World Cup 2009 underway

THE schedule of the World Cup 2009

Date_____Events______________Venue

20.10.09__16:00 Players' meeting
_________17:00 Opening ceremony__CH “Octyabr” 
21.11.09___Round I game 1_________Center of Arts
________________________________Beginning of the
________________________________games at 15:00
22.11.09___Round I game 2
23.11.09___Tie break
24.11.09___Round II game 1
25.11.09___Round II game 2
26.11.09___Tie break
27.11.09___Round III game 1
28.11.09___Round III game 2
29.11.09___Tie break
30.11.09___Round IV game 1
01.12.09___Round IV game 2 
02.12.09___Tie break
03.12.09___Round V game 1
04.12.09___Round V game 2
05.12.09___Tie break
06.12.09___Round VI game 1
07.12.09___Round VI game 2
08.12.09___Tie break
09.12.09___Day off
10.12.09___Round VII game 1
11.12.09 ___Round VII game 2
12.12.09___Round VII game 3
13.12.09___Round VII game 4
14.12.09___Tie break
__________Closing ceremony
15.12.09___Departure

In the end of every competition day press conference with players will be held in the Press Centre.

Australian grandmaster David Smerdon represents the Oceania zone. The Philippines has 3 grandmasters who qualified to play in the event, namely Rogelio Antonio, Jr., Darwin Laylo and Wesley So.

Official website: http://ugra-chess.ru/eng/main_e.htm
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Shakeup in November FIDE Rating List

FIDE has released its November Rating List with Norway’s Magnus Carlsen becoming the fifth player and the youngest ever to reach the 2800 mark. Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov remains on top with 2810 against Carlsen’s 2801. Currently undisputed world chess champion, India’s Viswanathan Anand is in third place with 2788. Levon Aronian of Armenia was just two points behind Anand but dropped a place due to Carlsen’s quantum leap.

There are now 35 players with ratings of 2700 and above. Two Chinese are in this elite group: Wang Yue with 2734 ranked 16th and Wang Hao with 2708 in 28th place. The highest placed player from the Americas is now Cuba’s Leinier Perez Dominguez in 21th place with 2719, outranking USA’s Hikaru Nakamura who dropped to 24th place with 2715. Nigel Short retains his position as top English player with 2707 in 29th place. Armenia’s Vladimir Akopian in 35th place has a rating of 2700. The rating 2642 is now only good enough for 100th place shared by Ukraine’s Anton Korobov, France Vladislav Tkachiev, and Russia Pavel Tregubov.

The Philippines’ Wesley So, who lost 4 rating points, dropped to 2640 and just out of top 100 in 102nd place.

It is a welcome treat for active and professional players including organizers that the FIDE ratings are updated and released every two months. With increase chess activities and advancement in technology this move by FIDE showed its keen sense for improvement. Previously FIDE used to release its rating list on semi-annual, then quarterly bases. There is reason to believe, and if the current trend is considered, that in the near future FIDE may come up with a monthly rating list.

Here is the list of the top 35 players (ratings of 2700 and above).


The list of the top 100 players can be found here.

Top three women places unchanged

The top 3 places among top 100 women players is retained by Hungarian GM Judit Polgar, Indian GM Humpy Koneru and Chinese GM Hou Yifan. A major shakeup in the top 10 places took place as Georgian GM Nana Dzagnidze, former women’s world champion Bulgarian GM Antoaneta Stefanova, and Slovenian IM Anna Muzychuk occupied 4th to 6th places, displacing China GM Zhao Xue, Russian GM Tatiana Kosintseva, and Swedish GM Pia Cramling.

Dzagnidze gained 12 points and jumped from 7th to 4th place; Stefanova earned 14 points and rose from 9th to 5th place; while Muzychuk lost 1 point but gained 2 places.

Heavy losers was Zhao who lost 36 points and dropped to 14th place; Kosintseva lost 14 points but still among the top 10 at 8th place; Cramling dropped 10 points and by 1 rank.

Here is the list of the top 15 women players (ratings of 2500 and above).

The list of top 100 women can be found here

Who would you believe?

A COUPLE of weeks ago, October 14 to be exact, a Wall Street Journal article titled “Abolish Women’s Chess Titles” created a big stir that drew reactions from various web and blog sites. The author, Ms. Barbara Jepson, posited that awarding titles for women at lower levels of accomplishment is an “anachronistic and demeaning practice.” She views women’s chess titles as “gender-segregated,” which US international master (yes, that’s a chess title for men) Irina Krush described as “really a marker of lower expectations.”

The full article can be read from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574457393421190888.html.

The Chess Connoisseur would have preferred to keep mum on the issue because the writer of the article is not known as a chess player and has used only the view of 25-year-old Ms. Krush as authority to add some chess credibility to her article. However, his attention was caught when Women World Chess Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, herself having a grandmaster title for men, strongly reacted to the WSJ article in her October 17, 2009 post, titled: “Abolish Women’s Titles? Ridiculous!” in her blog site, http://www.chessblog.com/.

Ms. Kosteniuk’s lengthy reaction is summarized by this statement: “The proposal of abolishing women's chess titles is absurd, sounds more like a title for a "yellow" newspaper rather than the Wall Street Journal to attract attention, and would hurt rather than help getting more girls and women to play chess.” (Emphasis by the Chess Connoisseur)

Ms. Jepson, who writes about music and art for the Journal, is researching child prodigies in multiple disciplines.

Ms. Kosteniuk is a co-chairperson of the FIDE Commission for Women’s Chess. Her twin proposals: the annual FIDE Caissa Award for best female chess player and the annual FIDE Golden Women’s Tournament Organizer Award, were approved in the most recent FIDE Executive Board meeting held on October 12 in conjunction with the 80th FIDE Congress that took place in Kallithea, Khalkidhiki, Greece from October 11 to 18.
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A pioneering international chess event in the Solomon Islands

Four rated Australians (wearing flower garlands) and six Solomon Islanders complete the cast of the first ever international chess tournament in Solomon Islands. Front row from left: Fernando Aguilar, Australians Shaun Press and Kerry Stead. Back row: FMs Lee Jones and Brian Jones. The other nationals in the picture are not identified. (Photo: Solomon Star)

THE ground-breaking international chess tournament in Solomon Islands kicks off on Thursday, September 24, at the Red Mansion Comfort Inn at Panatina Ridge, Honiara, Solomon Islands.

The official opening of the Solomon Islands International Chess Tournament was hosted at the Red Mansion on Thursday night.

The tournament system is a single round-robin (or all-play-all) format which means there will be 9 rounds of play. The first round takes place on the same day of the opening ceremony.

The participant roster include four FIDE-rated Australian players and six national players. The rated players are FIDE Masters Lee Jones (rated 2117) and Brian Jones (2065), Shaun Press (2076), and Kerry Stead (2087). The national players are Fernando Aguilar, Brandon Tangaibasa, Price Tepuke, Scarden Tesua, Budds Maruia and Takika Tuata.

The tournament chief arbiter is no other than Oceania zone president, International Arbiter Gary Bekker, who collaborated with the Solomon Islands chess federation in organizing the country’s first international chess event.

The only player in the Solomon Islands team who has played in an international rated event is Fernando Aguilar who represented the island nation in the 2009 Oceania zone chess championship held in Queensland, Australia last June. He, however, did not make it to the September FIDE rating list as he lacked one game from the required minimum of nine.

The Solomon Islands chess players will earn their international ratings after the tournament which ends on Monday, September 28.

The Solomon Islands chess federation is the latest member of the world’s chess governing body— FIDE (Federation Internationale des Echecs) to be registered under the Oceania chess zone which include the countries of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Palau.

Before the Solomon Islands the Palau Chess Federation was accepted as member of FIDE in 2005 and had conducted its first international tournament in 2006. Palau, incidentally, is currently going about its national chess championship this year with four of its six international rated players participating.

Both the Solomon Islands and Palau are yet to participate in the biennial chess Olympiad which was last held in Dresden, Germany last year. There is high hope that they can join in the next Olympiad scheduled late next year in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.

Brief facts about Solomon Islands

• Full name: Solomon Islands
• Population: 507,000 (UN, 2008)
• Capital: Honiara
• Area: 27,556 sq km (10,639 sq miles)
• Major language: English (official), Melanesian dialects
• Major religion: Christianity
• Life expectancy: 63 years (men), 64 years (women) (UN, 2008)
• Monetary unit: 1 Solomon Islands dollar = 100 cents
• Main exports: Timber, fish, palm oil and kernels, copra
• GNI per capita: US $730 (World Bank, 2007)
• Internet domain: .sb
• International dialling code: +677

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1249307.stm

THE Solomon Islands is a double chain of islands located 1860 kilometres to the north east of Australia. Shaped by earthquakes and volcanic activity thousands of years ago, the 922 individual islands, of which 350 are uninhabited, are divided into nine provinces.
The six main islands of Choiseul, Santa Isabel, Guadalcanal, Malatia, Makira and New Georgia make up most of the 28,000 square kilometre land mass. Hundreds of smaller islands and atolls are scattered throughout the group.

The Solomon Islands are a uniquely, beautiful environment, wild and untamed. The landscape is mountainous with 80% of the islands covered in dense rainforest.

Located along the Pacific Ring of Fire, there are several active volcanoes and numerous uplifted atolls and coral islands.

The nation is largely untouched by tourism. Most of the population live in small villages and follow traditional cultures and lifestyles with hunting, fishing, carvings, handcrafts and subsistence farming being their main activities.

The Solomon Islanders are a friendly, warm and generous people who make visitors to their Islands feel most welcome.

Source: http://www.wayfaring.info/2006/09/28/the-uniquely-solomon-islands/

Further information about the Solomon Islands may be obtained from the following links:

www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2799.htm - Facts about the land, people, history, government, political conditions, economy, foreign relations of Solomon Islands.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bp.html - Features map and brief descriptions of the geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military and transnational issues.

www.lonelyplanet.com/solomon-islands - Solomon Islands tourism and travel information including facts, maps, history, culture, transport and weather in Solomon Islands.

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World Cup qualifiers announced

FIDE announces the updated list of original qualifiers for the World Cup to be held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia from 20 November to 15 December 2009.

The list comprised of the following number of qualifiers and qualifying events:

....1 -- World Championship 2008
....4 -- World Cup 2007
....1 -- Women's World Championship
....2 -- Junior World Champions 2007 & 2008
..20 -- FIDE Rating List, average 7/2008 & 1/2009
..46 -- European Championships 2008 & 2009
..19 -- Americas
..19 -- Asia/Oceania
....6 -- Africa
....6 -- Nominees of the FIDE President (TBA)
....4 -- Nominees of the local Organizing Committee (TBA)
128 -- Total number of players

The list of qualifiers can be found here.
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