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The Riga Railway Open in rapid chess took place in the last weekend of March. Many strong GM-s were participating, but the result of the winner Ivanchuk made headlines. At the end he managed to get 13 points out of 14. Reminds Fischer in his best days. In the closing ceremony Alexei Shirov mentioned that Ivanchuk instead of playing in candidates tournament which just finished in Khanty Mansisk preferred Riga. Vassily Ivanchuk was one of the World best players in last 25 years, but never won the World champion title. Most likely because of his bad nerves. This time he was not even among the candidates. However he put his anger and revenge onto his opponents in Riga. He won first 9 games and only in last day allowed two draws. Still in his second round encounter things might be different if this time local hero Normunds Miezes could controll his nerves in winning position.

Continue reading Ivanchuk in a bad mood or how he won the Latvian Railway Open

Marshall chess club championship

The 97th Championship took place in the middle of December over two weekends and finished just before Christmas. My flight from Vegas was delayed because of harsh weather conditions. Back then I did not realize yet that more obstacles on my travelling are still to come. The winter was in full swing. The two weekend format gave a lot of time to prepare because of limited number of participants. It was obvious that most likely all top players are going to play each other. The eventual tournament winner Aleksandr Lenderman took some early byes. So did  Robert Hess. I had some shaky moments in the beginning when losing against Mathew Hermann in round three. This loss was really heartbreaking. Having computer evaluation more than +18 I managed to lose in mutual time trouble. Still after round five I was only half a point behind tournament leader Sergei Kudrin. We met in round six and because this game was in the next weekend I had a lot of time to prepare. Kudrin plays the same openings for years, so I had a lot of work to do.

Continue reading American journey part three

DRAW PRINCIPLE

In sport there is always a winner and draw outcome is considered weakness. In chess however the draw is result of perfect game by both players. It is boring result, but when first explaining it to young student you need to emphasize that it is a normal outcome. We are actually looking to benefit from the process not from the result. This is why they say that you learn more from your losses and you do not gain much from your winning games.

Where to start, if you like teach your child to develop some good character traits.

Continue reading How to teach chess to children, useful tips