La question people du mercredi

Phil Dornbusch's latest picture quiz La question people du mercredi is available on Chess & Strategy.

In the chess blogosphere

Inna Iasman at the Paris Championships

I've begun work on a really interesting web project, so time to write today has been a little scarce.

I have had chance to peruse the chess blogosphere though, and found some stories of interest:

International Master Georgios Souleidos always presents instructive chess analysis, and today is no exception as he examines a pair of good knight vs. bad bishop endings, including a Karpov win against Kasparov, and a lovely knight sacrifice of his own to leave 2 passed pawns that overpower the bishop.

Over on Chess Vibes, Peter Dogger is continuing to report on his 'grand tour', whilst Philippe Dornbusch's Chess & Strategy has coverage of Anand's victory in Leon, and is keeping a close eye on the Paris International Championships. I have fond memories of playing in Paris, so will be following the stories with interest.

Finally, my friends in Buenos Aires at Solo Ajedrez are way too busy watching the Copa America to be writing about chess at the moment: apparently, it was 4-0 against Peru last time out with goals for Riquelme (2), the fantastic Mascherano, and Messi.

Echecs gourmands

WGM Natalia Zhukova. Photo: Fred Lucas, Momentoo

Last week, I introduced a couple of alternative chess sets.

Now Natalia Zhukova is advising on a novel set as part of the coaching regime. I suspect her "echecs gourmands" has a shorter lifespan: Le conseil de Natalia pour ce week-end

Chess on Second Life

My attention was caught by a brief notice this week on Phil Dornbusch's blog about Chess on Second Life.

For those of you who don't know, I suspect most, Second Life is a virtual world on the Internet where people can live, as the name suggests, a second life. You can shop, build a house, start a business, go on holiday, and now it seems even follow chess.


I talk about Second Life when I speak to businesses about future directions for the Internet, and it usually meets with either guffaws or embarrassed faces in the audience. The potential is interesting though, there are several million members, you can make and lose money (it has it's own 'convertible' currency), some big business have a presence, and, apparently, Sweden is even going to open an embassy on the site.

The chess coverage, if my French is upto scratch, is the final of the French women's team championship and is being relayed online from a 3D reconstruction of the Palais du Luxembourg.

The French Chess Federation (FFE) has sponsorship from the BNP Paribas banking corporation. Their excellent chess website has details of the championship along with other news, and a host of excellently presented material for discovering and learning the game. How many other Federations can boast as clean an interface? All that remains is to learn how to read French!

Ein Gruß aus Dortmund

In the blogosphere: International Master Georgios Souleidis has an on-the-spot report, Ein Gruß aus Dortmund, from the Dortmund chess festival. Check out his notes to a masterly positional crush by Kramnik (Carlsen was the victim in a Catalan) and an interesting ending between Anand and Naijditsch.

World chess

One of the best thing about writing Chess Tales is the feedback I recieve in emails and comments. It's allowed me to correspond and build friendships with an amazing number (and diversity) of people. Chess is a much stronger (and friendlier) bond than I'd appreciated when I began the blog, and as you can see from the graph of recent readers, it stretches right around the world.

About 60% of the readers come from the UK and US / Canada, but Germany and France are growing quickly, and there's always been a strong base in the Netherlands. I'm always excited though when I get a reader from a far flung or unexpected corner of the World.

My day job sees me advising companies about the Internet, web2.0 and how to market effectively. I find myself giving ever increasing references to the chess world! I've also written some international snippets of code for the blog, so, for example you should now see adverts at the top and bottom that are relevant to your country (well if you live in the US, Canada, France or Germany you should).

I've got some interesting posts planned for the next few days including another trip to the 'chess attic', a favourite game, and a great position for Friday's chess puzzle. There's also the story of a Botvinnik autograph that nearly got away.

This week in the chess blogosphere

A couple of sites to watch this week in the chess blogosphere are Chess Vibes (english and dutch), where the Dortmund Sparkassen festival is being covered in depth, and Chess & Strategy (french), who along with the regular weekly puzzle from WGM Natalia Zhukova (pictured) are running a series of enlightening interviews about chess in Japan.


Dortmund is always a strong event, and this year is no exception. The field of 8 in the top tournament is Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Magnus Carlsen, Peter Leko, Boris Gelfand, Evgeny Alekseev, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and Arkadij Naiditsch.

Karpov French miniature

Anatoly Karpov played a sparkling miniature in the penultimate round of the Valjevo tournament.

It's a great example of how to take advantage of a slight slip by Black and dismantle a French Rubinstein (1 e4 e6; 2 d4 d5; 3 Nc3 de) setup.

International Master Georgios Souleidis has written a really instructive analysis of the game on his Entwicklungsvorsprung blog: Karpov kann auch taktisch.

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Chess Tales: the essay

It looks like 'DK' will be featuring Chess Tales in one of the essays over on his Chess Improvement blog. I'll let you know when it appears.

Entwicklungsvorsprung: International Master blog

Entwicklungsvorsprung (Development Advantage) is an interesting blog written by International Master Georgios Souleidis.



The blog, written in German, is a mix of stories, photos,opinions and master analysis. Check it out.

Chess photos: another blog

I pulled today's picture of Keres, Botvinnik, Euwe, Reshevsky and Smyslov from one of Sarah Beth's many chess blogs.

It has to be said her blogs are a nightmare to navigate, but she has written a huge amount of material and amalgamated a wonderful collection of chess photos (including the odd and the unusual).



I suggest starting your read at "Sarah's Journal Archive", although some of you might want to jump straight into "Chess - Romance, Love and Sex".

The one thing that seems to be missing from Sarah's sites is information about who she is. I'm guessing she's American, anyone know anymore?

Chess master: Anna Matnadze

Chess Tales had some visits today from possibly the longest name in the blogosphere: LAS, Las aventuras de Sarakhatkhan. Of course, I had to check to it out. It turns out the blog belongs to International Master and Women's Grandmaster Anna Matnadze.

Anna's blog is quirky, fun and full of photos. She's the latest in a long line of fabulous women players from Georgia (her rating is about to climb to 2409) but is residing in Barcelona and blogs in Spanish.

I'll work hard on some excuses to feature a lot more of Anna on Chess Tales!

Chess photos

Today I discovered some fascinating old chess photos and incredible videos on a Brazilian chess site, xeque.net. It's definitely worth a visit, even if you don't speak Portuguese.

One photo I came across was Boris Ivkov playing Tigran Petrosian in 1979, we featured their encounter at this event (albeit with colours reversed) in a recent Friday chess puzzle:




The first image that caught my eye though, was this incredible picture of what I guess must have been the Leningrad Boys Chess Team:



Without the captions, it would have made for a great quiz question.

Other highlights on the site include video coverage of Tal, Fischer, Keres and Benko at Zagreb 1959, and amazing footage of Capablanca, Alekhine, Grunfeld and others from the Moscow tournament in 1925!

Le 'blogosphere des echecs'

Le monde français throws up some interesting sites in the chess blogosphere. The latest site I've discovered there is "Echecs, cinéma, TV et DVD... léger", which translated (I had to look up léger!) means "chess, cinema, TV and DVD... lighthearted".

Anyway, it's a fun site that spots chess scenes / references on the big and little screen, and welcomes 'spots' from its readers.

Everytime I try to speak french, I'm reminded of the Fawlty Towers episode where Basil is getting increasingly 'hot under the collar' as he's teased suggestively by a french guest:

Basil: Et maintenant un peu café?
Mrs Peignoir: Ah, oui, s'il vous plait. Café au lait.
Basil: Café what?
Mrs Peignoir: Au lait.
Basil: Ah! Café... Olé!

Chess Tales from Buenos Aires

Today was hard work! I translated my post into Spanish as my first submission for the Argentinean chess blog Solo Ajedrez.

Beto and the guys at Solo Ajedrez employ an interesting idea: they separately host a viewer that lets you play through any games that are referenced in the post (along with any analysis). Let me know if this is something you'd like to see on Chess Tales.

My plan is to produce a piece every couple of weeks for their blog, some original, some Spanish translations of Chess Tales material. We can also look forward to reciprocal stories from Buenos Aires. I'll keep you updated.

Chess tournament photo question

Yesterday I mentioned two of the great tournaments of yester-year: London 1922 and New York 1924.

Philippe Dornbusch has a wonderful photo of another famous old tournament on his Chess and Strategy blog. The competitors captured include Lasker, Tarrasch, Alekhine, Capablanca, Nimzowitsch, Rubinstein, Marshall, Janowski, Blackburne and Gunsberg. He asks you to name the tournament. Hurry though, closing date is tomorrow.

Grünfeld Defence in Argentina

I was contacted online today by one of the authors of the Argentinian chess blog "Solo Ajedrez". The power of social networking software!

They have a team of high calibre players that includes International and FIDE Masters. They tell me their mission is to engage with their readers in an easy form and to avoid conventionality. The site is well worth a visit if you speak Spanish.

I've written a couple of times about the Grünfeld Defence, and was interested to see that it has also been covered recently in a class on Solo Ajedrez. They look at an energetic Black riposte to a sideline that has been tried by Korchnoi amongst others (1 d4 Nf6; 2 c4 g6; 3 Nc3 d5; 4 cd Nxd5; 5 Na4!? e5!?).

Chess blogs: best of the week

Two chess stories on the blogosphere caught my eye this week for wackiness: firstly there was Boylston Chess Club pointing to a plan to cover chess on the radio, If you find televised chess too interesting, and the BCM blog introducing us to chess and jazz, You got the blues?. Not on a par with Chess Boxing, but getting there.

I'm interested in what we can achieve with new media, and not so new like video, in helping us to learn, develop and even promote chess. So, it's good to see Boylston providing a guide to some of the chess video material that's becoming available on the web, Chess video goes mainstream.