SOFIA, BULGARIA – Viswanathan Anand defeated Veselin Topalov with the Black pieces in the 12th and deciding game of their world championship match today to retain his title by a score of 6.5 to 5.5.  Topalov’s 32. exf4 may go down as one of the most controversial moves in world chess championship history.

Topalov simply needed a draw with the White pieces today to send the match into a rapid playoff, but was unable to hold off the Anand onslaught after the crucial blunder on his 32nd move.  Anand tried to return the favor with the questionable  40…Kg7, enabling Topalov to prolong one of the most dramatic final games in world chess championship history.

With world championship victories over Vladimir Kramnik (Bonn 2008) and now Topalov, Anand is slowing inserting himself into the discussion of greatest chess player ever.  He has also laid claim to the title through a double round-robin tournament victory (Mexico City 2006) and a knock-out format victory (Tehran 2000).  He will next defend his crown against the winner of the 2011 Candidates Tournament.

Replay the deciding game 12 below:

The prestigious Dortmund chess tournament will take place from June 28 to July 6, 2008 in Dortmund, Germany.  The impressive field of competitors is as follows:

Kramnik, Vladimir (RUS) 2788
Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar (AZE) 2752
Leko, Peter (HUN) 2741
Ivanchuk, Vassily (UKR) 2740
Van Wely, Loek (NED) 2676
Nepomniachtchi, Ian (RUS) 2634
Naiditsch, Arkadij (GER) 2623
Gustafsson, Jan (GER) 2603

This tournament dates all the way back to 1928 when Friedrich (Fritz) Samisch edged out Richard Reti for the tournament championship.  Kramnik is the defending champion and has actually won this tournament a record 8 times (1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2006, 2007). 

On a special note, today is Kramnik’s 33rd birthday.  Happy birthday Vladimir and good luck in your upcoming match against Viswanathan Anand.  Shown below is one of Kramnik’s brilliant games from last year’s Dortmund event.

Levon Aronian came from behind to capture the Karen Asrian Memorical chess tournament in Yerevan, Armenia.  With only two rounds remaining, Aronian trailed Peter Leko by a half point.  Leko would lose his round 13 game with Alexander Morozevich, while Aronian defeteated Michael Adams to jump into first place.  Both players settled for draws in the fourteenth and final round.

 Aronian’s final round victory is shown below, as well as the final standings:

Final Standings: 1. Aronian, Levon (ARM) 2763 8½, 2. Leko, Peter (HUN) 2741 8.0, 3. Morozevich, Alexander (RUS) 2774 7½, 4. Gelfand, Boris (ISR) 2723 7½, 5. Bu Xiangzhi (CHN) 2708 7.0, 6. Sargissian, Gabriel (ARM) 2643 6½, 7. Adams, Michael (ENG) 2729 6.0, 8. Akopian, Vladimir (ARM) 2673 5.0

The National Open Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada (USA) concluded over the weekend and there was a 6-way tie for first place between Gata Kamsky, Laurent Fressinet, Tigran Petrosian, Atanas Kolev, Ben Finegold, and Josh Friedel.  The event was a 6-round Swiss System tournament consisting of 100 players from around the world.  The winners all finished with five out of a possible six points. 

Popular U.S. chess player Hikaru Nakamura finished in a disappointing tie for 10th place with thirteen other players.  Nakamura, with a USCF rating of 2747, lost to IM David Pruess (2471) in the fifth round and settled for draws against IM Josh Friedel (2504) and GM Darwin Laylo (2452) in the third and fourth rounds.

Top results shown below:

Tournament Website: http://www.vegaschessfestival.com/

The WCC semi-final match between Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria and Gata Kamsky of the United States will take place from November 26th to December 11th, 2008.  The match will determine the challenger for the 2009 World Chess Championship.

The two camps are still arguing over the location of the much anticipated match.  Most recent reports have the Ukraine and Bulgaria as the leading contenders to host the event.  All match details are supposed to be finalized no later than Monday, May 12th.

These two great players have only squared off against each other 8 times over the years, as Kamsky took a long hiatus from the game from 1995 to 2004.  Topalov has a decisive edge (+4 -0 =4) in their previous encounters and has actually never lost a game to Kamsky.

Listed below are their head-to-head matchups, as well as their last encounter at the 2007 MTel Masters (pictured above) for you to play through at your leisure.

Bobby Fischer’s legendary rival and long time friend Boris Spassky visitied  the late champion’s grave today in Iceland.  Spassky, showing his usual classiness and compassion, knelt at Fischer’s grave and noticeably fought back some tears.  The former Russian jokingly remarked “do you think the spot next to him is available?”.

Fischer and Spassky are forever linked in chess lore as they played the “Match of the Century” in Reykjavik in 1972.  Fischer would win that match and become the only official American chess champion in history.  The two would clash again in Yugoslavia in 1992, signaling the return of the great Bobby Fischer to chess.  Fischer would triumph again and immediately go back into seclusion. 

Despite their fierce struggle in 1972 during the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union, the two reamained respectful and complimentary to each other over the years.  When Fischer was declared a fugitive by the U.S. government after playing their 1992 match while Yugoslavia was under economic sanctions by the United States, Spassky defended Fischer saying that if Bobby was guilty, then they need to arrest him as well.

Spassky, now a French citizen,  is attending a Fischer memorial chess tournament in Iceland.

Source: REUTERS

Robert James Fischer was born in Chicago, Illinois at the Michael Reese Hospital on March 9th, 1943.  He became the 11th official World Chess Champion by defeating Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1972.  He remains to this day the only official world champion from the United States of America.

Bobby passed away on January 17, 2008 from kidney failure at the age of 64.  He spent his last days on this Earth in the place of his legendary triumph,  Reykjavik, Iceland.  Below are some basic facts about Bobby and one of my favorite games of his.  Enjoy!

Learned the Rules of Chess: 1949

First Recorded Tournament Game: July 1955

International Grandmaster Title Achieved: 1958

U.S. Championship Titles: 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1966

Tournament and Match Results: 415 wins, 248 draws and 85 losses out of 748 games played from 1955 through 1992 for a performance average of .721 or 72.1%

Highest Achieved Rating: 2785 ELO

Special Note: Winner of every tournament and match in which he participated from December of 1962 through the World Championship match of 1972, with the exceptions of the 1965 Capablanca Memorial (2nd place – 1/2 point behind Smyslov) and the 1966 Piatigorsky Cup (2nd place – 1/2 point behind Spassky).

 FISCHER-NAJDORF (1966 Piatigorsky Cup – Round 16)

 [Event "2nd Piatigorsky Cup"]
 [Site "Santa Monica, California"]
 [Date "1966.??.??"]
 [Round "16"]
 [White "Fischer,R"]
 [Black "Najdorf,M"]
 [Result "1-0"]
 [ECO "B44"]
 
 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e6 5. Nb5 d6 6. Bf4 e5 7. Be3 Nf6
 8. Bg5 Be6 9. N1c3 a6 10. Bxf6 gxf6 11. Na3 Nd4 12. Bc4 b5 13. Bxe6 fxe6
 14. Ne2 Nc6 15. Ng3 Qd7 16. c4 Nd4 17. O-O b4 18. Nc2 Nxc2 19. Qxc2 h5
 20. Rfd1 h4 21. Nf1 Rg8 22. a3 h3 23. g3 bxa3 24. Rxa3 Qc6 25. Qe2 f5
 26. c5 Qxe4 27. Qxe4 fxe4 28. cxd6 Bh6 29. Ra5 Kd7 30. Rxe5 Bg7 31. Rxe4
 Bxb2 32. Ne3 a5 33. Nc4 Rgb8 34. Rh4 Kc6 35. Rh7 Bd4 36. Rc7+ Kd5 37. d7
 a4 38. Nb6+ Rxb6 39. Rc8 Rd6 40. Rxa8 Rxd7 41. Rxa4 e5 42. Kf1 Rb7
 43. f4 Ke6 44. fxe5 Rf7+ 45. Ke2 Rf2+ 46. Kd3 Bxe5 47. Re1 1-0

Click HERE to replay the game.

FINAL ROUND

All games were drawn today in the final round of the 2008 Morelia-Linares super tournament, giving Viswanathan Anand the victory.  Anand played to a relatively uneventful 23-move draw with Veselin Topalov.

The only game that was fiercely contested was the 69-move draw between Magnus Carlsen and Teimour Radjabov.  Carlsen pressed very hard for a victory, as it would have earned him a shared tournament victory with Anand.  Final results and standings are listed below:

 Player Name, Rating, Points

Official Website: http://www.soloajedrez.com/ciudaddelinares/

THE CHESSMAN

It is hard to say exactly when I first heard the name Bobby Fischer, but it was quite early in my life. When he was battling Boris Spassky for the world title in 1972, I was a 9-year-old club player in my native Baku in the Soviet Union. I followed the games avidly. The newspapers had extensive daily coverage of the match, although that waned as it became clear the Soviet champion was headed for defeat. Fischer’s My 60 Memorable Games was one of my first chess books. (It had been translated into Russian and sold in the U.S.S.R. with no respect for copyright or royalties, infuriating its author.)

As I improved during the 1970s, my coach, Alexander Nikitin, made charts to track my progress and to set goals for me. A rating above 2500 was grand master; 2600 meant membership in the Top 10; 2700 was world-champion territory. And even above that was Bobby Fischer, at the very top with 2785. I became world champion in 1985, but true to Nikitin’s vision, I had an even loftier goal; it took me four full years to surpass Fischer’s rating record.

It was Fischer’s attitude on and off the board that infused his play with unrivaled power. Before Fischer, no one was ready to fight to the death in every game. No one was willing to work around the clock to push chess to a new level. But Fischer was, and he became the detonator of an avalanche of new chess ideas, a revolutionary whose revolution is still in progress…….

Click HERE to read the whole article.

Levon Aronian of Armenia and Magnus Carlsen of Norway shared first place in Group A, both drawing with their respective opponents in the final round.  India’s Viswanthan Anand could have had a piece of first place if he had defeated Vladimir Kramnik today, but had to settle for a draw against his Russian opponent for the world title later this year.

Sergey Movesian of Slovakia won Group B by a full point over Nigel Short of England and Etienne Bacrot of France.  All three players drew their final round games.

Fabiano Caruana of Italy won Group C by a full two points over second place finishers Parimarjan Negi and Dimitri Reinderman, both of the Netherlands.  That group came down to Caruana’s match against Negi today in which Caruana won in a 61-move Ruy Lopez.

Click HERE for crosstables, photos, and complete results.