By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
It's an embarrassment of riches for a chess journalist these days, with not one but two major tournaments in progress across the pond and the U.S. championships gearing up to start in St. Louis later this week.
Norwegian GM Magnus Carlsen's moonwalking gambit getting ahead while moving backward inspires some thoughts on some of the game's most famous losses over the years.
He stumbled across the finish line, but Norway's young superstar Magnus Carlsen has earned a date against reigning world champion Viswanathan Anand of India in a title match later this year.
World No. 1 GM Magnus Carlsen of Norway is the leader at the half-post in the FIDE Candidates Tournament now under way in London. Co-leader Levon Aronian suffered his first loss of the event in Monday's Round 9 against Israel GM Boris Gelfand, leaving Carlsen alone in first by a half-point in the double round-robin event.
Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! That old Princeton cheer is apropos as the Princeton University A team posted the only 6-0 score to take last month’s Amateur Team East Championship at its traditional home in Parsippany, N.J.
'Tis the season to roll up the board, pack up the pieces and put some fresh batteries in the old chess clock: The 39th annual Eastern Open, a four-day extravaganza, kicks off Dec. 27 at its longtime home at the Westin Washington D.C. City Center hotel at 1400 M St. NW.
The fourth annual London Chess Classic is shaping up as one of the best events in many a year, but it was a dark day for British chess when the players sat down for Thursday's Round 4. All three Britons in the field — GMs Michael Adams, Gawain Jones and Luke McShane — went down to defeat on a rare day when every game ended in a decisive result.
Though they fell short of the summit, you could make a pretty formidable team from what might be called the Also-Rans Club.
Just as in the five-ring Olympics where athletes compete in track events and on the ski slopes, many of the competitors and countries that show up at the biennial chess Olympiad arrive knowing they have little hope of earning a medal. Men’s and women’s teams from more than 150 countries took part in the recent 40th Olympiad in Istanbul, which once again was dominated by the globe’s long-standing chess powerhouses: Russia, China, Armenia, Ukraine and the U.S.
The Little Country That Could did it again as tiny Armenia on Sunday won its third gold medal in the past four years, nipping mighty Russia on tiebreaks after the two chess powerhouses finished 9-1-1 at the 40th biennial Olympiad in Istanbul.
The future is now — right now — for American chess, as New York IM Marc Arnold has claimed his first U.S. Junior title, and the U.S. Cadet Championship, featuring the country’s top players younger than 16 years old, is wrapping up in Rockville.
For two weeks and two days starting late next month, the Rockville Hilton will be the chess epicenter of the country as Maryland Chess Association officials plan five major events in the space of 16 days, including a strong open tournament featuring former U.S. champion Gata Kamsky and Potomac-based former world senior champ GM Larry Kaufman.
Mikhail Tal, the great Soviet world champion, rarely lacked the will or the inclination to mix it up, but the same thing cannot always be said of his elite peers.
The FIDE world championship match is headed into overtime as Indian champ Viswanathan Anand and Israeli challenger Boris Gelfand drew their final game Monday to finish knotted at 6-6. Aside from a brief dust-up that produced victories for each player in Games 7 and 8, the two players resembled a pair of soccer teams content to settle things with penalty kicks, unwilling to take any risks to try to score a goal.
The six-game match between Russian GM Vladimir Kramnik and Armenian GM Levon Aronian that wrapped up in Zurich on Sunday proved unexpectedly entertaining. The world's No. 2 and No. 3 players, evenly matched and theoretically armed to the teeth, showed a refreshing willingness to mix it up and take risks before settling for a 3-3 tie after Kramnik just missed a win in Sunday's final round.
Black makes it interesting with 16...Nd8!, heading for f4, but Kramnik admitted later he had trouble staying focused on his game while monitoring Svidler-Carlsen just a few paces away.
Rc8!, as Kramnik said later 17 ... Nxa1!?
