Chinese Chess raised 50 million dollars

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov: "You know, as FIDE President, back in 1996 I was invited to attend the meeting of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. It dealt with the country's integration into the world community, the entry into the WTO. And the Chinese were already planning to make a breakthrough in many areas, including chess. I remember the commission has allocated 50 million dollars on the development of the game, enormous money. For example, China has introduced a system of compulsory chess education at school... No wonder China's women team won three consecutive Chess Olympiad."

From Ilyumzhinov's interview to Izvestiya

IHT About GM Kenneth Rogoff

Rogoff said an understanding of chess had helped him learn economics: "The whole logic of game theory, which is a big part of economics, came easily to me."
Knowing chess also helped him in his career, he said. "I was the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003, and you are involved in a lot of high-stakes negotiations," he said, "and chess teaches you to think about what the other person is thinking."

Read more

Via The Kenilworthian Blog

Greg nominated to become the Leader

Greg has the three essential qualities in a Leader: he's scrupulously honest, highly competant and doesn't piss people off. He's got lots of experience in creative chess organization/ management: the New York Masters, the US Chess League, the US Chess School.
He knows everyone in the chess world and has no enemies. Total strangers buy him chocolate...

Read more on Elizabeth Vicary Blog

Google's 10th Birthday

Google is a "relatively" young internet brand, having started as a simple search engine back in 1998, but nowadays we simply can't do without it. Even my 6-years old neighbor knows that he should "ask Google" if he is interested in something (meaning video games).

Google has set up a special page with Google Timeline and information about the Project 10 to the 100th.

Exaggerated Numbers?

MORE than 7m people a day watched Liverpool over the internet during the 4th European Open Championships held in the city. The tournament at the city’s World Museum attracted record internet viewing figures, with 65m web visits for the whole tournament.

Website hits smashed the old record of 5m a day, recording a 250% increase on last year. Professor David Robertson, principal organiser, said: "It’s difficult to imagine a better or more cost-effective way of reaching such a colossal worldwide audience."

I have it difficult to accept that seven million watched chess event on web

Her argument is now beyond doubt

Like Kournikova, the 24-year-old Kosteniuk, a Russian grandmaster, has traded on her looks, modeling for magazines like the European editions of Vogue and Marie Claire, and selling bikini-clad images of herself through her Web site. Kosteniuk, however, bristles at comparisons with Kournikova. "I think I've won enough chess competitions not to be compared to her," Kosteniuk said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

Dylan Loeb McClain in IHT

Women's Chess Grand Prix

Georgios Makropoulos, FIDE Deputy President, revealed in an interview that chess governing body is actively working on finding six cities to host Women's Grand Prix, starting from next spring.

It is already confirmed that Istanbul will host the first phase on March 2009. Krasnoturinsk and Nalchik are close to joining as well. The Women Grand Prix will follow the successful formula of men's cycle, where players can choose in which four of six tournaments they want to take participation.

Other source mentioned that prize fund for the each of six tournaments will be around $40.000 USD.

GM Bator Sambuev About Bilbao

Generally, with regard to this competition, many features can be dubbed as "first-time". For the first time super-tournaments merged into the series. For the first time a the new scoring system was applied. But here the organizers did not invent anything radical and instead introduced football system: 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw. I must say that the course of the competition was not adversely affected: the standings were more or less normal.

Supertournament took place on the street, where a bulletproof and soundproof (do not know exactly from which material) cube was installed. I must say that this action to attract visitors worked: judging from the video, the square was always packed with people. Topalov's Manager and main advocate of the "Grand Slam", Silvio Danailov, said in an interview that he has ideas to install the same cube on Red Square. For the first time (besides the world championship) tournament brought together such a high prize money - 400 000 euros.

Full article on Sportbox.ru (Russian)

Bilbao Grand Slam

Today is the rest day at the Final Chess Masters Bilbao 2008 (official name), and the current standings are:
1. Veselin Topalov - 9; 2. Magnus Carlsen - 8; 3. Levon Aronian - 6; 4-6. Teimour Radjabov, Vassily Ivanchuk and Viswanathan Anand - 4;


GM Susan Polgar is commenting the games for the crowd outside the aquarium and is also posting lots of photos and "inside information" on her blog.

Official tournament website

Grandmaster's Memory

What was even more remarkable was seeing Nigel Short again a couple of years later. We sat down with a chess board and Nigel played me through the moves of the Kramnik-Kasparov game - from memory.

Mr.Charles Crawford also writes about a charity simul with Kramnik, Kasparov, Short and Anand, that he organized in Moscow some years ago.

Isn't she gorgeous?

Tania Sadchev at the Women's World Championship

Since I'm already here...

Argentinian player Claudia Amura, who at first hesitated to come to Nalchik, ended up as a guest at the local wedding in Kabardino-Balkarian village Kenzhe.

More about Claudia in the 2nd round bulletin (PDF).