In the sixth round of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, Levon Aronian maintained the sole lead, but his first loss allowed his closest rivals to come closer. Thanks to a 1½-½ win over Sergey Karjakin, Magnus Carlsen moved up to second place, one point behind Aronian. As all blindfold games were drawn, Aronian stayed in the lead in the blindfold competition. In the rapid competition Carlsen overtook the Armenian grandmaster. The € 1,000 Game of the Day Prize was awarded to Vasily Ivanchuk for his rapid win over Vishy Anand.

After round 6 (of 11) Aronian is in the lead with 8½ points followed by Carlsen with 7½ and Anand and Grischuk with 7 points. Round 7 is on saturday. Offical tournament page with results, photos, schedules and games: Amber Tournament 2011. ...

This interview with Levon Aronian was made after he won the Tal Memorial in Moscow but before the Blitz Championship. When he said 'I’ve never considered myself a strong blitz player' he did not know that a few days later he will be the Blitz Worldchampion. The original interview was published in Russian on chesspro.ru and a translation was given by chessintranslation.com.

You don’t appear to be very satisfied. Are you disappointed with your result?
No, I’m happy with the result on the whole, but the last game wasn’t very interesting.

Eljanov hasn’t done very well here. Didn’t you want to bluff a little?
I thought about it, but I didn’t take the risk. There are positions which simply aren’t suited to playing for a win. I think that even if you woke Pavel up at 4am he still wouldn’t have lost. The level of all the players at this tournament is still very high.
I prepared all morning right up until the game. I won’t reveal all the secrets, but I prepared a very interesting line. In the game, however, Pavel took a different path. I equalised, but it was just a draw. I thought he might want to beat me and would choose a more aggressive line.

In general, did you have good luck at this tournament?
In the first game I was lucky, while the second win was deserved. I didn’t take my chance against Karjakin. Of course, I wanted to win the tournament.

Where do you get motivation from – what aims do you set yourself?
The motivation is that I can still see flaws in my game, including my opening knowledge, and I want to get rid of those flaws. The results will then come of their own accord.
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The 16th Asian Games have started, and take place from November 12th to the 27th. Chess made its Asian Games debut in the 15th Asian Games, Doha, in 2006. The chess competition is divided into two events, the individual rapids, which are nine rounds of action with the men's and women's sections, and the team events, with 25 men's teams, and 20 women's teams, played at the slower 90 minutes plus a 30 second increment per move.

The Men's Team event started yesterday It will finish on 26 November. The individual events are finished already. Hou Yifan of China won the gold medal in women's individual chess section (Silver goes to Zhao Xue and Bronze to Harika Dronavalli) and Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan won the gold medal in the men's section (Silver Le Quang Liem and Bronze Bu Xiangzhi). Here is a link to the schedules of the chess events, but the site needs some time to load.

Offical website of the overall event with cool sports like Archery, Bowling and of course Chess: 16th Asian Games. ...

Here are the questions and answers from the press conference after round 4 in Nanjing.

Dear friends from the media, welcome to the fourth round of our press conference. First I’d like to talk about today’s results. Currently only one game is over - Mr. Topalov plays White and drew with Wang Yue. The other two games are still going on. First of all, I’d like you to share your feelings toward the games. Mr. Wang Yue, would you please go first.
Wang Yue: I think it’s kind of simple. I should say I have good opening preparation. I am Black and I think in the later part I have better position. But in the middle game, I missed some favourable moves then it turned to be a steady end game. I think I got a draw because of good preparation.
Topalov: In the later part I don’t think there was a winning move. The move of the rook was not accurate. He (Wang Yue) reacted very strong and is good at endgame but there’s still slim chance to win. It’s just a equal game and can not got a win.

I have a question for Wang Yue. Up till now you have played against the top three grand masters with black, are you satisfied with your performance, and what’s your expections towards the sencond circle when you face them again?
Wang Yue: Actually I am not satisfied with my first circle’s performance and, also I lost one game, of course I am not satisfied. I wanted to win when I played white but did not make it true. I was trying to play more offensive but, you know it’s difficult to win when you are Black. In the following games I hope I can have more chances to win with more white games.

I want to ask Mr. Topalov, are you satisfied with your games so far? What’s your expections towards your later games?
Topalov: Actually I played poor so far according to my results. I expect to improve in the next games. Now nothing has happened as I wanted.

I have a question for Mr. Topalov. What do you think of the skills of Chinese male players, how many years do you think it will take before a world champion appear s in China?
Topalov: Actually I know mostly about Wang Yue. I know there are many new strong Chinese players. It’s really difficult to win a champion because there are many stronger players in the world. For the moment, I think China should put more players into the top 10 to 20. I think that would be necessary if they want the title.
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Levon Aronian, the Olympic Champion with Armenia from Dresden, is the latest player to break the 2800 ELO rating barrier on the live rating list. He achieved the prestigious 2800+ status after he succesfully played the first 6 rounds in the European Club Cup with a rating performance of 2923 (4/5 points)! The rating of Aronian is still virtual, as the FIDE rating list published every two months and the next update is November 1st.
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Since you accepted a draw, could you share with us your feelings now, and considering that you have made really quick moves. Is it out of the consideration that you want to preserve your strength to show us more wonderful games in the following days?
Carlsen: Well, I think it’s just the way it goes. Sometimes nothing happened and it’s a draw. That’s part of a game.
Anand: I think it’s the same. We are not trying, it’s just the Black defended actively, this position does not give the White too much to work with.

Are you satisfied with your continuous two draws?
Anand: Of course Magnus did a better job last year, but he is still white. In every tournament, I think you have to play very long and try your best. That’s it. Yet it’s too early to evaluate your overall performance. I just want to play good chess everyday.

Since you have both played in Bilbao. So I wonder how you feel about this tournament, do you see any advantage in travelling so far here, and how do you feel about this tournament?
Anand: Well, in my case, I came five months later and I was happy to play in Bilbao. Yes it’s far between Nanjing and Bilbao but it’s not like I have a jet-leg and things have to work out this way. Anyway I was happy to play in Bilbao and Nanjing.
Carlsen: As for me. I am just happy to play again. I didn’t play too well in Bilbao, but I played many interesting games. Of course every tournament I came to different places with new culture and different players. I met different atmosphere. I’m not tired.

I have a question for Mr. Anand. We know it’s your first time to visit Nanjing. Could you share with us your impression of Nanjing concerning environment or food, etc. Then is my second question. We know that you have shot a documentary film about your experience of championship. If you were the champion this year, would you add this to your film?
Anand: Ok. This is my first time in Nanjing. I was in China before, but not here. So far I really like the venue here and I would say the opening ceremony is very impressive. It’s very nice to receive your warm welcom and the organizers did a fantastic job there. For the moment, I like to play chess here in Pearl Spring. I have not got the chance to see the city yet, maybe after the tournament I will get the chance to see the city. As for the second question, we’d better finish the tournament first.
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Vladimir Kramnik has emerged the Champion of the 3rd Grand Slam Chess Masters Final played in Bilbao from October 9th to 15th! He now joins 2008 winner Veselin Topalov and last year’s winner Levon Aronian on the list of winners of this tournament.

In the first match, tournament leader Vladimir Kramnik should have defended the black pieces agaist Alexei Shirov, a rival who usually chokes. The game followed the same course as the one they played in the preliminary round in Shanghai, a quick f3 variation of the Nizmo-Indian defence. On this occasion, Kramnik departed from the previous game, opting for a calmer variation. The game developed around the weakness of the c5 black pawn, which Kramnik decided to resolve by sacrificing it in exchange for some counterplay in the open files on the queen’s side. This counterplay resulted in the recovery of the pawn after a tactical sequence, leading to an endgame very limited in material. In the end a draw was inevitable, especially for black, as confirmed by Vladimir after the game.

In the other match, current World Champion Viswanathan Anand played with white against Magnus Carlsen, with the top spot in the world ranking, according to the ELO rating system, up for grabs. Anand needed both victory for himself and also for Kramnik to draw or lose in order to catch up to or surpass the tournament leader. Magnus repeated the variation he played two days ago against Shirov. Anand prepared a quick f5 advance, a scheme which prevented the counterplay which had been so successful for Magnus in his last game. The game entered a style of play typical of Ruy Lopez, where white has a significant spatial advantage and black looks for counterplay before his spatial disadvantage does him in. Magnus was able to make headway on the white king’s side, while Anand advanced on the queen’s side. At the most critical point of the game, both players made the most of their advantages. At this moment of strike and counterstrike, Carlsen found a path to obtaining perpetual check. The game ended in a draw and Kramnik brilliantly walked away the winner (www.bilbaofinalmasters.com).
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The news page of this site is online again. Over the last days and weeks happened so much in the chess world: The FIDE-election (Kirsan + Love = FIDE?), the Chess Olympiad (Carlsen with a mediocre performance and Ukraine winning gold), the german dispute over money between the German national federation and the German team. This stories make writing news articles easy, so this is the reason for bringing the news-part of this site back online! Also the software (vBulletin CMS) is now a lot less buggy and that helps also.
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"Who is Raffael?" is, besides "When will I become a knight?", one of the most asked questions on the Chessbase server (playchess.com). Raffael is the handle of a very strong blitz-player on the server who, with a rating of 3425 (date June 30, 2009), tops the blitz rating-list and is by many considered to be the strongest blitz player on the server. He has a sharp tactical eye and a deep positional understanding that impresses the kibitzers who are following his games. He prefers to play 4m + 1s or 5m + 1s and so far he has played about 600 rated games and some unrated games (Download see below). ...