Anand Retains World Championship

Vishy Anand retained his World Championship title by defeating challenger Veselin Topalov 6.5-5.5.

See links below for details:

Anand Wins World Championship
2010 World Chess Championship (Introduction)

2008 Dresden Chess Olympiad

In November, Australia sent a team to the Chess Olympiad in Dresden, Germany. Here are the teams, with actual ratings in brackets and beside them, their performance ratings.

Australian Open team:

Zhao (2567) 2645
Smerdon (2470) 2437
Solomon (2470) 2390
Johansen (2446) 2500
Xie (2403) 2167

Australian Womens team:

Caoili (2170) 2261
Nguyen (2101) 2155
Moylan (2114) 2081
Dekic (2103) 2078
Oliver (1942) 1917

2008 World Chess Championships

The World Chess Championships is under way (or has finished, of which I'm not sure) in Bonn, Germany. It was played from October 14th-November 2nd. Vladimir Kramnik (2772) is playing a match against the reigning world champion Viswanathan Anand (2783). Anand retained his title by beating Kramnik 6.5-4.5 with one round to spare in the 12-game match.

The time control for the match was 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, add 60 minutes after move 40, and add 15 minutes plus 30 seconds increment after move 60. The prize fund was $1.5 million Euros (about $2.8776 million Australian dollars), split equally between the combatants.



You can download the games in PGN by clicking here. Alternatively, Malcolm Pein annotated the games, also in portable game notation format.

2008 World Youth Chess Championships

The 2008 World Youth Chess Championships, held in Vung Tau, Vietnam, from the 19th-31st of October, has finished. The Australian team performed quite well with strong performances from several players. You can find the results for the Australian team by clicking here. Click here to go to the official website for the 2008 World Youth Chess Championships.

World Youth Chess Championships 2008

The 2008 World Youth Chess Championships in Vietnam is currently under way. According to the website, at least 6 rounds have been played so far.

Juniors representing Australia include Gene Nakauchi (2104), James Morris (2087), Eugene Schön (2066), Andrew Brown (2013), Jonas Muller (1998) and more. You can check out the full list of players and results up to round 6 at the Chess-Results page for this tournament.

Full report to follow.

In other news, the World Chess Championships in Germany is also under way. Vladimir Kramnik (2772) is playing a match against the reigning world champion Viswanathan Anand (2783). Anand is leading 5.5-2.5 and there are 4 rounds to go.

Anand wins Morelia-Linares 2008

World Champion Viswanathan Anand has won the 2008 Morelia-Linares. The Morelia-Linares tournament took place from February 15th-23rd in Morelia, Mexico, and from February 28th- March 7th in Linares, Spain. In the second half of the event, the games took place in the Theatro Cervantes in the Centro Histórica de la Cuidad Linares.

The last round was a close one, with four players having the ability to tie for first (unless Anand has won). However, it turned out that "safety first" was what the players had in mind. Anand drew an opposite-coloured bishop endgame against Topalov, while young Super GM Magnus Carlsen drew a rook endgame against fellow Super GM Teimour Radjabov. You can play through the games on the ChessBase or TWIC website. Note that you need a PGN reader like ChessBase Light to read through the TWIC file.

Here's a tournament crosstable (click the picture for full quality):

XXV SuperGM Morelia/Linares (MEX/ESP), 15 ii-7 iii 2008																	cat. XXI (2756)
					1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8
	Anand, Viswanathan		IND	2799	*	*	1	½	0	½	½	½	½	½	½	½	1	½	1	1	8½
	Carlsen, Magnus		NOR	2733	0	½	*	*	1	½	1	1	0	½	½	1	½	0	½	1	8
	Aronian, Levon		ARM	2739	1	½	0	½	*	*	0	1	½	½	1	½	½	½	½	½	7½
	Topalov, Veselin		BUL	2780	½	½	0	0	1	0	*	*	½	½	1	½	1	1	0	1	7½
	Radjabov, Teimour		AZE	2735	½	½	1	½	½	½	½	½	*	*	½	½	0	½	0	1	7
	Ivanchuk, Vassily		UKR	2751	½	½	½	0	0	½	0	½	½	½	*	*	1	1	½	½	6½
	Lékó, Peter		HUN	2753	0	½	½	1	½	½	0	0	1	½	0	0	*	*	½	½	5½
	Shirov, Alexei		ESP	2755	0	0	½	0	½	½	1	0	1	0	½	½	½	½	*	*	5½