Ukrainian chess grandmaster Vassily Ivanchuk drops down to number 30 on FIDE top 100 players list, published yesterday by the world chess federation. Not surprising, regarding the chess player’s gruesome performances in several tournaments (of the 37 events he played during the last year’s quarter), yet his recent victory at the Kings Chess Tournament in Bazna, Romania, may imply on his predicted return to FIDE’s top 10 chess players.

Besides that, the top 100 players is topped again by Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, who is followed by reigning World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand of India and Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who still stands at the top of the juniors list. No radical changes among the women chess players; the list is still topped by Judit Polgar, yet considering the young age and impalpable talent of her number 2 and 3, 22 Humpy Koneru and 15 Yifan Hou, Polgar’s dominance may not last forever.

Among the top countries listing, Israel passed China and is now ranked as the number 3 country with the highest average rating of the top ten players (2648). The first two places are taken by Russia, with an average rating of 2727 and Ukraine with 2648.

The International Open Women Chess Tournament Maia Chiburdanidze Cup, ended last week at the Chess Palace, Tbilisi, Georgia as part of the 1st International Open Tbilisi Chess Tournament. The chess tournament was topped by grandmaster Lela Javakhishvili (2463) and woman grandmaster Bela Kotenashvili (2364) who both scored 7 out of 9. Kotenashvili bested her rival in a tie breaker and was determined the first winner of the international women chess tournament, named after the record breaking female chess player Maia Chiburdanidze, who in 1978, aged 17, became the youngest Women’s World Chess Champion and now ranked among the 12 highest rated female players in chess.

Women in Chess

The International Open Women Chess Tournament provides an appropriate timing to broach back the topic of women in chess. Instead of reviewing the historical, sociological and maybe even biological reasons that can justify the minority of women among chess top players, we will summarize the constructive solutions suggested by Russian WGM Natalia Pogonina and her husband/manager Peter Zhdanov who contributed an article on the subject to Chessbase as part of the promoting efforts of their yet unpublished book Chess Kamasutra.

To increase women’s presence in professional chess, the first measures need to be taken are educational and directed at the young daughters’ parents. That is because chess grandmasters have to be trained from an early age and since it is the parents, who naturally affect, if not dominant their children’s choice of hobbies, who tend to discourage their daughters from getting too attached to the chess pieces. The desired educational campaign should, in the couple’s opinion, include stereotypes crushing procedure and may also embrace chess as part of the primary education curriculum.

Another important factor that can take women’s chess to the next level is sponsorship. Bigger sponsors equal larger money prizes, what should be expressed in more participants, and in time, higher level chess players. Bottom line, what women’s chess really need is another Rex Sinquefield.

More chess news and tournaments updates piled up on the editor’s desk:

Chess Grandmaster Alexander Motylev of Russia is the winner of the 10th Karpov chess tournament. The tournament, named after former World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov, took place in a small Siberian town called Poikovsky between June 3rd and 12th. The 10-round competition featured mainly less strong contestants (average rating was 2694); nevertheless, the second peered player, Alexei Shirov finished last with only 2.0 points, result of four draws and zero wins.

After sponsoring the 2009 US Chess Championship, Saint Louise philanthropists Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield have made an additional foothold in the world of chess. The couple have purchased the entire chess library owned by late Bobby Fischer, which includes hundreds of chess books and chess-related magazines, drafts of his book “My 60 Memorable Games” (published in 1969), and a set of bound books describing his matches against world’s top chess masters, including his rival for the “match of the century”, Russian grandmaster Boris Spassky. Fischer’s literary legacy was purchased for $61,000 through Bonhams and Butterfields auction house.

pic and info from walyou

Speaking of blind and blindfold chess, take a look at Glo Chess, a chess set designed with Conductive V30 VELCRO technology and provides an inner glow to every chess piece. This illuminating chess set is miniature in size and suitable for travels.

The last weekend was filled with chess tournaments and events: World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand defeated Peter Leko 5:3 in the annual rapid chess match; Magnus Carlsen (who is destined to be a world champion according to Dylan Loeb McClain from the New York Times) beat Wang Yue at the 20th Ciudad de León Masters, another rapid chess tournament; British chess grandmaster Nigel Short championed the 17th Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament in Malmo, Sweden; Boris Grachev of Russia finished first at the 1st International Grandmasters Chess Tournament in Lublin, scoring 6 out of 9, and that is not all.

The Chinese Chess Championship 2009, which took place since the 26th of May in Xinghua Jiangsu, also ended this weekend with the surprising victory of Liren Ding, a 16 years old chess player who holds no international chess title, who scored half point more than China’s leading player Hao Wing, who won in 7 out of 11 games. Young Ding would not have claimed the national victory without FIDE’s new (and some would say idiotic) regulations, granting him an automatic victory on the final round due to his opponent’s late arrival to the game. A delay of 5 seconds also caused Hou Yifan (who at 15, is “much too good already to compete for the women’s title”, there, there) to lose her 8th match versus Liang Chong, and to finish at the disappointing 11th place. Fortunately for chronically late Bobby Fischer, he did not have to play chess with these rules.

The 26th U.S. Blind Chess Championship is scheduled to take place on June 12-13, 2009 in West Virginia. The competition is open to chess players with proved sightlessness who are also members of the US Chess Federation. The tournament will be held in a four round Swiss format, allocating each game 135 minutes.

The chess games will all take place on special Braile chess sets, in which the black squares stand out slightly above the white squares, and the black pieces also have a bulging thing on top of them. In blind chess, the player has to call every move, and the opponent is required to repeat it.

Blindfold chess is something else. Blindfold chess is played by sighted players, with exceptional visualization abilities, who vulnerably cover their eyes to play the game, usually in exhibitions and often involved gambling. In blindfold chess, a third, objective side is moving the pieces, who also takes care of informing each player the opponent’s moves. Blindfold chess has been formerly prohibited in Russia, since the practice was suspected of negatively effecting the players’ mental health.