Alisa Galliamova wins Russian Womens SuperFinal

Alisa Galliamova is the 60th Russian Women's Champion.

The Superfinal is the round robin final stage of the National championship that was held in Moscow.

After 11 rounds, along with Alisa Galliamova, Natalia Pogonina and Tatiana Kosintseva were tied with 7 points. Galliamova and Pogonina had the same tie-break score, so they played a 2-game tie-break blitz. The first game was a draw and Alisa managed to win the second game to retain the championship.


Reports: ChessBase, TWIC
Download all games in PGN
Alisa on Wiki & ChessGames

DRAW

When both White and Black cannot win in a game, the result is a Draw.

There are 6 ways in which a game can become a Draw.

1. Insufficient Material
- When both White and Black cannot checkmate each other.
Example - K vs K, K+B vs K, K+N vs K
2. Stalemate
- No check
- No other possible move
3. Perpetual Check
- Continous checks
- No Checkmate
4. 3 Times Repetition
- If any position is repeated 3 times continously (photographic repetition), a Draw can be claimed.
5. 50 Move Rule
- Set of 50 moves (1 white move + 1 black move = 1 move) does not have any Pawn moves and does not have any captures, a Draw can be claimed.
6. Mutual Agreement
- Both players agree to a Draw.

Details on Wiki & ChessInvasion

World Blitz Championship

Levon Aronian won the World Blitz Championship at Moscow scoring 24.5 points in 38 rounds. Second as Teimour Radjabov with 24 points and Third was Magnus Carlsen with 23.5 points.

Download all games in PGN

View some excellent videos alongside the Game Viewer: Videos1 & Videos2

Reports: ChessBase & TWIC

Official Tournament Site

Harika wins Bronze at Asiad

D Harika of India won the Bronze medal in the Individual event at the 16th Asian Games, Guangzhou – China.

Her score in 9 rounds was 6.5 points (win, loss, win, win, win, draw, draw, draw & win) and included a draw with the top-seed, Hou Yifan.

Individual Event Results for Women:
Gold – Hou Yifan (China)
Silver – Zhao Xue (China)
Bronze – Harika Dronavalli (India)

Individual Event Results for Men:
Gold – Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Uzbekistan)
Silver – Le Quang Liem (Vietnam)
Bronze – Bu Xiangzhi (China)

Reports on ChessBase & TWIC
Download games in PGN: Men & Women
Official Site

Larry Evans is no more

Larry Evans passed away on Nov 15th in Reno, Nevada.

He was a popular American Grandmaster who had won or shared US Chess Championship 5 times and US Open Chess Championship 4 times.

He was Fischer's second for the Candidates matches leading to the World Championship of 1972.

Also, he was a noted writer and has authored several chess books ("This Crazy World of Chess" is one of his entertaining books). He had also founded the American Chess Quarterly and was editor of Chess Digest. His weekly column, "Evans on Chess" in Chess Life ran for over 30 years.

Eulogies - ChessLife, ChessBase, Huffington Post & TWIC
Larry Evans on ChessGames
Larry Evans on Wiki

Aronian and Karjakin win Tal Memorial

Levon Aronian and Sergey Karjakin were the joint winners of the Tal Memorial tournament which concluded in Moscow, yesterday.

Both the above players and Shakiyar Mamedyarov tied for top spot with 5.5 points in 9 rounds, but Mamedyarov was third place with a lower tie-break score.

The historic tournament was a 9 round round robin event between 10 of the top players of the world. Three players had a 2800+ performance and 45 games were played in total.

Official Tournament Site

Download all games in PGN

ChessBase-Report, TWIC-Report

World Problem Solving Championship

GM John Nunn won the World Chess Problem Solving Championship 2010.

The event this year was held in Greece in October and attracted 71 participants from various countries. The championship has 6 rounds spread over 2 days with each round having a particular type of problem to be solved within a time limit.

Download the Bulletin with Results, Problems and Solutions (PDF document)

Read John Nunn's article on this event - with Solutions

Detailed Report can be found here

More Info on Wiki

Two Knights Endgame

The Endgame K+N+N vs K is a Draw.

If the player with the lone king plays correctly, it is not possible to corner him to the corner. For example:
White: Kg6, Ne5, Nf5
Black: Kg8
White to play

1. Nf5-e7+ Kg8-f8
(here if black plays the blunder 1......Kg8-h8?? then white can give mate with Ne5-f7#)
After Kg8-f8, white cannot force the black king to the corner and black can claim a draw after the 50th move.

More on this endgame on Wiki