Anand crossed 2800 mark again and Zia 5th in Kolkata Open

Anand again touched his career highest rating of 2803 in April 2008 rating list. Please see the top 20 players list at the table below.

In the meantime, GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh played another good tournament securing 5th place (jointly 4th to 10th) in 3rd Kolkata tournament to win 50000 Rs prize money. Here are the result deatails.

http://alekhinechessclub.com/3kolkatafinal.html

FIDE April 2008 Rating List

Rank	Name	Title	Country	Rating	Games	B-Year
1	Anand, Viswanathan	g	IND	2803	27	1969
2	Kramnik, Vladimir	g	RUS	2788	13	1975
3	Morozevich, Alexander	g	RUS	2774	11	1977
4	Topalov, Veselin	g	BUL	2767	27	1975
5	Carlsen, Magnus	g	NOR	2765	27	1990
6	Aronian, Levon	g	ARM	2763	27	1982
7	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	g	AZE	2752	13	1985
8	Radjabov, Teimour	g	AZE	2751	27	1987
9	Svidler, Peter	g	RUS	2746	11	1976
10	Leko, Peter	g	HUN	2741	27	1979
11	Ivanchuk, Vassily	g	UKR	2740	35	1969
12	Shirov, Alexei	g	ESP	2740	14	1972
13	Karjakin, Sergey	g	UKR	2732	0	1990
14	Adams, Michael	g	ENG	2729	13	1971
15	Kamsky, Gata	g	USA	2726	0	1974
16	Gelfand, Boris	g	ISR	2723	13	1968
17	Ponomariov, Ruslan	g	UKR	2719	0	1983
18	Grischuk, Alexander	g	RUS	2716	11	1983
19	Jakovenko, Dmitry	g	RUS	2711	11	1983
20	Alekseev, Evgeny	g	RUS	2711	0	1985

Rakib 5.5 of 9 in Moscow Open 2008

The Fourth International Open Chess Festival Moscow Open 2008 took place in the Russian State Social University (RSSU) from the 2nd to the 10th of February 2008. The Festival consisted of four tournaments: Open A, Tournament B, the Women's Open C and a Children Tournament D. Each of these tournaments was a nine-round Swiss. The total guaranteed prize fund was 5,000,000 rubels = US $205,760. Russian GM Timofeev Artyom (2664) became champion scoring 7.5 points.

In A group, Bangladesh's GM Abdulla Al-Rakib (2506), IM Enamul Hossain Razib (2522) and FM Shekh Nasir Ahmed (2379) participated. Rakib scored 5.5 out of 9 rounds in this strong tournament which is not a bad result. He secured 45th to 87th place jointly amongst more than 300 players in this group. Enamul scored 4.5 and Nasir scored 4 points.

Strongest Chess Tournament of All Time

All on a sudden morning today, I started thinking the following things. I will try to figure those out and let you all know. But if one of my readers can share some information on this, I would really appreciate.

1. The strongest tournament of 18th century.
2. The strongest tournament of 19th century.
3. The strongest tournament of 20th century before ELO rating systems started.
4. The strongest tournament of 20th century after ELO rating systems started. Please mention if there was any Category 22 tournament ever. Also may be we can get a list of Category 21 tournaments ever played.

I found last year Mexico Chess world championship's average rating was 2751.75 where Anand won and became world champion. But 1996 Las Palmas (that Kasparov won) was the highest with 2757 average rating according to this discussion - http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2008/02/strongest-tournament-of-year.html . This thread suggests that after that this week's Linares-Moreila 2008 will be second highest rated tournament with average rating of 2756.

For those who want to know a subjective evaluation of who was the greatest chess player of all time and which one performance is the best of all the tournament performances by any player, you might consider the following Chessbase article series.

• http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2345
• http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2354
• http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2372
• http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2409

Update: Anand won Moreila Linares 2008, the second strongest rated tournament of all time with a minimum margin over Carlsen. Hurrah! This will give him a confident world championship match ahead against Kramnik. It has been one of the most fighting tournaments of recent times with a very high number of decisive games.

http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/2008/03/anand_wins_linares_2008.htm
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4493

GM Ziaur Rahman 3rd in 6th Parsvnath Intl Open in New Delhi

Bangladeshi GM Ziaur Rahman emerged 3rd in 6th Parsvnath International Open Chess Tournament 2008 held in New Delhi. It was a 10 round swiss leage where Zia scored 8 with a rating performance of 2545 to gain 11 rating points out of it. GM (in-waiting) Abhijeet Gupta won the title and 2.24 lakh rupees scoring 9 while GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly scored 8.5 to be runner up. The other Bangladeshis FM Taibur Rahman scored 7 and IM Enamual Hossain scored 6.5. Hats off to Zia for his good show. Here are the top scorers list.

Rank	SNo.		Name	Rtg	FED	Pts	BH.
1	12	IM	Gupta Abhijeet	2495	IND	9	65½
2	2	GM	Ganguly Surya Shekhar	2579	IND	8½	70
3	39	IM	Prakash G B	2341	IND	8	70½
4	7	GM	Dzhumaev Marat	2527	UZB	8	69½
5	3	GM	Kurnosov Igor	2577	RUS	8	69
6	6	GM	Solodovnichenko Yuri	2541	UKR	8	67½
7	14	GM	Rahman Ziaur	2492	BAN	8	67
8	24	IM	Rathnakaran K	2437	IND	8	65½
9	75		Praveen Kumar C	2255	IND	8	59

Here are the full final standings result.

Source: http://www.hindu.com/2008/01/21/stories/2008012155561900.htm

Anand 3rd in Wijk Aan Zee 2008 being half a point behind winners Carslen and Aronian

Anand is half a point behind the winners Carslen(8.0) and Aronian(8.0) to secure the 3rd place along with Radjabov in Wijk Aan Zee 2008. The good news is that Anand(7.5) is 1 point ahead of Kramnik(6.5) and 1.5 ahead of Topalov(6.0) who I count as more dangerous opponents for him.



Source: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4417

Bobby Fischer Passed Away

Legendary Chess Champion R J Fischer aka Bobby Fischer has passed aways 18th Jan 2008 in Iceland due to kidney failure. This on-the-board great player is regarded by many as one the greatest chess players of all time. As of my poll in this site in the right navigation panel, he got 30% vote out of 115 to date being closely followed by Kasparov(28%) while Capablanca and Paul Morphy are at distant third with 9% each.

Here is the news of his death.

Kamsky wins World Cup 2007 to challenge Topalov

I believe except Anand and Kramnik, the only 2 other players who can really have a chance against Topalov are Ivanchuk and Kamsky. Chuky is out already, so Kamsky is the one who should win the cup and challenge Topalov. And this is exactly what happened. This way, we will get a great competition between Topalov and America's hope Kamsky while we already have the greatest match after Kasparov-Karpov era waiting for us - World Chess Championship 2008 between Anand and Kramnik. I believe people will like to see a Anand-Topalov, Anand-Ivanchuk and Anand-Kamsky match in future as opposed to anyone else you name it - Shirov? Nah, he already lost to Anand 3.5.0.5 big time earlier. Aronian, not enough to be the top of the world yet. Carlsen, count for him in future, not now. Kamsky was particularly tough for Anand in past while Topalov can beat anyone any day. Ivanchuk is in his career peak now and can pose trouble to any of Anand, Kramnik, Topalov, Kamsky. Lets see how it goes.