The information about this festival is limited, probably due to the fact that official website is offering Polish version only. The festival was held on 17-12 August in Polanica Zdroj. There was main 14th category tournament and five different rating and age group opens. Local player GM Bartosz Socko won the main tournament on better additional criteria.

The standings:
1-2. GM Bartosz Socko (POL 2660) and GM Yuriy Kuzubov (UKR 2568) 5.5
3-4. GM Tomasz Markowski (POL 2573) and GM Mateusz Bartel (POL 2609) 5.0
5-7. GM Zaven Andriasian (ARM 2540), GM Viktor Laznicka (CZE 2594) and GM Grzegorz Gajewski (POL 2556) 4.5
8-9. GM Suat Atalik (TUR 2564) and GM Rainer Buhmann (GER 2583) 4.0
10. GM Pawel Czarnota (POL 2575) 2.5

Ukranian GM Vladimir Malaniuk won the 10-rounds open “A” with 8.5 points.

Website

Two American players have qualified for the grandmaster title over the last two years while making the bulk of their qualifying performances at home….

While some tournament managers are having headache over the poor turnouts, people from the IX Open of Sants, Hostafrancs and la Bordeta in Barcelona have formed a waiting list to cover the possible nonappearances after, could you believe it, 500 players have signed up. That makes 305 in the main rated group, 195 in U2000 group. Sants Open is the last event in the Catalan Circuit Rating for “Generalitat de Catalunya Prize”.

Tournament is taking place on 24th August to 2nd September in 79 Sants st, Barcelona (Auditori del Centre Cívic de les Cotxeres de Sants). 10 rounds of swiss system will be played, entry fees are affordable 22-37 Euros and total prize fund 12.300 Euros.

Top players: GM David Shengelia (GEO 2569), GM Friso Nijboer (NED 2568), GM José Manuel López (ESP 2567), GM Walter Arencibia (CUB 2563), GM Viktor Moskalenko (UKR 2560), GM Marc Narciso (ESP 2552), GM José Gonzalez (MEX 2540), GM Saraunas Sulskis (LIT 2537), GM Joszef Pinter (HUN 2535), GM Mihail Marin (GM 2533), IM Sébastien Mazé (FRA 2530), GM Thomas Luther (GER 2529), IM Alexander Cuartas (COL 2504), GM Omar Almeida (CUB 2501), IM Stefan Bromberger (GER 2500), IM Fidel Corrales (CUB 2499), IM Jordi Fluvia (ESP 2497), IM Matthieu Cornette (FRA 2487), GM Lars Karlsson (SWE 2481) etc

Our famous chess program Shredder is now also available for the Apple iPhone. You can play against the Shredder chess engine with three levels of difficulty and solve daily updated chess puzzles. Just go to www.shredderchess.com/iphone with your iPhone to play.

From Shredder website

Google is looking to acquire “one or two Chinese internet companies” and will invest in five in the next 12 months as part of a continued push to increase market share in the worlds fastest growing internet market.

From TechCrunch. Be careful what you type in Google.cn though, or someone might knock on your doors.

Chess Classic Mainz 2007 is conspicuously using Chess960 as name of the variant we know better as Fischer Random chess. Perhaps it has something to do with branding, as they boast about hosting Chess960 FiNet World Championship, which is nothing more than strong lineup.

Even ICC, enjoying regular “Fischer is genius” vs “Fischer is lunatic” arguments during its live broadcasts, says Chess 960 Internet Championship 2007.

First official Fischer Random event was match between young Peter Leko and GM Stanimir Nikolic in Kanjiza.

In 2007, as we complete 60 years of Independence as Indians, we seem to have got a new sense of identity. Not just the kind of identity that comes from having Aloo Tikki burgers or Bollywood pop but a true sense of being a country. As we add to an impressive list of billionaires and top class corporates, Indians are extremely proud of seeing the Indian Tricolour fly high.

For me personally, becoming World No. 1 meant that it was not a first for me but a first for my country. Recently I was with the mayor of a picturesque German town. She mentioned that they were now keen to have Indian tourists rather than Japanese. This was an eye-opener. She said Indians came, stayed at the best hotels and spent on fine food and wine. They were not keen on mass tourism in crowded buses. This is a paradigm shift. India is now seen not as a country with a future but a country where the purse strings are beginning to open and the purse itself is bulging.

Full article in India Times

Carlsen lives in Lommedalen, Baerum, near Norway’s capital, Oslo. He played his first tournament at the age of eight and was coached at the Norwegian Sports Gymnasium led by the country’s top player, International Grandmaster(GM) Simen Agdestein. Agdestein put his civil worker and master player Torbjorn Ringdahl-Hansen, currently a FIDE master with IM and GM norms, as his coach and they had one training session every week, together with one of Magnus’ close friends. The young International Master was given a year off from elementary school to participate in international chess tournaments during the fall season of 2003. In that year, he finished third in the European Under-14 Boys Championship.

In the October 2006 FIDE ratings, Carlsen advanced to world number 22 with a rating of 2698. In the January 2007 ratings he dropped to 2690 and rank 24. In the April 2007 ratings he regained number 22, now with a rating of 2693. And in the July 2007 ratings, after a series of strong results, Carlsen advanced to become world number 17 with a rating of 2710, his highest rating so far.

Source

“A couple of childhood friends gave Serbia one of its best sporting days Sunday.” - comments AP Sports Writer.

Novak Djokovic ended Roger Federer’s 16-match Rogers Cup winning streak after defeating him 2-1 in Montreal’s final. “Djokovic became the first player since Boris Becker in 1994 at Stockholm to defeat the top three ranked players at an ATP event. Besides Federer, he took out Andy Roddick in the quarterfinals and Rafael Nadal in the semifinals.”

His childhood friend Ana Ivanovic followed the example and beat Nadia Petrova 2-0 to take the East West Bank Classic in Los Angeles.

“Ivanovic and Djokovic have been friends for about 14 years. They met as 4-year-olds at his parents’ mountaintop restaurant in Belgrade. Growing up, they practiced together and played hide and seek.”

Chess-Tennis tournament
Can we have it in chess?

Wonderful Sunday has been completed with news from basketball and waterpolo. Serbian national team won U18 European Basketball Championship after beating Greece in the finals. This summer Serbia won U16, U18 and U20 European titles and U19 World Championship. How is this relating to chess, you might ask. Shooter Stefan Stojacic was already mentioned on this blog as former bronze medalist from U10 European Chess Championship.

Finally, Serbian waterpolo team outplayed our arch-rivals Hungary 9-6 to claim the third World League title.

The Arctic Chess Challenge was not kind of Magnus Carlsen, the world’s 17th ranked player….