It was a long, sleepless, stirring night! On Ferbuary 26th, at 6:46AM, near the daybreak time, with the first sunbeams shyly penetrating the air my wife delivered our second daughter Klara Bartelska. She is so little and so helpless just mewling to get a portion of mother's milk once in a while. Klara weights 8lb 30oz and is 1'10'' long. Both she and her mother are tired but feel well.

It's hard put in words how happy and proud are Klara's parents. I am still amazed by the very marvel of life manifested in the presence of this little girl. Do not forget that our elder daughter Teresa already turned two in December. Let's hope both girls will grow up righteous women and hopefully play chess and love the game the same as we do.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Chess - Bobby Fischer once said - is life. It was the chess master's tragedy that the messy, tawdry details of his life often overshadowed the sublime genius of his game. Fischer, who has died at the age of 64, was a child prodigy, a teenage grandmaster and - before age 30 - a world champion who triumphed in a Cold War showdown with Soviet champion Boris Spassky.

But the last three decades of his life were spent in seclusion, broken periodically by erratic and often anti-Semitic comments and by an absurd legal battle with his homeland, the United States.

He was the pride and sorrow of chess - said Raymond Keene, a British grandmaster and chess correspondent for The Times of London. - It's tragic that such a great man descended into madness and anti-Semitism.

Fischer died Thursday of kidney failure in Reykjavik after a long illness, friend and spokesman Gardar Sverrisson said Friday.

A giant of the chess world is gone - said Fridrik Olafsson, an Icelandic grandmaster and former president of the World Chess Federation. Noted French chess expert Olivier Tridon - Bobby Fischer has died at age 64. Like the 64 squares of a chess board.

In another bit of symmetry, his death occurred in the city where he had his greatest triumph - the historic encounter with Spassky.

Chicago-born and Brooklyn-bred, Fischer moved to Iceland in 2005 in a bid to avoid extradition to the U.S., where he was wanted for playing a 1992 match in Yugoslavia in defiance of international sanctions. At his peak, Fischer was a figure of mystery and glamour who drew millions of new fans to chess. Russian former world chess champion Garry Kasparov said Fischer's ascent of the chess world in the 1960s was "a revolutionary breakthrough" for the game.

The tragedy is that he left this world too early, and his extravagant life and scandalous statements did not contribute to the popularity of chess. - Kasparov told The Associated Press.

Rival and friend Spassky, reached at his home in France, said in a brief telephone interview that he was "very sorry" to hear of Fischer's death. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, president of the World Chess Federation, called Fischer a phenomenon and an epoch in chess history, and an intellectual giant I would rank next to Newton and Einstein.

An American chess champion at 14 and a grand master at 15, Fischer vanquished Spassky in 1972 in a series of games in Reykjavik to become the first officially recognized world champion born in the United States. The Fischer-Spassky match, at the height of the Cold War, took on mythic dimensions as a clash between the world's two superpowers.

It was a myth Fischer was happy to fuel. - It's really the free world against the lying, cheating, hypocritical Russians, he said.

But Fischer's reputation as a chess genius was eclipsed, in the eyes of many, by his volatility and often bizarre behavior. He lost his world title in 1975 after refusing to defend it against Anatoly Karpov. He dropped out of competitive chess and largely out of view, spending time in Hungary and the Philippines and emerging occasionally to make outspoken and often outrageous comments. He praised the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying - I want to see the U.S. wiped out and described Jews as "thieving, lying bastards." Fischer's mother was Jewish.

In 2004, Fischer was arrested at Japan's Narita airport for traveling on a revoked U.S. passport. He was threatened with extradition to the United States to face charges of violating sanctions imposed to punish Slobodan Milosevic, then leader of Yugoslavia, by playing a 1992 rematch against Spassky in the country.Fischer renounced his U.S. citizenship and spent nine months in custody before the dispute was resolved when Iceland - a chess-mad nation of 300,000 - granted him citizenship.

They talk about the 'axis of evil,' - Fischer said when he arrived in Iceland. What about the allies of evil ... the United States, England, Japan, Australia? These are the evildoers.

In his final years, Fischer railed against the chess establishment, claiming that the outcomes of many top-level chess matches were decided in advance. Instead, he championed his concept of "Fischerandom," or random chess, in which pieces are shuffled at the beginning of each match in a bid to reinvigorate the game.

I don't play the old chess, - he told reporters when he arrived in Iceland in 2005. - But obviously if I did, I would be the best.

Born in Chicago on March 9, 1943, Robert James Fischer was a child prodigy, playing competitively from age 8. At 13, he became the youngest player to win the United States Junior Championship. At 14, he won the United States Open Championship for the first of eight times. At 15, he became an international grand master, the youngest person to hold the title. Tall and striking-looking, he was a chess star - but already gaining a reputation for erratic behavior. He turned up late for tournaments, walked out of matches, refused to play unless the lighting suited him and was intolerant of photographers and cartoonists. He was convinced of his own superiority and called the Soviets "commie cheats."

Chess is war on a board - he once said - The object is to crush the other man's mind.

His behavior often unsettled opponents - to Fischer's advantage. This was seen most famously in the championship match with Spassky in Reykjavik between July and September 1972. Having agreed to play Spassky in Yugoslavia, Fischer raised one objection after another to the arrangements and they wound up playing in Iceland. Fischer then demanded more money and, urged by no less than Henry Kissinger, he went to Iceland after a British financier, Jim Slater, enriched the prize pot.

Fischer is known to be graceless, rude, possibly insane. I really don't worry about that, because I didn't do it for that reason. - Slater has said. - I did it because he was going to challenge the Russian supremacy, and it was good for chess., he added.

When play got under way, days late, Fischer lost the first game with an elementary blunder after discovering that the TV cameras he had reluctantly accepted were not unseen and unheard, but right behind the players' chairs. He boycotted the second game and the referee awarded the point to Spassky, putting the Russian ahead 2-0. But then Spassky agreed to Fischer's demand that the games be played in a back room away from cameras. Fischer went on to beat Spassky, 12.5 points to 8.5 points in 21 games. In the recent book "White King and Red Queen," British author Daniel Johnson said the match was an abstract antagonism on an abstract battleground using abstract weapons ... yet their struggle embraced all human life. In Spassky's submission to his fate and Fischer's fierce exultant triumph, the Cold War's denouement was already foreshadowed.

Funeral details were not immediately available. Fischer moved to Iceland with his longtime companion, Japanese chess player Miyoko Watai. She survives him.

/ Written by Gudjon Helgason. Taken from www.bobbyfischer.net. Associated Press Writers Jill Lawless in London and Mansur Mirovalev in Moscow contributed to this report. /

See Robert James Fischer's Chess Olympiads' summary

The Asian Team Championship was held from 2nd until 10th January 2008 in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India. The event drew barely eight teams, both in men's and women's competition, representing seven nations. The number of participating countries diminishes steadily from its peak of 20 achieved in 1995. The men's event could have been way more combative had only strong Filipino team obtained Indian visas in time.

Judging from Elo lists it seemed obvious that both men's and women's tournament would be a two-horse race between India and China. As both major teams scored surprising draws in the opening round of men's event against India "B" and Vietnam respectively, they won all other matches drawing with each other in round 4. With both teams finishing at 12 match points the Chinese won on game point count. Vietnam easily grabbed third spot.

In the women's event leaders China and India won five matches in a row to meet on penultimate day. The Chinese, having half of a point advantage in hand beat India 2.5-0.5 to pick their fourth ever Asian Team Championship. Vietnam took bronze on tie break.

Best individual results were scored by the Chinese: Wang Hao and Zhou Jianchao in men's event (5/6) as well as Zhao Xue and Shen Yang in women's contest (6.5/7).

Even though the event took off already in 2008 it is strangely referred to as "Asian Team Ch 2007" in the official documents (see the logo at the top).

Tournament website: http://www.vizagchess.net

See detailed results of men's competition
See detailed results of women's competition

See all-time medal table: men, women

The history of face-to-face team matches in chess logically starts with the history of chess organizations, since teams almost invariably represent organizations, or else participate in events established by organizations. The earliest known formally-organized chess organizations in the modern era were local chess clubs found in London in the 1770's. At least one of those early London clubs had formal membership, restricted to 100 members, including "statesmen, warriors, men of eminence" - as well as apparently one of Franklin's female opponents (evidently common folk need not apply, as upper and lower classes did not yet mingle in organizations). That club financed Philidor's attendance there each year, and showed evidence of regular business meetings and scheduled activities. Such chess clubs were a step up from the unorganized coffee-houses and similar meeting-places that had constituted all that was known of chess organization previously.

Many formally-organized clubs followed the London example in the ensuing decades, and it is possible that some of these clubs played face-to-face team matches with each other when they existed in close proximity. However, no record of any such matches has been identified before about 1840, although some early matches may have gone unreported since chess magazines did not exist before the late 1830's. Another major obstacle was transportation, which was such a time-consuming and arduous process that clubs in different cities would have found a face-to-face team match simply too expensive in time and money.

All that began to change with the coming of railroads, which was making dramatic changes in people's lives by 1840, a fact readily noted in chess literature of the day. One of those changes was that chess clubs could easily visit their counterparts in other cities, and the first reported team face-to-face matches between clubs were starting to occur by 1840. They were retrospectively described in a speech by W. Robinson at the 1845 Nottingham meeting of players of the Northern and Midlands Counties' counties, as reported in Howard Staunton's The Chess Player's Chronicle, vol. V (1845) on page 281: "...several matches were made between players from the different towns in Yorkshire, who, although not the best players, were considered pretty equal in proficiency. Of course, these matches could not be played in one day; and the consequence of the visits of the players of the players of one town to the players of another was a general meeting. The first assembly of this description took place in 1840, and a great impetus being thus given to the progress of chess, he was happy to say these annual meetings had been kept up every since". This speech in 1845 was the earliest-known known reference to OTB team matches, though unfortunately details of those matches were not given. Thus, we can approximate their date only as 1840 or slightly earlier.

The annual meetings mentioned in Mr. Robinson's speech began in the Yorkshire area in England, and were the first general meetings of players from different cities. From those early Yorkshire meetings evolved the idea of national chess organizations, as the Yorkshire meetings gradually expanded to give birth to the British Chess Association in the late 1850's. George Walker, a chess author of the time, referred to those early Yorkshire meetings as "tournaments" because they reminded him of medieval tournaments involving knights and jousts. In fact the early Yorkshire annual meetings were not true tournaments or even team matches, as the competition was unstructured, limited to one day, and concluded by formal dinners with rousing speeches. Nevertheless, Walker's choice of words apparently led to use of "tournament" in modern sports and games (I traced the evolution of the word "tournament" in my paper The Birth of the Chess Tournament , issued in 1982, and credited in the 1992 Oxford Companion to Chess under the "Tournament, the" entry).

It is important to note that those Yorkshire meetings, which gave rise in time to national chess organizations and modern tournaments, were inspired by those first-known team matches between Yorkshire clubs in or before 1840. However, after that date there is no identified reference to OTB team matches until 1853, when a speech was quoted as follows in The Chess Player's Chronicle: "The representatives of two clubs might meet at some place convenient to both parties, and play a match of nine, 18, or 27 games, according to the number of delegates. But few days, indeed, could be spared for the necessary absence; yet everyone has some leisure occasionally, and far less time would be lost thus than in games by correspondence. A challenge of the nature we suggest once emanated from the Liverpool Club, but was never accepted." The speaker then apparently alluded to those early team matches, ca 1840, noted above, as well as perhaps others, as follows: "The plan we suggest has been, we believe, very successfully tried in some of the Yorkshire clubs; and, indeed, it was but the same principle under another form which prompted the establishment of the Great Yorkshire Chess Association, which is every day receiving an accession of members from the Northern and Midland counties."

Finally, a full description of a full team match was given on pp. 175-76 of the 1855 Chess Player's Chronicle, which described a "chess match between the Manchester and Liverpool chess clubs" with nine players on each side. Manchester won 12-6, although the table is unclear; most participants apparently played two games, but two pairings seem to have involved three games. Two drawn games did not count, and it is possible that the 3-game pairings were intended to replace those two draws, though they were played by other players on the team. The Manchester Examiner and Times of 21 April 1855 was quoted in the Chronicle article as follows: "Wednesday was certainly an unusual day in the annals of chess. Matches have frequently taken place between clubs by means of post; but the present is almost the only instance of an exchange of visits between two clubs."

Not long thereafter, at the June 26, 1855 meeting of the Northern and Midlands Counties' Chess Association, "matches between various clubs for prizes were played", according to p. xxiii of Lowenthal's The Chess Congress of 1862, which contained a retrospective of those early meetings that led to the first British Chess Association. Unfortunately, no details were given, and it is unclear how formal such matches may have been. Finally, it should be noted that p. 161 of The Chess Player's Chronicle of 1848 had noted that two players from the Trinity College, Cambridge Club had, in a "hasty visit" to Oxford, played against two of the best players of the Oxford Hermes Club, wining one and drawing one. No exact date or details were given from that brief encounter, in which it seemed to have been understood that the honor of those two clubs was somewhat at stake.

In conclusion, the modern era of team matches seems to begun as a product of the railroad's great impact on society in the first decades of the 19th century, in association with the birth of modern chess clubs. Furthermore, the very eariest clearly-documented matches between clubs, ca 1840, seem to have had a tremendous impact on chess history: for those matches, played between Yorkshire clubs, gave rise to the Yorkshire regional meetings; and those meetings, in turn, led to modern national organizations and tournaments.


Robert John McCrary (b.1948) is an American. He is renowned chess historian and retired US Chess Federation frontbencher. In 1980s served as President of USCF. He also played a major role in establishing the World Chess hall of Fame (Miami, FL). His chess history research focuses on years between 1600 and 1900. He used to run a chess history column in "Chess Life" presenting a brief overview of chess history from the beginning to the present. His research was used a.o. by "Smithsonian" and the Canadian "Readers' Digest". R.J.McCrary has a Ph.D in psychology and worked as professional physician. He is married with two adult daughters.

The findings given above were provided by the author to the "Chess Notes" column of Edward Winter, where they were recently published with appropriate credit.

ACP (Association of Chess Professionals) is an international not-for-profit organisation, which was founded in Paris in September 2003. A large group of strong professional players gathered together to set up a new body for international chess.

The ACP is run by a Board of nine elected members. Its President is the Grandmaster Pavel Tregubov, European Champion 2000.

The ACP presently regroups 240 top chess professionals from all over the world (including 17 players out of world top 20), including the reigning World Champion Viswanathan Anand (India).

The ACP’s foremost objective is the worldwide promotion of the game of chess. Here is a list of its most important achievements:

In April and May 2004, three Internet chess tournaments were staged, with the participation of over 100 Grandmasters and a record attendance of more than 200,000 unique spectators online.

In July 2004, the ACP Tour was launched. This brand new series unites all major international tournaments into one circuit for a one-year chess season. The ACP Tour now includes more than 60 tournaments all over the world. In September/October 2004, the final of the World Chess Championship was staged under the ACP aegis in Brissago (Switzerland), between titleholder Vladimir Kramnik from Russia and his challenger Peter Leko from Hungary.

In September 2005, the first blitz tournament in the chess history with the participation of the chess stars was broadcasted live on the Russian TV channel NTV+. In January 2007, the first ACP World Rapid Cup was organised in Odessa (Ukraine).

We wish you the Merry Christmas and a happy New Year 2008! May the chess lovers' community grow and get stronger and stronger year by year. In March it will have been four years as our site is online. It grew in­cre­dib­ly with the dis­in­te­res­ted help of hun­dreds of chess fans from all over the world who devoted their leisure time and often money to help the unique data from old, dust-covered ma­ga­zines and bul­le­tins see the sunlight and be freely avai­la­ble for every­one, forever. Thank you all for all! It is great honour to work together.

As the news is published at 11:02 PM it is the very moment when my daughter Teresa was born two years ago. She is now charming and pretty young lady. But that is not all! My wife is going to deliver our second sweetie Klara in February. The bad news is that I still haven't got a son who could one day possibly succeed my chess deed. Time will tell.

There is a Christmas problem for you to solve. Drag your mouse below the brackets to reveal the answer. How fast did you success?
Black to move and mate in 2.

[ 1... bxc3 e.p. (en passant!) 2. a3 (or whatever else) c2# - very easy, isn't it? ]

FIDE Executive Board approved, in its recent meeting in Antalya, Turkey, new rules for the Chess Olympiads, which will come into effect at the 2008 Dresden Olympiad. As there are many significant changes, FIDE draws the attention of national federations to ensure that they and their players are acquainted with the new rules before they attend the Olympiad.

After 50 years (until 1974) of playing the Chess Olympiads under the round-robin system (mostly with preliminaries and finals), FIDE adopted (from 1976) the Swiss System. Mr. Almog Burstein, Chairman of the Technical Administration Panel, introduces the main important changes:

1. The number of boards in each match in the Women's Olympiad was increased from 3 to 4; the number of reserve players in the Open Olympiad was reduced from 2 to 1. That means that all teams in both olympiads will be composed of four players and one reserve.
My comment: acceptable. Increase of number of women's boards up to 4 results in both teams playing equal number of games with white and black pieces. Decreasing size of men's team was inevitable in the era of cost-cuting.

2. The number of rounds was reduced to 11 (instead of 13-14 rounds in previous Olympiads).
My comment: wrong. Swiss is a lottery itself. The less rounds, the more mess. Still, I understand time is money, and less rounds means less time spent on play.

3. In the first round, two `imaginary` match points shall be added, for pairing purposes only, to each of the teams in the top half of the initial list. That means that in an Olympiad with 120 teams, the pairings for the first round will be 1-31, 2-32, 3-33 ... 29-59, 30-60 and then 61-91, 62-92, 63-93 etc. (instead of 1-61, 2-62, 3-63 etc. in previous Olympiads).

4. In the second round, the winning teams in the top half will play with one another (i.e. 1-16, 2-17 etc.), the losing teams in the bottom half will play with one another (i.e. 91-106, 92-107), while the losing teams in the top half will play against the winning teams in the bottom half! (i.e. 31-61, 32-62, 33-63 etc.). This way we `save` one round which is very important towards the end of the Olympiad. The `imaginary` points shall be deducted before making the pairings for the third round.
My comment on 3&4: nonsence! This has apparently been invented to compensate decrease in the number of rounds. However, the similar system was adopted in 1990 and quickly abolished. Also, please take into consideration that the only real idea behind the Swiss is that the minnows might be paired with the giants. The newly adopted system makes it virtually impossible forever.

5. The final standing shall be determined by match points (instead of game points). That means that the winning team in each match (by game result of 2.5:1.5, 3:1, 3.5:0.5 or 4:0) gets 2 match points while its opponent gets no match points. In case of a draw (game result of 2:2) each team gets one match point.
My comment: acceptable. There are pros and cons of this solution compared to standard game point order rule, still both possibilities are acceptable. On one hand game points seem to be more "precise", while on the other adopting match point rule incorporates a real team spirit into the game.

6. The position of teams that finish with the same number of match points shall be determined by the Sonnenborn-Berger system which is the sum of the match points of all opponents, excluding the opponent who scored the lowest number of match points, while each opponent's match score is multiplied by the team's game result against this opponent. The idea behind this new rule is to combine, in the first procedure of the tie breaking, both the strength of the opponents and the number of game points scored against each one of them. The more game points scored against stronger opponents, the better for the team. This way we also give the teams a substantial incentive to win as many game points as possible in each match and not to be satisfied with the minimal win of 2.5:1.5. The exclusion of the weakest opponent is made in order to neutralize the effect of non played matches on the final results.
My comment: good. It is widely known that as long as the final order is decided by match points, the game points are the worst possible tie-breaker (see Euro TCh as a negative example). The proposed system is most fair in this case.

7. If Sonnenborn-Berger does not break the tie, the next tie-breaking procedures are: (b = Buchholz) by the sum of the match scores of all the team's opponents, excluding the opponent who scored the lowest number of match points; and (c) by the sum of the game points scored.

8. The standing after each round, according to the procedure explained in points 5-7 above, is also the basis for the pairings of each next round.

Summary: nothing radical as it seems at first glance. It is still the same, unfair Swiss system with all its disadvantages. The number of games is to diminish considerably making the whole event shorter and cheaper. Was that the main idea behind the change?

What do you think? Post your comment!

/ taken from www.fide.com /

Now hang on, we hear you say, the two nation states have long ceased to exist? But this week organisers in Moscow rolled back the clock and staged a match in the tradition of the famous friends-and-rivals encounters of the 1950s-80s. The teams consisted of veteran players who had taken part in the matches during the heyday of the Soviet era.

Collectors of Soviet chess literature will probably be familiar with the book "Druzya i soperniki" ("Friends and rivals"), which deals with the history of the USSR-Yugoslavia chess matches. Throughout the 1950s to 1980s, these annual matches were one of the most impressive events of the international chess calendar, and produced some great chess.

Over the past 15 or so years, both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia have ceased to exist as nation states, but this week in Moscow, an attempt was made to roll back the clock. The Russian capital played host to a two-round USSR-Yugoslavia match, involving teams of veteran players, all of whom had taken part in the matches during the heyday of the Soviet era.

The "USSR" team was led by Victor Korchnoi, now a Swiss citizen, but restored to "honorary" Soviet citizenship for the two days of this match. Opposing him on board one was Svetozar Gligorić, who had lead the Yugoslav team with success on so many former occasions. The ten-board teams included Taimanov, Averbakh, Vasyukov and Balashov on the USSR side, and Ivkov, Matanovic, Velimirovic and Karaklaic for Yugoslavia.

/ taken from chessbase.com /

See tournament home page



Here is concise history of the 22 USSR-Yugoslavia matches:
1. 1956 Belgrade: Yugoslavia-Soviet Union 26-38
2. 1957 Leningrad: Soviet Union-Yugoslavia 42-22
3. 1958 Zagreb: Yugoslavia-Soviet Union 12½-19½ (3½-4½, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5)
4. 1959 Kyiv: Soviet Union-Yugoslavia 24½-15½ (5½-4½, 5-5, 7-3, 7-3)
5. 1961 Belgrade: Yugoslavia-Soviet Union 28½-31½
6. 1962 Lviv: Soviet Union-Yugoslavia 37-23
7. 1963 Rijeka: Yugoslavia-Soviet Union 24½-35½ (3½-6½, 4½-5½, 3-7, 3½-6½, 4½-5½, 5½-4½)
8. 1964 Leningrad: Soviet Union-Yugoslavia 38½-21½ (7½-2½, 7-3, 5-5, 6½-3½, 7-3, 5½-4½)
9. 1965 Vrnjacka Banja: Yugoslavia-Soviet Union 22-38 (2-8, 4-6, 4½-5½, 3½-6½, 3½-6½, 4½-5½)
10. 1966 Sukhumi: Soviet Union-Yugoslavia 37½-22½ (8-2, 6-4, 6½-3½, 6-4, 5-5, 6-4)
11. 1967 Budva: Yugoslavia-Soviet Union 28½-43½
12. 1968 Sochi: Soviet Union-Yugoslavia 30½-17½ (9½-2½, 8½-3½, 6½-5½, 6-6)
13. 1969 Skopje: Yugoslavia-Soviet Union 18-22 (5-5, 3½-6½, 4½-5½, 5-5)
14. 1971 Yerevan: Soviet Union-Yugoslavia 35-19 (6½-2½, 7-2, 5½-3½, 4½-4½, 6½-2½, 5-4)
15. 1972 Ohrid: Yugoslavia-Soviet Union 13½-26½ (men 10½-13½ , women 2-6, juniors 1-7)
16. 1973 Tbilisi: Soviet Union-Yugoslavia 31-15 (7-5, 9½-2½, 8½-2½, 6-5), men 14-10, women 8½-1½, juniors 8½-3½
17. 1974 Belgrade: Yugoslavia-Soviet Union 16½-19½
18. 1975 Odessa: Soviet Union-Yugoslavia 20-16
19. 1976 Krk (U30): Yugoslavia-Soviet Union 11-29 (3½-6½, 2½-7½, 3-7, 2-8)
20. 1977 Tallinn (U30): Soviet Union-Yugoslavia 31-9 (7-3, 8½-1½, 9-1, 6½-3½)
21. 1979 Teslic: Yugoslavia-Soviet Union 15-25 (5-5, 3½-6½, 3-7, 3½-6½)
22. 2007 Moscow: Soviet Union-Yugoslavia 11-9 (5-5, 6-4)

Total: 22 Soviet wins, no draws, no Yugoslavia wins (!). Points 666-388