Wesley So Proceeds to Round 2 in World Chess Cup 2011

In the tie-break, GM Wesley So (ELO 2658) wins with white in the first tie-break game and agreed to a draw in a winning position with 2 pawns up in the second game to secure a win in the Round 1 of World Chess Cup 2011 against GM Liren Ding of China.

This is definitely a day of celebration for team Philippines. But wait, he's up against the top seed GM Sergey Karjakin (ELO 2788) of Russia in the second round.

Will this be the biggest upset so far in the tournament? We'll find out later today August 31, 2011 at around 5PM Philippine time. We'll surely watch out for it! Go Wesley So!

How Mark Paragua Missed Some Winning Combinations in World Chess Cup 2011

It's Game 2 in Round 1 of World Chess Cup 2011 between GM Michael Adams (2715) of England and Mark Paragua (ELO 2545) of the Philippines. Adams already clinched the first game, so Paragua playing as black need to win this game in order to proceed to the tie-breaks.

Adams actually started out strong at the start of the game until he committed a blunder on his 36th move, which however Mark failed to capitalize on. He missed some more opportunities to draw the total control of the game.

[caption id="attachment_127" align="alignnone" width="348" caption="Posittion after 46. ... gxh5."][/caption]

After black's 46th move, although computer analyses will tell that black clearly has an advantage, with the accurate moves from Michael Adams, the game is a draw. And so it did after white's 111th move.

It was a long but exciting game. Replay the game 2 between GM Michael Adams vs. GM Mark Paragua in World Chess Cup 2011 Round 1.

Wesley So vs. Liren Ding Round 1 World Chess Cup 2011

Now the match stands at 1-1 after both GM Wesley So of the Philippines and GM Liren Ding of China drew both their games at the first round of World Chess Cup 2011.

I don't have yet the time to run the analysis at my own machine, so I'll just be posting the analysis by the GM's at chessdom.com. Replay the Game 2 L. Ding vs. W. So here.

We have to watch out for the tie-breaks tomorrow, including rapid games, and if necessary -- blitz games.

The World Chess Cup 2011 Tie-Break System

While Game 2 of the 1st Round in the World Chess Cup 2011 is underway in Khanty-Mansiysk, we're expecting a lot of matches tied at 1-1, including that of our favorite, GM Wesley So. You must be wondering what happens in these cases.

The rule states:

Except for the final, all rounds will have 2-game matches at the FIDE time control: 90 minutes for 40 moves followed by 30 minutes to finish the game, with a 30-second increment from the first move. In case of a 1-1 tie, on the third day of the round a tie-break is played. A tie-break consists of 2 games (25 minutes + 10 seconds increment). In case of a 2-2 score, 2 more games will be played at 10 minutes + 10 seconds increment and then, if needed, 2 games of 5 minutes + 3 increment. If necessary, the tie-break will end with an Armageddon game with White getting 5 minutes and Black 4 and 3 seconds increment starting from move 61. In this game, a draw means the player behind the black pieces goes through. The final will played over 4 games at the FIDE time control and if necessary a tie-break on the day of the closing ceremony.

So, it means that, except for the final game, a maximum of 9 games can be played between the two players at each match up if they end up a draw all the way after each pair of games.

Wesley So Draws with Liren Ding in Game 1 Round of World Chess Cup 2011

GM Wesley So playing white drew his first game against Liren Ding in Round 1 of World Chess Cup 2011.

[caption id="attachment_115" align="alignnone" width="446" caption="Wesley So vs. Liren Ding position after Black's 33rd move"][/caption]

Although the computer analysis particularly from Stockfish and Rybka indicated a slight advantage for white up to the 37th moves from each side, it was slight indeed and Wesley failed to materialize on.

Click here if you want to replay the game between GM Wesley So and GM Liren Ding.

Game 2 is slated for today at around 5PM Philippine time.

World Chess Cup 2011

World Chess Cup 2011 is underway on this weekend. The round 1 games will commence on Sunday, August 28, 2011, 15:00 Khanty Mansiysk, Russia local time -- which converts to Sunday, August 28, 2011, 17:00 Philippine Time. That's 5PM on Sunday.

Two players are participating from the Philippines, GM Wesley So (ELO 2658) and GM Mark Paragua (ELO 2545).

Paragua (108th seed) will be up against the 21st seed, an elite chess player from England, GM Michael Adams (ELO 2715), in the first round. So, on the other hand, was seeded 64th and will be up against the 65th from China, GM Liren Ding (ELO 2654). Obviously, the So vs. Ding battle is expected to be more exciting.

[caption id="attachment_101" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Liren Deng in his serious moment over the board"][/caption]

Check out the official website of the tournament (which by the way is a WordPress site), the list of participants, and the tournament schedule in Khanty Mansiysk time.

Interview with Wesley So

Chess master William Stewart of OnlineChessLessons.net had a text interview with our very own GM Wesley So on his rise to becoming a Grandmaster and his usual practice or study routine. Read the interview.

Stewart also analyzed So's game way back in the 2009 World Cup against GM Gadir Guseinov. Check out the video below:

Garry Kasparov vs Magnus Carlsen - Reykjavik Rapid 2004

Just a little chess game analysis, watch this video from the Chess Network.

The Copy Master!

Susan Polgar Chess Daily News and Information is a great blog for chess news and stuff. The problem with her blog is that she is not only used to copying news content verbatim but also media contents like pictures.

For example, check out her post '8th Dato' Arthur Tan Malaysia Open Chess'.



The photo she used in her post originally appeared in my blog post 'Victorious So in the Battle of GMs', which by the way I took all those photos of various Filipino Grandmasters. The news article was lifted from ABS-CBNNews.com.

Running Fritz 12 on a Mac: VMWare vs. Boot Camp

Apple discussions:

If you are running software that are CPU intensive like some of our people are then boot camp is the way to go because you will have the native speed of the machine.

So, I guess I made the better decision with going with the Boot Camp way. Fritz 12 is definitely CPU-intensive, especially when utilizing all cores of your machine.

The Chess Explorer by Hiarcs

The Hiarcs page right now goes:

HIARCS Chess Explorer is an exciting new chess product which is under development and we hope will be available in the autumn 2011. More details on the new chess explorer application will be posted here when they are ready. We hope chess players of all chess abilities who really wish to explore and improve their chess will like the new HIARCS chess explorer software.

For me, this leaves more questions than answers:

• Is this a GUI alternative to Chessbase' Fritz 12?


• Is this thing available for Windows and Mac?


• Is this Hiarcs answer due to Sigma Chess not available to support OS X Lion?


• Can I install other competing engines?


• Will it have intuitive interface for game analysis?


• Will I become a better player with this software?


• Will this be free or shall be sold for a hefty amount?


• Do you think it can beat Houdini?

I can go on and on, even with stupid questions, but really, that page is not helping a lot. Hope Hiarcs can come up with a concrete answer and hopefully fill that bridge for a good native chess program for the Mac.

What Goes into the Minds of Grandmasters?

A Grandmaster makes the best moves because they are based on what he wants the board to look like ten or twenty moves in the future. This doesn't require the calculation of countless twenty-move variations. He evaluates where his fortunes lie in the position and establishes objectives. Then he works out the step-by-step moves to accomplish those aims.

-- Garry Kasparov (on his book "How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom)

Raptor is a Great FICS Desktop Client for Mac

Free Internet Chess Server (FICS), which can be found at www.freechess.org, is a great way to play chess online for free. Besides being free, another great thing about FICS is the presence of a huge community, so that you'll always have someone within your playing level to start a game with. It is also highly moderated by system and human moderators so that trolls and cheaters are quickly identified and acted upon accordingly.

I used to connect to FICS via Winboard or BabasChess on my Windows machine. But now that I'm on a Mac (specifically on an Intel, Mac OS X Lion 10.7, Macbook Pro 13" Early 2011), these two programs don't just seem to work. Good thing I stumbled upon a comment from one user in the FICS group in Facebook about Raptor Chess.



So when I did install it, it was actually like BabasChess for Mac. So thanks to the developers of this program, now I can enjoy playing at FICS natively on my Mac.

Life Beyond Women Chess

One factor, indeed, why women couldn't compete in chess as well as men is that they have to bear the child when they start their family.

Check out Chessbase interview with Judit Polgar on how her perspective in life has broadened beyond chess after getting married.

Edward and Bella -- Breaking Dawn

Mac Desktop Client for FICS

UPDATE: I actually already found a great FICS client for Mac: Raptor Chess.

If you have have read in my previous post, I've been a Mac convert for sometime now. And I would like very much to test the computing power of a Mac upto its full potential.

I also liked playing chess on FICS or freechess.org. And I have been looking for Apps or programs that can be a desktop client for connecting to FICS. In my Windows days, my favorite was Winboard, though I sometimes used BabasChess.

Chess on a Mac

Admittedly, Chessbase' Fritz 12 is the best program for the PC. The Fritz 12 (or even the Deep Fritz 12) engine may not be the strongest computer chess engine out there, but the Chessbase interface is able to deliver on its purpose. I use it widely when analyzing games and studying openings. I load my favorite engines like Rybka, Houdini, Stockfish, etc., to test some of the more stronger engines.

[caption id="attachment_16" align="alignnone" width="480" caption="Shredder Chess for Mac"][/caption]

 

But the problem is it's only available in PC. When oh when can they be able to make a program for the Mac? I'm a Mac convert now, and there really are a lot of Mac users who are anticipating this from Chessbase. Although I already paid for the licensed copy of Fritz 12 for Windows, I'll be willing to shell out another for the Mac -- for as long as it will natively run on the Intel Mac.

Welcome to the New ChessHive

We have made mistakes.

When chesshive.com domain name was registered, it started with WordPress. Then, there were a lot of experimentation, with a Chyrp site, and then Drupal -- but hopefully we've settled down.

If we have only stuck with WordPress from the very start, this blog could have already gone a long way. But that's life, we just have to learn from our mistakes.

We're going to have a forum here in the future.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!