The current ECU President Mr. Silvio Danailov has taken one more leadership role, this time of the national Bulgarian Chess Federation. Danailov was elected to be the new President at the general assembly with 61 votes ‘for’ and 0 votes ‘against’.

19 National Arbiters from Italy, from Trieste to Sicily, and Iran participated in the seminar. 17 of them participated in the examination test, held after the end of the lectures.

The games are continuously played, follow them here with live broadcast. A total of 40 games will be played. In the case of a drawn match, 8 rapid games with a time control of 25+10 are played. If still tied, then 8 blitz games with a time control of 4+2 are played.

It is a great joy to see such an important event as Gibraltar maintaining its presence and continuing growing on the international chess market. Three rounds into the tournament Nigel Short (England), Nadezhda Kosintseva (Russia), Victoria Cmilyte (Lithuania), and Deep Sengupta (India) are leaders with 3,0/3. The latest round did not see many decisive games, but still the fighting spirit was present on the boards.

No matter how hard we try to organize the “perfect” event, something could still go wrong. My suggestion is if there are problems in the future, the players should alert the organizer as soon as possible. If the problems are not resolved to the satisfactory of the players then FIDE should be promptly notified. We must give the organizers and FIDE the opportunity to correct any and all potential problems first, internally, before bringing things up publicly.

It is even more surprising that the main accusation, repeatedly mentioned, is that the organisers of the Turkish Chess Federation tried to make money by overcharging the players. I would like to remind that the organisers have provided the full prize fund of the event (450,000 USD) by taking on their own cost the 20% contribution to FIDE and not deducting it from the players.

Live games with analysis by Stockfish 2.0.1 will be available daily on Chessdom / Chessbomb live games platform. Expect reports, photos, and news from one of the top open tournaments of the year.

Hou Yifan, the current Women’s World Chess Champion, has had to pull out of the Gibraltar Tradewise Chess Festival 2011 at the eleventh- hour. The young Chinese player informed the organizers of her decision, due to personal reasons because of critical illness in her family, as she was about to travel to the Rock for the tournament.

Fédération Française des Echecs (FFE) announces that it engaged, on December 22, 2010, a disciplinary action against the International Grandmasters Sebastien Feller and Arnaud Hauchard, like against the International Master Cyril Marzolo… Update: GM Sébastien Feller denies the charges of cheating.

“If you want to run ECU in the best possible manner, and to find the best organisers for each specific event, kindly answer us in time, and let us organise the best European Women Championship ever, in Gaziantep, in March 2011. We hope you will agree with our proposal.”