Bulgaria starts psychological war

Chessdom has a summary of the recent articles appearing in Bulgarian media. Bulgarian organizers are preparing a bid for Anand-Topalov match and BCF President Stefan Sergiev confirmed that they will be looking for about 3 million euro.

But the other part of his statement is even more interesting:
- "Topalov is a charismatic personality in Bulgaria, much more than Anand in India and a WCC here will surely benefit from this."
- "Berik Balgabaev and FIDE have assured me that they rely on us and they believe that India is not up to the task of organizing the Topalov - Anand match."

Nakamura shines in Donostia

US Champion Hikaru Nakamura won the main 18th category tournament of the Donostia Chess Festival. He took an early lead and had even a big point of advantage ahead of others, but Ruslan Ponomariov caught him in the final round and both finished with 6,5 points.

The winner was to be settled in blitz tiebreak, and Nakamura, as already established speed-chess expert, won both games and the trophy - traditional Basque hat.

It was shocking to see how rusty is the former world champion Karpov. He even spoiled some promising positions and ended up last, with only three draws and six losses.

Final scores:
1-2. GM Nakamura Hikaru (USA 2710) and GM Ponomariov Ruslan (UKR 2727), 6,5
3. GM Svidler Peter (RUS 2739), 5,5
4-5. GM Kasimdzhanov Rustam (UZB 2672) and GM Vallejo Pons Francisco (ESP 2693), 5,0
6-7. GM Movsesian Sergei (SVK 2716) and GM Vachier-Lagrave Maxime (FRA 2703), 4,5
8. GM Granda Zuniga Julio E (PER 2647), 3,5
9. GM San Segundo Carrillo Pablo (ESP 2570), 2,5
10. GM Karpov Anatoly (RUS 2644), 1,5

Peter Leko to replace Viswanathan Anand in Nanjing

The organizers of Nanjing Pearl Spring 2009 have made an important change in the previously announced lineup. GM Viswanathan Anand, current World Champion and number two in the rating list, will not attend the event. He will be substituted by the Hungarian grandmaster Peter Leko.

Player list: Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan), Dmitry Jakovenko (Russia), Peter Leko (Hungary), Wang Yue (China)

The 2nd Nanjing Pearl Spring Chess Tournament will take place from 27th September till 9th October 2009.

Google Honours Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla, the inventor and pioneering electrical engineer, is being honoured by Google with a special logo to mark the 153rd anniversary of his birth.

The search engine is celebrating July 10 with a logo featuring purple sparks of electricity leaping from the letter "g", which is drawn in the shape of his famous Tesla Coil transformer.

It pays tribute to the Serb born scientist, who is best known for several revolutionary contributions in the field of electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Tesla's patents and theoretical work formed the basis of modern alternating current electric power (AC) systems, including the polyphase power distribution systems and the AC motor.

More in The Telegraph

See also Happy birthday, Nikola Tesla: thanks for the electricity

Genius in the Background

Quality Chess are publishing "Genius in the Background" by Tibor Karolyi & Nick Aplin by the end of July.

Short description:

Genius in the Background introduces brilliant chess that will be unfamiliar to even well-read chessplayers. Twelve chess stars are profiled with examples of their greatest achievements, but these stars are not famous – they are geniuses who stay in the background. For example, Pervakov and Afek are not household names but they compose chess studies and puzzles of such elegance and cleverness that they deserve to be famous. Top players such as Garry Kasparov and Veselin Topalov may be famous names to chess fans, but they did not become World Champions without great help – two of their coaches are profiled in this book and provide insights into the education of a chess champion.