The ACP has shown it can put money where its mouth is two years in a row with this repeat event in Odessa, Ukraine. It's a tidy 16-player KO event that brushes uncomfortably against Corus, but it's a good show. Last year it was won by Peter Leko over Ivanchuk in the final. The sponsor is the Ukrainian Pivdenny Bank, who also sponsored an eponymous rapid event last summer, won by Ivanchuk.
Three of the four favorites advanced in the first half of the first round: Jakovenko, Radjabov, and Ivanchuk. Shirov was upset by Inarkiev after losing a wild first game with white. Inarkiev must have really hot-footed it over from the Russian superfinal. Russiachess.org is showing live games. (They play one match at a time, so only one broadcast board is needed.) Saturday we'll see Polgar, Karpov, Gelfand, Svidler, Leko, and Karjakin playing. And US champion Alexander Shabalov, don't forget. Didn't see the pairings or a full tree anywhere. [Full tree here, in Russian. ht József.]
Here are the pairings and also today's results:
http://worldcup.pivdenny.com/ru/index.php?do=static&page=res2008
BTW, Lékó is not playing.
Thanks for the link Jozsef. Poor Karpov, it'd sure be nice to see him make a comeback, but I think the days of strong play from him are gone.
I have just started to play Chess in Tennessee and I was wondering if there are any tournaments in the area for adults. Also, how can I improve my game.
www.matthewsblog.waynesborochurchofchrist.org
Michael: Plug into the Tennessee Chess Association:
http://www.tnchess.org/
To improve, play at clubs, in tournaments, and read lots of books!
Sorry, Matthew. I got your name wrong!
Welcome to chess!
Matthew, I'm in somewhat the same boat as you. I played some chess with friends when I was a kid, but I hadn't played for nearly 25 years when I competed in my first rated tournament ever last summer. I didn't do nearly as well as I thought I would, but it was fun anyway. I've read many books and teach chess in local schools, but knowing some theory about the game and playing it well over the board are two very different things. All the games that I've lost in competition have been due to silly tactical errors. The games I won were mostly due to a combination of good strategic planning and no major blunders. To improve, read some general books and practice tactics a lot. A good website for drilling on tactics is http://chess.emrald.net/index.php. And play against people who are better than you as often as you can.
When I first started I lost most of my games to silly blunders as well. Then I got a book with tactical excercises, only diagrams with different tactical themes like pins, overworked pieces etc and my rating went up 250 points!
The book is perfect to have lying around in the toilet to study 15 min a day!!
Cheers
inspite of grischuk's impresive score over radjabov in classic and rapid chess it was clear that the first finalist(radja)is going to win over 2nd cause he had like 4 hours to recover.poor grish he asked for 1 more hour because he was exausted after the supersemifinal with karjakin,the arbiters granted him the extra hour break(nice of radja that he agreed too),but it wasn't enough.he was completely out of energy after rapid.overall grish and karjakin are better blitz players than radja both OTB and ICC.poor ideea from the organizer.they shold have the semifinals at the same time 4-5 hours before the final
It's nice that our champion Shabalov was invited to the event. I hope Nakamura can win US Closed this year and play in Odessa next year. Perhaps he will even change his mind about red wine being his favorite drink. :-)
Alex Pohuev
Hello Matthew,
There are two books that I recommend to anyone starting out in chess. Logical Chess Move by Move (Algebraic Edition) by Chernev and Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking by McDonald. Both books use the same format of verbal annotation of each move in every game. A great way to learn the basics. Also, as Klas and Dan recommended, books with tactical exercises are important. Two older books that are still good for someone new to chess are 1001 Ways to Checkmate and 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations by Reinfeld. Don't get frustrated if you can't solve the majority of these exercises at first, just keep at it and you will improve. Good Luck!
The link for the tactics server is:
http://chess.emrald.net/index.php
[The version I posted earlier doesn't work because there is a superfluous period appended to the end.]
Hi.
1) correct spelling is "Pivdenny", not "Pivdinny"
2) Nakamura already played in Odessa in 2007
3) Shabalov was not just invited, he qualified, according to ACP Tour system
Matthew,
Read My System by Aaron Nimzovitch. Also the tactics books and Logical Chess... Play in local club against stronger players and record your games. Ask for advice after the games. Join an online chess club such as gameknot.com where you can take your time and analyze the board until you find the best move. Find a checklist of what to consider before making each and every move (I found a couple such lists online). The NY Times chess articles are very good; you can see them free online. This is too much to do if you have a regular job and a family. So just do what you can.