Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival, Round 8

After beating Judit Polgar yesterday, Women's World Champion Hou Yifan of China followed it up by taking another 2700 rated scalp this afternoon. Amazing stuff! The game was very complicated, but she played some very enterprising, risk-taking chess. There was a definite touch of the Mikhail Tal about it.

That said, the Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem seemed to be at least drawing the game when he played the incomprehensible 37...Bc5??, taking this all-important defensive piece off the long diagonal when 37...Rf7 was the obvious move. I guess he was in time trouble. Hou Yifan took her chance with aplomb and she could well be sharing the lead tonight when the other games finish.

Tradewise Gibraltar Chess, Round 7 - 30 Jan 2012

An historic moment at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival as the world's greatest ever woman player Judit Polgar sits down to play women's world champion Hou Yifan for the first time. Latest: Hou Yifan won the game - see the score below. Judit seemed well below par but Hou Yifan took her chance brilliantly.

Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival, Round 3

Nigel Short loves Gibraltar. He has won here a couple of times and the worst he has done is finishing second equal. Last year he had a phenomenal result on the Rock, finishing second to Ivanchuk (who scored an even more phenomenal success).

In round three he was paired with the world no.14. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Nigel played the Azerbaijani super-GM at the 2008 Dresden Olympiad and gave him a good drubbing. One imagines that Mamedyarov would have been thirsting for revenge today. Instead, he received another good drubbing! Resignation at the end is slightly premature, if only because many spectators might not have understood why, but there is little doubt that Nigel would have finished the job.

Comments below are based on Nigel Short's comments after the game.

Official Live Games: http://www.livestream.com/gibchess2012

Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee, Round 10: Aronian Shows The Way

Levon Aronian is in seemingly irresistible form in Wijk aan Zee at the moment and he leads the field by a full point with three rounds remaining. His tenth round win with Black against home player Anish Giri had a little bit of everything. Some sharp and enterprising opening theory (courtesy of an Armenian colleague), an exchange sacrifice (inspired, no doubt, by his great Armenian predecessor Tigran Petrosian), confident, patient middlegame technique, topped off with an improbably beautiful knight sacrifice to set up mate.

It seems a long time ago now that we were talking about the possibility of Magnus Carlsen overtaking Garry Kasparov's record rating of 2851 in Wijk. The way Levon Aronian is playing, there is probably a slightly better chance of Levon Aronian overtaking Carlsen at the top of the present rating list by the end of the tournament.

Levon Aronian (photo Fred Lucas)

Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee, Round 10: Missed Opportunity

An amusing finale from this afternoon's games at Wijk aan Zee...

Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee, Round 9

Here's an amazing finish from the Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee tournament, round 9, 24 January 2012. If you cut to move 47, you will see that Anish Giri (Black) is under pressure in the key position. But he then allows the exchange to a king and pawn endgame. Always a risky decision, of course, but at first it looks like he can hold. However, it turns out to be a blunder as Vasily Ivanchuk finds a very precise line to force a win. Very instructive!

Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival Commentary

Live commentary is now underway at the 2012 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival in the Caleta Hotel.

Currently GMs Simon Williams and Stuart Conquest are commenting live on play.

Link to live commentary: http://www.livestream.com/gibchess2012

Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival

The Tradewise 10th Gibraltar Chess Festival starts on Monday 23 January 2012, with the Masters tournament getting underway on the Tuesday.

The photo shows Women's World Chess Champion of Hou Yifan making the now traditional visit to the Rock Apes on the day before the tournament proper starts.

This year's competition is the biggest and best in the tournament's history to date. It features a staggering eleven players rated 2700 or higher, headed by former winner Peter Svidler, Shak Mamedyarov, Michael Adams, Zoltan Almasi, Alexei Shirov and Le Quang Liem, plus the absolute cream of the world's top women players competing together in an open tournament for the first time - Judit Polgar, Hou Yifan, Humpy Koneru, Nadezhda Kosintseva, Nana Dzagnidze, etc. For good measure it features two former world championship finalists, Nigel Short and Viktor Korchnoi.

Official website: http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com/index.htm
Live Games: http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com/live_games_masters.htm
Live Commentary: http://www.livestream.com/gibchess2012