World Championship candidate and the Good Will Ambassador of UNICEF Teimour Radjabov visited Monte-Carlo this month and met the legendary French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo. They spent some time together, drinking coffee and talking on various subjects. To Radjabov’s delight, Belmondo explained that he likes chess very much and is an avid fan of the game.

Follow the matches on Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (Norsk
Rikskringkasting – NRK) website – *Live coverage through several video
cameras. Anand, Carlsen, Polgar and Hammer live on web-tv now.

GM Igor Rausis (Czech Republic), IM Hugo Tirard (France), IM Catalin Novrotescu (Romania), IM Kamran Shirazi (France), IM Chomet Pascal (France), and GM Alexandre Dgebuadze (Belgium) are leading the Open Dieppe 2010. After seven rounds they have 6,0/7 and are half a point ahead of IM Jean Luc Seret and a full point ahead of the chasing pack of 14 players.

Asia pays homage to its late great chess leader when the first-ever FIDE president Florencio Campomanes Memorial chess championships reel off this Saturday at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.

Thursday, August 26th, Susan Polgar participated live on BBC radio. The topic was a discussion on talent, and more specifically is there such a thing as natural talent and was led by Ros Atkins and featured Matthew Syed, sportswriter and columnist for the London Times, former #1 British table tennis player.

Carlsen, Anand, Polgar, and Hammer start the Arctic Securities Chess Stars on Saturday. Live games will be available here with computer analysis, starting at 14:30 CET.

The All India Chess Federation (AICF) announced its backing of the incumbent Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, for the office of the President of FIDE at a press conference on Thursday.

The team chess championship of Spain CECLUB Division de Honor will take place August 23 – 28, 2010, in Sestao, Vizcaya. It is the top club competition of the country and one of the strongest in Europe.

There are nine participants from the 2700+ club – GM Alexei Shirov, GM Vugar Gashimov, GM Etienne Bacrot, GM David Navara, GM Zolatan Almasi, GM Baadur Jobava, GM Ruslan Ponomariov GM Hikaru Nakamura, and GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

Baku Open 2010 will take place 22nd to 31st August at the “Af Hotel”, near Caspian Sea, Novkhani. 159 players from 14 countries are participating, US champion Gata Kamsky is top seeded.

Naiditsch achieved a victory against the Ukrainian national team player, Efimenko, by a narrow margin – 3,5 points to 2,5 points. Naiditsch won the second game of the match, while five other games were drawn. The Festival Transcarpathian Cup, which ended on 18th August, included many other events.