born in the United States would be allowed to play for the USVI team as they are the same country.

When Widmer filed a grievance against the federation on the issue in March, Morales formed an ad hoc committee to look into it, he said.

They started this whole accusations back and forth between Ms. Murphy and Ms. Widmer about a year and a half ago, Morales said. The chess dispute, however, has been brewing since his first days on the job a decade ago, he said.

Continued here:
USVI Focus Of World Chess Turmoil - St. John Source

In my late forties, with father time beginning to gun for me, I decided to become a chess player. I wanted to line up a leisure activity for the day when my body would force me to quit banging into guys playing hockey, when my knees would tell me to stop chasing tennis balls across a hardcourt. Chess seemed like a pathway to staying nimble in my golden years. Didnt Max von Sydow stave off the Grim Reaper with a game of chess?

I had no idea I was walking into an airplane propeller of brutality. Chess is merciless and nasty. The image of tweedy professors and genteel clergymen playing friendly chess while sipping snifters of brandy is deceptive. Chess is the one place where those guys have the opportunity to kick somebodys ass and get away with it.The Netflix series The Queens Gambit pushed an old dramatic clich: chess as a metaphor for the fine line between genius and madness. But most players arent brilliant or nuts. Theyre just hyper-aggressive, only in select cases pathological. The great, eventually insane Bobby Fischer said the greatest pleasure he experienced over the board was breaking an opponents ego.

My first tutors were the old guys who played chess on Saturday mornings at what must be the world loudest public library, near my house. They unroll their silcone checkerboard mats, line up the pieces, and go at it. My personal Mr. Miyagi was Old Don, a retired high-school history teacher in his eighties. He gave me books and tactical advice, but he never let me win. Over and over, Id move mindlessly into a trap hed set for suckers a thousand times, while he sat Yodalike, as if nothing was going on. Game after game, week after week, hed get me in a choke hold and wait for me to tap out. Theres not much trash talk in adult chess. Its unspoken. A condescending nod. A look of pity. Old Don didnt have to say a word when he lorded it over me. But he might as well have just given me a wedgie, or banged my wife.

I have competed physically all my life. Ive hyperextended knees, and had my nose realigned in high-school wrestling. Boxing gloves and a 300-pound hockey defenseman have bruised my ribs. I broke two fingers on one play, in the end zone at a pick-up flag football game (dropped it!). The aggression of chess pales to none of this. Chess is in-close fighting, elbows and knees, pushing and shoving. Its pulling the guys jersey over his head and punching. Its a knife fight in a phone booth. You cant hide.

Theres a ludicrous sport called chessboxing, popular in Germany and Russia, where players alternative between rounds of fighting and moves on the chessboard. You lose by getting knocked out or checkmated. The participants tend to be world-class in neither. They just share the same dumb macho desire to dominate others physically and mentally. Its no surprise that Wladimir Klitschko, who was the undefeated heavyweight boxing champion for a decade, plays chess. Its is an even purer way than boxingto obliterate a guy. No referees, no judges decisions, just you and me, simple and free.

Certain moves in chess are particularly vicious: the fork, the skewer, the lethal discovered check. All of them, in one move, threaten two of an opponents pieces at once. If one of the threatened pieces is his king, hes got to save the king, and the other piece is a goner. If thats the queen, his throat has been slit. You learn painfully to avoid these daggers and to set them up deceptively. You disguise offense as defense moving your queen seemingly to escape attack but really to line up your own killing move. You lay bait and lure opponents to the deathtraps, the way George Foreman, at age 45 in 1994, used a throwaway left hookin Round 10 to move heavyweight champ Michael Moorer toward Foremans booming right fist, which knocked Moorer out. You want to take my straying bishop with your queen? Come at me bro. Thats right. Thats right where I want her. Boom!

I entered a tournament at a social hall in New Jersey, for a $10 entry fee, and played in the bottom rung. Tournaments are endurance tests games can last for hours. I won my first game, then played a 7-year-old named Chloe, who was weirdly intimidating in her pink Hello Kitty coat and hair band. Early in the game, I blundered, and she took my queen, sternly, without even a smirk on her face. After that I tightened up and played as dull as I could, sort of punishing both of us with tedium. She finally lost patience and made her own mistakes. Stupid kid. I survived to win. The mistakes make you stronger.

To build my expertise, I solved chess puzzles and played online. In online chess, where hotheads from around the globe play anonymously, you do get juvenile taunts, typed in a chat window on the screen. Jajajaja a Brazilian punk, who captured my queen, cackled as he drew out his victory. A Russian, in his native tongue, called me a donkey dick (thanks, Google Translate). Need a lesson? one jerk typed after Id botched an opening. I shot back What you got? as I went into survival mode. Let me learn from you, I typed. Minutes later, he blundered. I pounced. Sumbitch, he wrote, and resigned. Good game, I wrote.

One summer night, staying over in New York for work, I strolled past Union Square Park. It was hot, and the chess hustlers had boards and clocks on tables, taking small donations to play and humiliate NYU students. One of them was a big guy who resembled David Ortiz. Hed barely been paying attention to the games he won, focusing on a family-size tub of ice cream he was excavating. When the seat across his table opened up, and people looked around, I sat down. Two games of five-minute blitz chess for five dollars. You smack a piece down to a new spot and whack the top of the clock. Thunk-bang, thunk-bang. The first game made my head spin I didnt know I could lose so fast. He scooped more vanilla. I didnt even turn my head to see what the onlookers thought.

For game two, he moved as if invulnerable. I coiled into a tight defense. Pushed my pawns toward his front line. Pulled my queen back to a position that didnt look threatening. With the clock ticking down, I sacrificed a knight to open a path up for my rook up the left side of the board, where his king had castled. Suddenly my queen and rook had unstoppable pathways to a square beside his cornered king. It was over. He looked up from the board, put down the spoon, and reached to shake my hand in resignation. The assembled eggheads nodded their approval. I tried not to look too proud or shocked, but I cant promise I pulled it off.

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Originally posted here:
Why Competitive Chess Is as Vicious as 10 Rounds in a Boxing Ring - InsideHook

International Master S. Nitin (8 points) drew with fellow International Master Ravichandran Siddharth (7) in the 9th round of the 13th Chennai Open International Grandmaster chess tournament here on Saturday. The draw on the top board saw Nitin's lead cut down to half a point as GM Boris Savchenko (Russia), Alexei Federov (Belarus), Aronyak Ghosh, Himal Gusain (both India) moved on to 7.5 points.

The results (Round 9, Indians unless specified):

S. Nitin 8 drew with Ravichandran Siddharth 7; S. Prasannaa 6.5 lost to Boris Savchenk (Russia) 7.5; P. Konguvel 6.5 lost to Alexei Fedorov (Belarus) 7.5; Aronyak Ghosh 7.5 bt Vahe Baghdasaryan (Arm) 6.5; Himal Gusain 7.5 bt Daakshin Arun 6.5; M. Kunal 6.5 drew with J. Deepan Chakkravarthy 6.5; Aaryan Varshney 6.5 drew with Kirill Stupak (Belarus) 6.5; Ajay Karthikeyan 6.5 drew with P. Saravana Krishnan 6.5; K. Priyanka 6.0 lost to L. R. Srihari 7.0; R. R. Laxman 6.5 drew with Jubin Jimmy 6.5; Nguyen Van Huy (Vie) 7.0 bt P. R. Hirthickkesh 6.0; V. A. V. Rajesh 7.0 bt K. P. Pranav 6.0; Samriddha Ghosh 5.5 lost to N. B. Hari Madhavan 6.5.

The 23rd Hercules Cycles TN State-level inter-school & college chess tournament for u-8,10,12,14 & 25 boys & girls will be organised on July 16 and 17 at S.B.O.A MHSS, Anna Nagar Western Extension, Chennai 600101. Entries close on July 12.

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Chennai Open chess: Nitin remains on top - The Hindu