Alexandra Kosteniuk, former Women’s World Chess Champion, Olympic champion as a member of the Russian national team, will take part in a women’s round-robin tournament of Moscow Open 2011. Despite this competition being new for the festival programme, it has immediately attracted the star players.
Houdini 1.5 is the new star of computer chess engines on the horizon. It proves the trend by taking early lead with perfect score at the first computer super tournament for 2011. Houdini got a kick start with 3,0/3 after defeating Naum 4.2, Shredder 12, and Hiarcs13.2 at the start of TCEC.
UT Dallas players defeated longtime rival University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), as well as teams from Texas Tech University and emerging chess powerhouse UT Brownsville for the top spot. The tournament was played on December 27-30 in Milwaukee.
Remembering Paul Keres Preliminary Tournament is being played on 7th and 8th January in Tallin, Estonia. Former World Champion Anatoly Karpov is also in Estonia, participating in the events dedicated to marking 95 years from Paul Keres’ birth.
The first super tournament for computers for 2011 is starting. TCEC Premier Division finals begin today with the participation of the world’s top engines. Follow the games daily with live analysis.
WGM Soumya Swaminathan is the new National Champion of India after winning the 2010-2011 edition of the championship. WGM Swathi Ghate and WGM Mary Ann Gomes managed to take full point and climb into shared second, taking silver and bronze respectively.
Following the example of 2010-2011 analysis of the National Chess Federation of Philippines, the Indian Chess Federation has also released a new year’s article. In it, Arvind Aaron analyzes the key points of 2010 and the expectations for 2011 based on them.
Inspiring, breathtaking, awesome! This is the 2011 Images of Chess Calendar, that started out as a hobby for the love of the game. A perfect way to start 2011 with the energy of chess captured in images (video added).
Laurent Fressinet and Zahar Efimenko complete the 2700 club favorites for top places in the group. However, their task will not be easy at all as in Tata Steel B group are the most progressing and rating hungry opponents possible – Wesley So, Le Quang Liem, and Jon Ludvig Hammer.
The January rating list is just out and here are the participants of this years edition of Tata Steel 2011 with their updated ratings. The A group has a rating average of 2739, that is 3 points more per player compared to the September rating list. The biggest gainers are Levon Aronian (22 points), Nakamura (14 points) and Grischuk (13 points).
