More fun than chess?

This story comes from the Melbourne Herald Sun, who attributed it to The Australian, who picked it up from The Times.

Obviously, like Gormallygate, it's going to circumnavigate the world a few more times before it drops out of orbit.

* * *

Young chess prodigy runs away, lives with stripper
by Tom Hennigan in Sao Paulo

A CHESS prodigy who ran away and hooked an exotic dancer almost twice his age has returned home to a hero's welcome after a teenage adventure that took him to Brazil's hotspots.

It all began when Emilio Cordova, a 15-year-old international master from Peru, was crowned South American chess champion in January after winning a tournament in the Argentine city of Cordoba.

Instead of returning to Lima, he told relatives he was heading to Brazil to compete in tournaments there in a push to reach the rank of international grandmaster.

But far from focusing on his grandmaster dreams, Emilio quickly became caught up in Sao Paulo's pulsating and sleazy nightlife. He formed a relationship with a single Brazilian mother, Adriane Oliveira, 29, dubbed the "Bella Brasileira" by the Peruvian media, with whom he soon fell in love.

Ms Oliveira works in Love Story, a hot city club where young Emilio took to spending his nights dancing.

To fund his Brazilian sojourn, he told his family he had fallen ill and needed them to wire out money to pay for medical expenses.

He even sold his laptop computer, which contained all his chess notes and training programs.

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You can read the rest of this young man's epic journey from childhood to adulthood (since the lady was unmarried it can scarcely be called adultery!) here: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21385658-663,00.html

Wesley So wins Asian teams gold medal

The Pavlodar (KAZ) team won the Asian Cities Team Championship for the Dubai Cup, bringing yet another honour for Wesley So. The young Pinoy master has won the gold medal for Board 3, finishing ahead of GM Petr Kostenko to take the award.

Wesley's team mate, GM Rogelio Antonio Jr, who will be in Australia next month for the Sydney International Open, took the silver on Board 2.

Asian Chess Federation president Sheikh Sultan bin Khalifah Al Nahyan approved the request of all team captains to institute a new award of medals for best performance rating on individual boards. The system takes into account the strength of the opposition unlike the traditional system of percentage score.

Please note: the ratings shown for each player are RP ratings, not FIDE.

Board 1

Gold GM Ghaem Maghami Ehsan Saipa 2643

Silver GM Zhou Jianchao Shanghai 2536

Bronze GM Kotsur Pavel Pavlodar 2475


Board 2

Gold GM Vladimirov Evgeny Pavlodar 2809

Silver GM Antonio Rogelio Jr Tagaytay 2553

Bronze FM Darban Morteza Tidewater 2469


Board 3

Gold IM So Wesley Tagaytay 2623

Silver GM Kostenko Petr Pavlodar 2578

Bronze IM Ghane Shojaat Rahahan 2446


Board 4

Gold IM Rinat Jumabeav Pavlodar 2570

Silver IM Dimakiling Oliver Tagaytay 2529

Bronze IM Mallahi Amir Saipa 2413


Board 5

Gold IM Ismagambetov An Pavlodar 2584

Black and white chess

"This game was supposed to be over a half-hour go," Peterbark exclaims, sighing loudly. "Can I get you to consider making this move sometime today? How about just sometime this side of eternity?"

It sounds like a quote from the park scene in Searching for Bobby Fischer but it's normal kibitzing at the Forestville Chess Club's weekly binge.

Under the title, Kings of a Different Game, Washington Post published the following story on March 11.

QUOTE
It's 9 o'clock on a Friday night at a Starbucks in Forestville, and Robb Peterbark is glaring across the chessboard at his opponent.

"You better take Barbaro while you got the chance. If not, he's gonna get you," Peterbark snarls, referring to a knight he has named after the Kentucky Derby winner.

Across the board, Dwight Dawson frowns as he contemplates his next move.

"This game was supposed to be over a half-hour go," Peterbark exclaims, sighing loudly. "Can I get you to consider making this move sometime today? How about just sometime this side of eternity?"

Dawson snatches up the knight. Peterbark grabs his chest.

"You took Barbaro!" he said. "That's all right! Secretariat is still gonna get you!"

It's three hours into the Forestville Chess Club's weekly chess binge that starts every Friday afternoon at Starbucks, then moves down the block to the International House of Pancakes, where players compete until sunup. It picks up the next afternoon at Borders bookstore in Largo, often followed by hours playing at one another's homes.
END QUOTE

It's an entertaining article. Read it at the Washington Post, here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/10/AR2007031001383.html

It could happen to anybody

First there was his remarkable victory at San Luis, 2005, during which cheating allegations were made after he scored 6.5 from his first seven games; then came the infamous squabble with Kramnik that will be forever remembered as Dunnygate; now he's been frisked by the Spanish police. We can only hope that the cheating allegations can be laid to rest as easily as Topalov's brush with the law.

The following article appeared in the Sofia Weekly, March 09. View the original story here: http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=77684

Spanish Police Search Car of Bulgaria's Chess
King
Police in Spain's Linares have searched the car of world
chess king Vesselin Topalov, who is in the town for the annual chess
tournament.
Topalov's 14-year-old Volkswagen Polo was searched for bombs and drugs
shortly after he completed a round of demonstrative games in the town's central
street.
Nothing turned up during the check and Topalov was free to go back to
his hotel.

We understand that Topalov now lives in Spain.

Chess originated in India's Uttar Pradesh

The following article appeared in the Times of India on March 9.
The author was Akhilesh Kumar Singh

LUCKNOW: It's like a Taj-like glory for Uttar Pradesh. A group of German Indologists has claimed to have resolved the controversy over the origin of chess in favour of Kannauj, a township about 75 km from Kanpur in the state.

Different countries, at some point in time, have been associated with the game's invention including India, China, Persia (Iran), Egypt, Assyria, Arabia, Greece, Ireland and Uzbekistan. Many countries claim to have invented chess in some incipient form.

But the Indologists' group has almost come to the conclusion that chess originated in Kannauj when it was the capital of Maukhari kingdom in the 6th century. The Maukhari ruler Sharva Varman had gifted the game of 'chaturanga' to his contemporary Persian ruler Khushrau-II in lieu of saltpetre (a variety of gunpowder).

"According to the research done by us so far, we have reached the conclusion that 'chaturanga' was the initial form of chess," German researcher Manfred A J Eder told TOI.

Read the rest of this interesting article at the Times of India web site here: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Chess_originated_from_UP/

Of course, there is bound to be dissent and regular visitors to the Rooty Hill web page will realise that chess really originated in Scandinavia when the world was young. You can read about it here: http://www.rootyhillchess.org/xmas06.html

City of Sydney Championship

The City of Sydney Championship was held at Norths over the past two weekends.

The Open was shared by Ronald Yu and Dariusz Swiercz on 4.5/7. (Ronald gets the title as Dariusz is not residentially qualified,)

The U1700 was shared by Herman Rachmadi and David Evans, also on 4.5/7.

The Lightning was won clearly by Jason Hu on 10 points ahead of Ronald Yu on 8, then Max Illingworth and Dariusz Swiercz on 7.5.

Report and cross tables on the Rooty Hill web page: http://www.rootyhillchess.org/cos07.html

Chess videos, Mark Weeks, and "About Chess"

Every Monday morning I get a copy of Mark Weeks's "About Chess" newsletter. It's part of the excellent "About" network that produces newsletters, forums and information on just about any subject you can name. It's worth a visit, and it's all free. If you subscribe you'll receive Mark's interesting and informative email in your box every Monday morning. That's Monday Oz-time, of course. It's still yesterday in the rest of the world!) You can find this week's (no pun intended chess column here: http://chess.about.com/b/a/257390.htm?nl=1.

This week Mark provides a link to chess videos on the Internet. If you click on this You-Tube link you'll be able to access them: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chess&search=Search.

Go west, young man!

Not sure how he'd react to the "young man" tag but NSWCA and ACF treasurer Norm Greenwood has gone west.

Now I don't mean that in WW2 slang to mean he has departed this mortal coil; rather, he departed his home at Hornsby and is now living at Bullaburra on the beautiful Blue Mountains.

We think that's a wonderfully up-market move, Norm, and we hope you'll be very happy there. We'd like to think you'll change your chess allegience with the change of territory and join us at Rooty Hill but alas! that's not to be. Norm said yesterday that he's still going to play at his two old clubs, North Sydney and Manly.

Not only that, he's going to travel there by public transport.

Good luck with that one, Norm. There are a few things about the Blue Mountains train service you have yet to discover!

FIDE President's World Championship Decision

The world championship is to a return to a more traditional match between a champion and a challenger, replacing the present system of awarding the title to the winner of a "world championship" tournament. But the method of selecting a challenger will not be determined, as in the past, by a series of candidates' elimination matches.

FIDE president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, has released the following statement:

Moscow, 1 March 2007Dear Chess Friends,Following the decision of the Presidential Board at its meeting in Antalya, I was tasked to take a decision on the World Chess Championship cycle and the World Chess Cup.

After a thorough examination of the responses from the top Grandmasters and ACP and based on my consultations with national federations and various representatives of the chess public, I have resolved as follows:1. In respect of the World Championship Cycle, to approve Proposal A (shown below).

The proposal is very simple and seems to me to be easier to explain to sponsors, the mass media and chess lovers throughout the world. This proposal gives more prestige to the World Cup and its winner. Choosing this proposal, we are going to continue the long tradition of chess championship matches,, established in 1886.

I am sure that everyone will like the clash of different styles, characters and approach to chess during these matches. 2. In respect of the World Chess Cup: 126 participants. First stage – 14 groups, 9 players each. Second stage: 14 group winners + 4 best of those who came second in the groups. At the second stage 18 players are divided into 2 groups, 9 players each. The group winners play a match of 4 games. The duration of the tournament is 26 days.

Taking into consideration the experience of other sport Federations and the opinions in favour of the tournament of 8 players, I am proposing hereby to organize “FIDE Masters` Cup” in November and /or December of each even year for the first 6 players according to the rating list (Double Round Robin system), with the minimum prize fund of 500,000 (five hundred thousand) USD.

Gens Una Sumus,
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
President

Proposal A
The proposal is to terminate the World Championship Tournament and keep the World Cup as a Candidates tournament to find a challenger for a World Championship match.

So in every odd year there will be only the World Cup (2007, 2009, 2011, etc.) and the respective winner will play every next year (2008, 2010, 2012, etc.) a match against the World Champion.

The chronological breakdown:
a1. 2008: The winner from WCCT 2007 in Mexico plays a World Championship match against the previous World Champion. If Kramnik does not win the WCCT 2007, then Kramnik can challenge the winner of Mexico in the first part of 2008. If Kramnik wins in Mexico, then the right to challenge goes to the previous World Champion, ie Topalov.
a2. 2009: The winner of the "a1" match plays a World Championship match against the winner of the 2007 World Cup which will be held in Khanty-Mansiysk.
a3. 2010: The World Champion (winner of "a2") plays a World Championship match against the winner of the 2009 World Cup,
a4. 2012: The World Champion (winner of "a3") plays a World Championship match against the winner of the 2011 World Cup,a5. 2014: The World Champion (winner of "a4") plays a World Championship match against the winner of the 2013 World Cup,
and so on.

The full proposal is available from FIDE at http://www.fide.com/news.asp?id=1277