Second game of the 68:th Honinbo Match

The 68:th Honinbo Match (sponsored by the news paper Mainichi Shimbun) between Takao Shinji and Iyama Yuta is already becoming quite mesmerizing. These guys are two of the most interesting players in the Go world and their second game involved a lot of exciting ko fights that made me want to do the “wave”, all by myself. I am still a 1kyu player on the Go servers, so my comments should not be taken too seriously although I hope that Go players up to 2 kyu can get something out of it. For the interested Chess player I recommend to open the “Sensei’s Library” page on Go terms in a separate window, in order to understand more of the vocabulary.

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Sigeman & Co. Chess Tournament, parts 2 and 3

The tagline should of course be:

“The revenge of the h-pawn”

…starring Richard Rapport.

The latest developments in the Sigeman & Co. Chess Tournament made me remember my early years, when I used to throw the h-pawn down the board as fast as I could, not seldom tucking the king in on f1, or just leaving it where it was. Even now I am surprised at how often I got away with murder this way. I guess the reason has something to do with that an h-pawn (that is sneaking down towards us on the h-file) activates something within our lizard brain; it’s the equivalent of a big spider. We react with fear. Well, there is no reason to…

As if that was not enough, in the next round Rapport was at it again. What a hero!

I hope you enjoyed today’s comments. There have been some problems with the plugins (and my spelling) earlier, but it’s being improved day by day. Please send me your reactions on anything that disturbs you. We aim to please. No, not really.

Sigeman & Co. Chess Tournament, part 1

For the 21:st time the Sigeman & Co. Chess Tournament is being held in Malmö (and it’s vicinity). This is a special occasion for those who live in the neighborhood, not just because you get to see strong chess at a close distance, but also because you get to see some of the Swedish elite test their strength against strong GM:s from all around the world. Yesterday was the day that Nils Grandelius showed why he has been invited:

Today there is also new material under “coaching”.

Carlsen vs Anand for the uninitiated (and the initiated)

The just finished tournament “Norway Chess” was won in great style by Sergei Karjakin. It was great to watch the fighting spirit of the winner of this tournament, but at the end of the day I cannot help but to be most fascinated with the meeting between the upcoming World Championship finalists: Carlsen and Anand. It seems to me that their game from round 2 well illustrates the what we can expect to see more of in November. Originally I intended to comment this game in two completely different ways; one game for those who no very little about chess and one advanced version, but in the end I decided to mix it all together. It is my ambition that anyone should be able to follow the beginning of the game. It is first after move 15 or so that the comments become more specialized. (At the moment the master architect of this page is trying to find a way for the board to display numbers and letters on the rims so that it will become easier to follow the comments: Hopefully it will be fixed later in the week.)

Toggle comments inline: shift-click F7 square; more board options…

I cannot remember last time I looked so much forward to a chess event as I do now. The 6:th of November it starts.