GM Kiril Georgiev of Bulgaria takes the lead

GM Kiril Georgiev of Bulgaria with 4 points takes the lead at the end of the fourth round of the XIV International Chess Tournament at Balaguer, Spain. Udeshi Aditya (3) playing his favourite Tarrash defence against white’s queen pawn opening tried to steer the game for active play. But the grand master took the black to the endgame and won the game .
Bharathi .R of Tamilnadu with white won a rook for a minor piece and two pawns against the Bulgarian Intenational Master Ivanov Jordan in the Sicilian defence. But the advanced connected passed pawns on the queenside forced her to take perpetual check to draw the game.

Deepthamsh Reddy of Andhra Pradesh employing the Sicilian defence lost a pawn in the middle game against the Bulgarian FM Berbatov Kiprian. After that white did not give any chance to Black to recover and finally white won the game. Shalmali Gagare (2) got a slight edge from the English opening against the Spanish International Master Ipatov Aleander . During the game she refused her opponent’s draw offer and this offer lulled her sense of danger on the kingside which eventually cost her game also.

J.Saranya lost her game against the International Master Kovacevic Slobodan. Priyadharshan (2.5)of Madurai won against the Spanish women International Master Robles Garcia Clandia. Debashis Das of Orissa also won against the Spanish player Ramon Solams Albert . Girish A Koushik lost his game against WFM Rucha Pujari . Pallabi Roy lost her game against the GM Westerined Heikki of Finland. Rakesh Kulkarni and Shristy J Shetty won easily against their respective opponents.

Fenil Shah of Gujarat’s opponent Enterria Galguera of Spain came to the tournament hall after 50 minutes and without making a move from the black side he resigned the game. The score sheet was duly singed. Whereas in the Devangi Patankar board, her opponent FM Colas Longares Rafael of Spain did play the game and after seeing that he was losing a piece he just went away from the hall. White had to wait and claimed the win on lost on time rule.

4th round results
GM KIRIL GEORGIEV BEAT UDESHI ADITYA (3)
SHALMALI GAGARE (2) LOST TO IM IPATOV ALEXANDER
WIM ROBLES GARCIA CLANDIA LOST TO PRIYADHARSHAN K (2)
RAMON SOLAMS ALBERT LOST TO DEBASHIS DAS (2.5)
LLOP LLOP JOSHEP LOST TO RAKESH KULKARNI (2)
WFM RUCHA PUJARI (2) BEAT GIRISH A KOUSHIK (1.5)
FM BERBATOV KIPRIAN BEAT DEEPTHAMSH REDDY (1.5)
IM KOVACEVIC SLOBODAN BEAT SARANYA J (2)
BHARATHI R (2.5) DREW IM IVANOV JORDAN
PALLABI ROY (1.5) LOST TO GM WESTERINEN HEIKKI
SHRISHTI J SHETTY (2) BEAT FEBRERO PEREZ LLUIS
GM MATEO RAMON LOST TO GM G N GOPAL (3)
FENIL SHAH (2.5) BEAT ENTERRIA GALGUERA JOSE ANTONIO
DEVANGI PATANKAR (3) BEAT FM COLAS LONGARES RAFAEL

Najer wins Maccabiah rapid

Evgeny Najer won the strong Maccabiah rapid tournament in Netanya, Israel yesterday with a score of 9.5/12. The Russian grandmaster finished a full point ahead of his compatriot Ian Nepomniachtchi. Veteran Alexander Beliavsky finished on a fine third place in a field that included Boris Gelfand and Judit Polgar.

The 18th Maccabiah Games are held July 12-23, 2009 at the Blue-Bay Hotel in Netanya, Israel. The Maccabiah Games have included chess tournaments for more than 30 years. This year a number of elite chess players from all over the world participate.

The festival includes several events: a very strong international rapid tournament with players like Boris Gelfand, Judit Polgar and Pavel Eljanov; an invitational tournament with norm opportunity, an open tournament, a youth tournament for players who were born between 1991 and 1994 and several simultaneous exhibitions by the three players mentioned above.

The sponsor of the festival is Richard Riordan. From the organizers:

In 1981, successful lawyer, businessman, hi-tech investor and venture capitalist Richard Riordan created the Foundation that bears his name. His simple goal: enable people to acquire skills necessary to compete successfully in society. He had an equally simple plan: teach children to read and write at an early age, and nurture leadership skills in young adults. The Riordan Foundation has an impressive record of computer-based, early childhood literacy programs across America and youth development and leadership programs with over 2,400 graduates. Its signature Rx for Reading programs have distributed over 25,500 computers to over 2,140 schools in 40 states and provided funds for over 172,000 books purchased for elementary schools.

Richard Riordan won a decisive election victory in Los Angeles in 1993, and quickly became one of the most successful and admired of big city mayors in the USA. He won a second term by a landslide in 1997, and had he not himself imposed the consecutive-terms limit, he would undoubtedly have been Mayor after 2001. For 8 years, he accepted a salary of exactly $1 per year. In 2003, he was the natural choice to serve as California Secretary of Education in Governor Schwarzenegger’s first cabinet.

It will not surprise any chess player to learn that Richard Riordan, the confirmed believer in the power of early education, is also a lifelong aficionado of chess and a friend of many leading players. When his advisor and friend Steve Soboroff formed the Los Angeles Committee of 18, Richard Riordan was moved to sponsor the 18th Maccabiah Chess Festival in recognition of Maccabi World Union’s encouragement of young chess players in many countries.

The rapid tournament, proudly called “Super-Tournament” by the organizers, took place July 12-14. The rate of play was (15 minutes per person per game + 5 seconds increment per move). Evgeny Najer, who won the World Open in Philadelphia recently, was again successful, winning the event with 9.5 out of 12.

The tournament had a strange finish. In the final round Najer was totally crushed by tailender Emil Sutovsky, who had played a dreadful tournament until then. This meant that Ian Nepomniachtchi, who we’ll also see in Mainz later this month, could still catch him but… the Russian also lost quickly, to Avrukh.

Richard Riordan Rapid 2009 Final Standings

Below are the games. As so often, they’re retrieved from TWIC, where Mark Crowther is still doing a tremendous job after all those years (this can and should be said, every now and then). He notes that the PGN hasn’t been fully sorted out yet, and that the games Golod-Gelfand and Fridman-Sutovsky could in fact be the other way round as they are unlabeled on the website.

[click here for games and pictures]

[Report by: ChessVibes]

Changes to Title and Rating Regulations effective from July 1st 2009

Registration of Tournaments

All tournaments have to be pre-registered one month before the tournament; exceptions to this may be decided by the QC Chairman.
The intention is to publish registered tournaments in a calendar on the FIDE web page immediately after registration. This is to inform the participating players that the tournament will be rated.
A tournament registration may be rejected, if the tournament seems to be suspicious. FIDE has also the right not to rate a tournament. The organizer may appeal against these decisions.

Rating Period

The rating period will be shortened from three months to two months. The list dates will be January 1, March 1, May 1, July 1, September 1 and November 1.
The closing date, it is the date on or by which a competition must be finished to be included on the list, will be seven days before the list date. The official FIDE competitions will be taken on the list if they finish even on the day before the list date.

Coefficient K

The change of K as decided in Dresden was not confirmed by the PB. The K values stay as they are.
Also the value of 0.5 point in a new player's rating calculation will stay as 12.5 (half of the highest K value).

The K is determined based on the rating at the beginning of the tournament, not based on the rating at the time the ratings are calculated (the practice now)

Rating of Previously Unrated Players

Games against unrated players are rated in round-robin tournaments, as they have been rated so far. It is, if a previously unrated player scores at least 1 point in the event, the rating will be calculated. For the previously rated players all games, also the games against previously unrated players are rated.

In the Swiss tournaments, the rating of a previously unrated player is calculated, if the player plays against at least three rated opponents, scores at least 1 point against the rated opponents, and the rating calculated based on these games is at least the rating floor.

The rating of games of a rated player against unrated opponents was not confirmed by the PB, but the issue was returned to the QC.

Rating Floor

The rating floor will be 1200 from 1.7.2009. It means that a first result giving a rating at least 1200 for an unrated player is taken into account when calculating the unrated player's first published rating.

Changes in the Calculation of the Unrated Player's Rating

The new player's first published rating will be calculated in a cumulative way. Until 30.6.2009: The rating is calculated as a weighted average of tournament ratings (at least three rated opponents in a tournament) when the total number of games against rated players is at least 9. From 1.7.2009: The rating will be calculated as if all games had been in one tournament. Example: An unrated player has played three tournaments as follows: 3 games with a result 1.5/3 against opponents with an average rating of 2000, 4 games 1/4 against 2100 and 5 games 4/5 against 2200. Until 30.6.2009: The partial ratings would be 2000, 1907 and 2238, weighted average is 2068. From 1.7.2009: The average rating of all opponents is 2142, the total result is 6.5/12, so the new player's rating is 2142+12.5=2155.

Maximum Rating Difference

The maximum rating difference used in the calculations will be 400 points instead of 350. If the rating difference between players is more than 400 points, 400 points is used. It means that the highest expected result in a game will 0.92 instead of 0.89 and the lowest expected result will 0.08 instead of 0.11.

Villa De Benasque,Spain- Final day report

R. Bharathi

R.Bharathi (7) won the Best Women prize after scoring a thumping victory over Rodriguez Fernandez of Spain after the last round of the Villa De Benasque Chess tournament at Benasque, Spain. Shalmali Gagare (7) of Maharashtra drew with FM Espinosas Angel of Spain to get a 10 games IWM norm.

Shrishti Shetty (6) and Pallabi Roy (6) won against Gomez Jorge and Asier Etxagiel respectively. J.Sharanya (5.5) suffered her third consecutive loss against Garcia Ortega of Spain. Rucha Pujari (5.5) went down fighting against Justin Horton of England.

Devangi Patankar (6) of India received a 9 games IWM norm in this tournament. Bharathi and Shalmali Gagare won the rating category prizes.

K. Priyadarshan (7.5) drew with IM Starostits Ilmars with Black pieces. Aditya Udeshi ( 7) scored a smooth victory with White pieces against lowly rated Fernandez Juan of Spain. Debishish Das (7) of Orissa drew with IWM Fandino Reyes of Cuba from black side of King's Indian Attack.

Girish Kaushik (7) won a nice game against Prats Rodriguez of Spain. Deepthamesh Reddy (6.5) played well to hold IM Ole Jackobson of Denmark to a draw. Rakesh Kulkarni (6.5) was unlucky to lose to IM Carrasco Martinez of Spain.

Aditya Udeshi won the category prize.

GM Mihai Marin of Romania won the tournament with 9 points. Indian GM G.N.Gopal tied for the first with 9 points but was placed fourth on tie break. Top seed GM Kiril Georgiev of Bulgaria finished second and GM Andriasian Zaven from Armenia finished third with 9 points each.

-Dozen titles for India

The FIDE Presidential Board met and approved many titles and at the end of it, India added its grandmaster strength by one. Sundararajan Kidambi of Bharat Petroleum, Chennai was awarded the highest grand master title by FIDE. India got 12 titles in the FIDE Meetings that took place from June 15-18.

Kidambi, 26, made his three GM norms at the Canadian Open 2005, Badalona Open 2008 in Spain and the final norm at Dubai on May 5 this year. His GM title has been ratified and awarded by FIDE after the latest communique was received by the AICF from FIDE.

Shivarame Gowda Thej Kumar of Mysore in Karnataka was formally awarded the International Master title by FIDE. He was earlier called M.S. Thej Kumar by us and he has made the requirement of GM norms as well.

M.S. Gopakumar of Delhi was awarded the International Arbiter title. Further, nine FIDE Arbiter titles were awarded and it went to R. Guruswamy, M. Muthukumar (both TN), Saripalli Jotsna (Goa),B.T. Sethuraman, R. Bhuvana (TN), Deepak Tandel, P.B. Bhilare (Mah), Madhav Vitthal Baba (all Mah), Sunil Kumar ( Del).