Games

White to move and win.Source: ChessToday.netChess Daily News from Susan Polgar

Magnus Carlsen's erratic form gives hope to rivals such as Vishy AnandLeonard Barden The Guardian, Friday 24 May 2013 There is a paradox at the top of international chess. The world No1, Magnus Carlsen, leads the ratings by a wide margin, yet his recurrent form dips during major tournaments give hope to his rivals. Carlsen faltered at the end of last month's London candidates, then again a few days ago at the Norway elite event, which was expected to be a hometown victory lap watched online by the thousands of fans who voted the 22-year-old as Norway's Sportsman of 2012.Carlsen began with four nondescript draws, rallied strongly to close on the leader Sergey Karjakin, then failed at the finish when he lost a level endgame, the kind where he normally grinds out a win, to China's Wang Hao. So Karjakin won with 6/9, ahead of Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura 5.5. World champion Vishy Anand scored 5, Wang Hao 4.5.It was a career-best result for Karjakin, 23, the Muscovite who is being groomed to regain the world crown which Russia once monopolised. The forex company Alpari sponsors him, and will continue to so for several title campaigns. He has a specially designed €5,000 computer to help him prepare, but claims that Carlsen has a superior multiprocessor model, €50,000 and top secret, which can create and calculate unique and extremely deep variations. Their mutual games are increasingly tense, though Carlsen has the edge. At Wijk earlier this year he won a 92-move marathon, while in Norway Karjakin stood better but was overcome by a counter-attack.So the future for chess could be Norway v Russia, but Anand, 42, stands in the way. India's world champion is playing with much more ambition than a year ago, won some imaginative attacks in Norway, and would have tied with his title challenger Carlsen but for overpressing in the final round. He is buoyed by the prospect of defending his crown in his home city Chennai, and also by the recent signs of Carlsen's fallibility which could influence their match.More here.Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar

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Official website: http://thessaloniki2013.fide.comChess Daily News from Susan Polgar

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Full results here: http://chess-results.com/tnr101373.aspxChess Daily News from Susan Polgar

Official website: http://thessaloniki2013.fide.comChess Daily News from Susan Polgar

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Fridays are my Holy Day for gaming. As most of you know from reading this blog I can be found at The Gamers Edge around 11am. There we have a loose group of people who come to the store on Fridays in hopes of learning a new game. By loose group I mean they have nothing better to do on Friday mornings.Last Friday I bribed Robin into playing Dreadball with a batch of curry I was supposed to make. I didn't make curry and amazingly enough I didn't feel like playing Dreadball. Mostly because I didn't have the stuff needed to make curry and I have so many half painted Dreadball figures that I'm embarrassed to show them to anybody. Thankfully Robin has a LOAD of games behind the counter that were begging to be played...Gold Thief by Asmadi GamesI bought this about a year ago because it was cheap. Buying this was anomaly for me because the artwork leaves alot to be desired, Alot. The packaging is meh, at best. The cards should be sleeved almost immediately after opening the box.Included in the box is a deck of cards and a tray full of gold tokens, little glass blobs.From the box: Your opponents have gold, and you want it! So steal it from them, in this fast-paced card game of thievery and deception.Now that I've gotten all the negative out of the way, THIS GAME IS A BLAST! It's a fast game of take this, give this, and smash your opponents hands while trying to steal your crap. We played two full games in the course of like 20 minutes. The game is so simple that you really don't need to read the rules past, give each player 5 gold, draw three cards, on your turn draw yourself up to three cards and play as many cards on your turn as your cards will allow. The goal of the game is to start your turn with as many gold as one of your goal cards says you should. The player that scores 3 goal cards first wins.There is alot of bluffing and you will have a hard time if you don't have a good poker face, unless you're name is Robin, Robin. And you really need to pay attention because it can be over before you realize that someone stole your wallet as well as your gold.If you can find it at a store, buy it. Seriously, it's not much to look at but it's really a fun game that can be learned in about a minute and played over and over. You should be able to find it for under $10. That's a bargin.

Rheem, who has mixed seven-figure scores with crippling gambling debts throughout his long career, earned $1,150,297 for the win. It was his second WPT title - Rheem also won the WPT Five Diamond Classic at Bellagio in Season 7. Lindgren, who coincidentally has also been hamstrung by massive sportsbetting debts alongside a very successful poker career prior to Black Friday, earned $650,275 for the runner-up finish. Roy Third, Salsberg Takes WPT Player of the Year Major POY sweat for Salsberg   WPT Montreal winner Jonathan Roy had a chance to take home Player of the Year honors with a win but fell just short in third place. Busting out with a set of eights against Rheem's made flush, Roy came up shy of a second title this season and sealed the POY title for former Weeds producer Matt Salsberg. A very experienced final table of six saw play extend well into the night and over 250 hands needed to end things. Official final-table results and payouts: 1. Chino Rheem - $1,150,297 2. Erick Lindgren - $650,275 3. Jonathan Roy - $421,800 4. Matt Hyman - $289,988 5. Brandon Steven - $223,203 6. David Peters - $173,993 For a full rundown of all the final-table action, check the WPT Live Updates.Visit www.pokerlistings.com