Chess Club Black & White (CCBW)

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Women’s World Chess from Sept 10

Women’s World Chess Championship Match 2013 between the current World Champion Anna Ushenina of Ukraine and her challenger, Hou Yifan of China (former World Champion 2010-2012), is scheduled to start on September 10.

The drawing of colours will be conducted during the opening ceremony which will take place at 3 p.m. The player getting the white colour in game one plays game five with the black pieces). The time control is: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

The winner of the ten-game match is the first player to reach 5.5 points or more. If the scores are level after the regular ten games, after a new drawing of colours, four tie-break games will be played, with 25 minutes for each player and an increment of ten seconds after each move.

If the scores are level after the four rapid games, then, after a new drawing of colours, a match of two games will be played with a time control of five minutes plus three seconds' increment after each move. In case of a level score, another two-game match will be played to determine a winner. If there is still no winner after five such matches (i.e. after ten games), one sudden death game will be played. This involves a drawing of lots, the winner being able to choose the colour. The player with the white pieces receives five minutes, the player with the black pieces four minutes, with an increment of three seconds per move from move 61 on. In case of a draw, the player with the black pieces is declared the winner.

The prize fund for this match is 200,000 Euros and will be split between the players as follows:
60% for the winner and 40% to the loser if the match ends within the 10 regular games. In case the winner is decided by tie-break games, she will receive 55% and loser 45%.

Anna Ushenina holds the title after the 2012 Women's World Chess Championship (knockout format) in Khanty-Mansiysk while Hou Yifan had a right to challenge her after she became first in the Grand Prix Series 2011-2012.

Anna Ushenina and Hou Yifan played their first game in 2006 during World Chess Olympiad (Turin, Italy) and the game ended in a draw. In 2007 another draw was signed during Russian team championship. Hou Yifan took the lead in their encounter in 2007-2008 when she won three games in a row. However, in the end of 2008 Anna Ushenina managed to outplay Chinese prodigy during the European Club Cup. Another draw in 2009 and the players stopped meeting over the board for the next 4 years, till 2013! Anna Ushenina defeated Hou Yifan with black pieces in their last encounter during Geneva Grand Prix.

Games between these two have been consistently hard-fought. Hou Yifan is one point ahead according to overall results. For her part, however, Anna Ushenina played 7 out of 8 games with Black and has victory in their last game at Geneva GP in 2013.

According to FIDE rating Hou Yifan (2609) holds the second position among women after Judit Polgar. Anna Ushenina (2500) is on 17th place.

The official hotel and playing venue: http://www.chunlanhotel.com/
The official website: taizhou2013.fide.com

Adhiban wins Barcelona Sants Chess

Former world under-16 champion B. Adhiban, who recently went all the way to the third round at the Chess World Cup, has won the Barcelona Sants Open chess tournament this Monday. It's been a great run for Indian chess as Pentala Harikrishna recently won the Biel Chess Tournament, Parimarjan Negi won in Copenhagen, S.P. Sethuraman won Leiden and M.R. Lalith Babu won the Vlissingen event.

Adhiban was the only titled Indian in the 298-player contest and finished a point ahead of Lazaro Bruzon of Cuba. The second to fifth places were shared by Cori Jorge (Peru), Vladimir Potkin (Russia), Jan Gustafsson (Germany) and Firat Burak (Turkey) with eight points each.

The tournament format was 10-round Swiss. There were two playing groups: Open A (all players eligible) and Open B (U2000). Open Internacional de Sants is part of the 10th Catalan Chess Circuit. -- Agencies

Nineteen-year-old Vadodara boy Darpan Irani is back home after making a splash at the World Individual Junior Blind Chess Championship at Belgrade in Serbia.

At the event, organised by the International Braille Chess Association from August 21 and September 1, Darpan won a bronze medal — a first medal win in the category by India in 16 years since the country's blind chess federation was recognised by the international recognising body.

Darpan defeated his nearest rival from Serbia in the world junior individual braille chess championship to emerge third, missing silver medal by just half a point.However, Darpan is more than happy to have won the first medal for his country, and believes he could have done much better had he focused more on practising chess rather than on his Chartered Accountancy studies, which are equally important for him if not more.

"This is the first time India has won any medal in this category, and I am glad to have emerged victorious. It was a do-or-die situation in the last round, as drawing was not an option. Drawing would not have fetched me a medal," he said.

Though, this was the first time Darpan won big, it wasn't the first time he played at the international level. He played in Serbia in 2010 and in Greece in 2011

This was the first time he had travelled abroad without his parents accompanying him. "Organisers insisted on my parents accompanying me but I refused, because I would have to become independent someday. After a lot of discussions and deliberations, they finally agreed," he said.

Of the nine games that were played in the tourney, Inani could not perform well in the first four, which dimmed his chance to win gold. "There were some miscalculations due to time pressure, so I had to repeat moves. Moreover, I made some technical errors in between," he said.

Darpan already has several wins to his credit. He became the youngest person to win the national chess championship for the blind in 2010. -- PTI

Vladimir Kramnik claimed victory in the FIDE World Cup after he drew the fourth classical game in the final match against Dmitry Andreikin. The overall score in the match was 2.5:1.5 in Kramnik's favor. The former World Champion won the first game of the final match while the other three games finished in a draw. The former World Chess Champion didn’t lose a single game during the event and showed great play. He won four out of seven matches in classical chess and the three others in rapid. His opponents were G.Bwalya, M.Kobalia, A.Areshchenko, V. Ivanchuk, A.Korobov, M.Vachier-Lagrave and D.Andreikin.