Tarini's Blog

Chess Digest ( Vol 1 Issue 6/MARCH 22-28,2016) WORLD CANDIDATES 2016 Sergey Karjakin and Fabiano Caruana went into the final round of the Candidates tied for first, with Caruana needing to win with black to qualify. That was not to be – Sergey mated his opponent in a Sicilian Rauzer in 42 moves. Anand drew Svidler, Giri-Topalov and Nakamura-Aronian were also drawn.  So Sergey Karjakin is the Challenger for the World Championship in November. Initially,Sergey was not considered one of the favourites going into the eight Grandmaster event,but showed his great skill by losing only one game to finish alone first with 8.5/14 points. Veselin Topalov was a distant last.The Bulgarian commented, “I don’t have a problem to accept that my time is probably gone" ALTIBOX NORWAY 2016 QUALIFIER The Altibox Norway Chess Qualifier took place from 23-26th March 2016, during Easter Chess Festival in Fagernes. GM Nils Grandelius took clear first place after getting

Chess Digest ( Vol 1 Issue 5/MARCH 15-21,2016) WORLD CANDIDATES With a major victory against Aronian in the ninth round on Monday, Vishy Anand joined Karjakin at the top position in the Candidates tournament in Moscow.  At the end of three  rounds,  Levon Aronian (Armenia),   Viswanathan Anand (India)  and  Sergey Karjakin (Russia)  were in the lead. Sergey Karjakin became the sole leader after round 4 by defeating Vishy Anand with the help of a highly interesting novelty.This remained the case until Aronian defeated Hikaru Nakamura(USA) in a dramatic encounter in the sixth round to share the lead with Sergey. Vishy also won his sixth round match against Peter Svidler(Russia) in a fast-paced kingside attack.In the 7th round,all games were drawn except that of the two tailenders, Nakamura and Topalov,which was won by the American.The 8th round of the tournament marked the beginning of the second half of the tournament. Caruana beat his compatriot Nakamura when both la

Chess Digest ( Vol 1 Issue 4/MARCH 8-14,2016) WORLD CANDIDATES After three  rounds,  Levon Aronian (Armenia),   Viswanathan Anand (India) and  Sergey Karjakin(Russia)  are in the lead.Vishy started off with a flyer by winning against Topalov in the first round. I n the second round, Nakamura  lost to Karjakin and then Topalov allowed Aronian to join the leaders after the third round as he was not able to cope with excellent opening preparation by the Armenian. Beforehand, more or less anyone could win the Candidates' Tournament but today it looks like we are down to seven potential winners . It might be somewhat early to say so, but  Veselin Topalov  does seem to lack the form to emerge victoriously at the end of this month. Perhaps he is simply not too comfortable being in Russia. Ever since #Toiletgate, the scandal during his 2006 world championship match with Vladimir Kramnik, the relation between the Danailov/Topalov camp and the Russian chess scene has been

Chess Digest ( Vol 1 Issue 3/MARCH 1-7,2016) WORLD AEROFLOT OPEN 2016 In the 13th edition of the Aeroflot Open 2016 being held in Moscow (Feb 29-March 10) five players(GM Bartel Mateusz,GM Fedoseev Vladimir,GM Najer Evgeniy,GM Matlakov Maxim,GM Gelfand Boris) are  leading with 5.0/7  and a pack of 15 players on 4.5/5 follow them after seven rounds.With two more rounds to go,lets see if the top seed GM Boris Gelfand is able to walk away with the championship. WOMEN'S WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP On March 2nd, 2016 the first game of Women’s World Chess Championship Match started between the current World Champion Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine and Challenger Hou Yifan of China (former World Champion 2010-2012, 2013-2015) in Lviv, Ukraine. Mayor of Lviv Andriy Sadovyi and one of the most promissing young players of Ukraine 6-year-old Kalyna Furmanova inaugarated the Championship by making the first move, e2-e4, with the white pieces.By winning the second game, Hou Yifan now lead