GM Hikaru Nakamura Wins Unive Chess 2012

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hi everyone,

American chess champion 2012, Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura has won the 16th Unive Chess Tournament that was held in Hoogeveen, Netherlands from October 19-27. The tournament consisted of the Crown Group, the Unive Open and two Amateur events. The Crown Group was a four-player double round-robin. Hikaru Nakamura won the event with 4,5/6 points. Sergei Tiviakov was second at 4,0. Dutch top player Anish Giri finished third with 2,5 points, while the Women's World Chess Champion Hou Yifan ended the tournament with 2 points.


Along side the main chess event, the Unive Open was held as a nine-round Swiss for the players rated 2000 or above. Local Grandmasters L’Ami Erwin and Nijboer Friso shared the first place with 7,0/9 points each. L’Ami defeated Nijboer in the last round and overtook him by the additional criteria to claim the winner’s trophy. GM Ernst Sipke, GM Timman Jan, GM Van Kampen Robin and IM Bosboom Manuel (all Netherlands) shared the third place with 6,5 points each. The prize fund in the Open was 7500 EUR with 3000 EUR reserved for the winner. You can access the official website of the chess tournament for details in Dutch.

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A Chess Champion’s Dominance—and Madness

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011


Hello everyone,


Here is a very nice and interesting article by Karen Abbot in Smithsonian.com. It's titled A Chess Champion’s Dominance—and Madness. We thought it was about Bobby Fischer but very interesting read - It's about Paul Morphy. Such is our immediate connection with the adjective and Fischer.

Enjoy reading the article.

Paul Morphy playing "blindfold" chess in Paris, 1858. From Harper's Weekly.

A Chess Champion’s Dominance—and Madness

By the time Paul Morphy was felled by a stroke on July 10, 1884, he had become an odd and familiar presence on Canal Street in New Orleans: a trim little man in sack suit and monocle, muttering to himself, smiling at his own conceits, swinging his cane at most who dared approach. Sometimes he would take a fancy to a passing woman and following her for hours at a distance. He lived in fear of being poisoned, eating only food prepared by his mother or sister, and he believed that neighborhood barbers were conspiring to slit his throat. His family tried to have him committed to an asylum, but he argued his sanity so convincingly that the authorities declined to admit him. It had been a quarter-century since he became a world-renowned chess champion, and for the last decade of his life he was loath to discuss the game at all. Continue reading here.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com