Candidates tournament 2013

The London Candidates will be the strongest tournament of its kind in history. The Prize Fund to be shared by the players totals €510,000. The winner of the Candidates will become the Challenger to Viswanathan Anand who has reigned as World Champion since 2007.

Dates: March 14, 2013 - April 1, 2013

Format: The Candidates is a double round-robin tournament with four rest days.

Players

Levon Aronian (ARM)

    Magnus Carlsen (NOR)

Boris Gelfand (ISR)

Alexander Grischuk (RUS)

Vassily Ivanchuk (UKR)

Vladimir Kramnik (RUS)

Teimour Radjabov (AZE)

Peter Svidler (RUS)

Website : http://www.worldchess.com/

Chess Puzzle - 93

White to move.

Solution : 1.g3 g6+ 2.Kxf6 g5 3.Kf5 g4 4.fxg4#

Anand took down Kramnik to finish 2nd in Zurich

Anand beats Kramnik to finish second in Zurich Chess

Zurich (Switzerland), Mar 2, 2013 (PTI)

 

World champion Viswanathan Anand capitalised on a blunder by Vladimir Kramnik of Russia to beat him in the final round and finish second in the Zurich Chess Challenge that concluded here.

The Indian ace was under pressure to come back to a 50 per cent score after losing to Fabiano Caruana of Italy in the fourth round and got lucky when Kramnik had a rare oversight resulting in a full point and the first victory for the world champion in the tournament.

Caruana, meanwhile, deservedly won the tournament finishing on a high with a fine victory over Boris Gelfand of Israel in his last round game.

The Italian finished with a very impressive tally of four points out of a possible six in the four-player double round-robin tournament.

Anand finished sole second with one win, a loss and four draws tallying three points in all.

That he left the field a full point behind speaks volumes about the talent of Caruana who is sure to find his way back in the top ten of world rankings after an excellent performance here.

Kramnik and Gelfand ran out of steam in the last round and finished with identical 2.5 points apiece to tie for the third spot.

Source: http://www.deccanherald.com

Attacking Chess Tactics

White to move. How should white proceed?
Source: ChessToday.net

I think white could try 1.Nxh7 Kxh7 2.Nf6+ Bxf6 3.Qh5+

Caruana leads Zurich

The super-tournament at Zurich keeps showing great games without decisive results. Fabiano Caruana’s only win is still enough to lead the event with one round to go.

Boris Gelfand played with white against Viswanathan Anand. They signed a draw exactly on move 40.

The World Champion advanced his queenside pawns early in the game, and Gelfand responded naturally using them as targets. Anand gave up two pawns for the exchange and invaded on the second rank with his rook. The Israeli coordinated his knight and bishop to defend his passed pawn on the queenside, but Anand’s rook was too annoying. The players repeated moves and signed the draw when the time control had just passed.

Kramnik and Caruana battled in a very original position. The Russian, once again, played a sideline to avoid showing his home preparation. He attacked on the kingside and Caruana – just like Anand – sacrificed the exchange for two pawns in order to avoid getting his king in trouble. A difficult struggle took place on the early middlegame and the Italian eventually finished with the upper-hand. Vladimir Kramnik found a very interesting rook sacrifice to force a draw by repetition on move 47.

Tomorrow is the last round in Switzerland. 

Round 6 pairings:

Viswanathan Anand – Vladimir Kramnik
Fabiano Caruana – Boris Gelfand