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The 4th Danzhou Grand Master Chess Tournament takes place in Danzhou, Hainan, from 20 May to 29 May 2013. Ten Chinese Grandmasters compete in the round robin tournament.Wang Hao, Wang Yue and Li Chao b are not present, but Ding Liren, the 2011 winner Yu Yangyi, the 2010 and 2012 winner Bu Xiangzhi are fighting for the top prize of 80,000.Participants:GM Ding Liren CHN 2707 GM Yu Yangyi CHN 2675 GM Bu Xiangzhi CHN 2662GM Ni Hua CHN 2646 GM Wen Yang CHN 2618 GM Zhou Jianchao CHN 2607GM Zhou Weiqi CHN 2590 GM Lu Shanglei CHN 2551 GM Xiu Deshun CHN 2534GM Wei Yi CHN 2530Live gamesMore informationChess Daily News from Susan Polgar

Check or bet. Call or fold. Break or pat. These are the relatively bifurcated decisions that are presented to fixed-limit poker players. That's what 376 players signed up for in SCOOP 2013 Event 27-M, $215 FL Triple Draw 2-7. Grinders one and all, aDrENalin710 proved the ultimate grinder by entering the final table as the short stack and going on to win the whole tournament. 48 players made the money in Event 27-M. None of them were Team PokerStars Pros or PokerStars Team Online players, although the ITM players did include some other notable faces. BrynKenney checked out at 43rd place; Ami "UhhMee" Barer put in yet another good SCOOP performance with a 26th-place finish; and James Obst did a bit better than Barer by coming in 23rd. Stephen "stevie444" Chidwick outshone them all. Chidwick faced a tough decision to break or pat on the bubble of the final table against Ig123456789, who patted the last draw. After dipping into his time bank for about 90 seconds, Chidwick opted to break his hand and draw one. It was the correct move against Ig123456789's 8-7-6-4-2, but Chidwick paired on the draw to be bounced in 7th place. Don't cry too much for stevie444; he was busy on the final table of Event 27-H (where he was still alive with three players remaining at the time of publishing this post) while the other six players collapsed to the Event 27-M final table. Seat 1: Ig123456789 (361414 in chips) Seat 2: Zackary "Thrash370" Koerper (384556 in chips) Seat 3: aDrENalin710 (77372 in chips) Seat 4: CandyJohnson (541250 in chips) Seat 5: Tamsusis (94248 in chips) Seat 6: kingkai (421160 in chips) Level 25: stakes 7k-14k Average: 313,333 (22.5 big bets) The final table started with an odd distribution of chips. Four players had stacks that were above the table average, while two players - Tamsusis and aDrENalin710 - were quite short. Things only got worse for the short stacks as, four minutes into the final table, the stakes rolled up to 8k-16k. CandyJohnson started as chip leader but soon relinquished that title to Ig123456789, a Ukrainian player who won a PL 5-Card Draw event during WCOOP 2010. With four streets of fixed-limit betting, the final table promised plenty of stomach-churning swings. Both short stacks proved that with numerous double-ups in the early stages of the final table. aDrENalin710, in fact, rose all the way up to the table average, mainly at Koerper's expense. The chips kept working their way around the table, never staying long in any one player's stack. Koerper was crippled in a hand against Tamsusis that Koerper had three-bet pre-draw. Koerper drew one to Tamsusis' two on the first draw and bet, then one to Tamsusis' two on the second draw as well. Tamsusis raised Koerper's bet on that street; Koerper called, drew one on the third draw ahead of Tamsusis' pat, then check-folded, preserving a stack of only 10k. Koerper doubled once to get back up to 25k, then doubled a second time with a 9 against Ig123456789's queen to climb up to 45k. That's where it ended. The third time Koerper's tried to double up aDrENalin710 made an inspired pat on the third draw after Koerper himself patted what turned out to be a 9-8. aDrENalin710 dragged the pot with a 9-7 and sent Koerper to the rail in 6th place. For the most part, Ig123456789, aDrENalin710 and CandyJohnson were the beneficiaries of the chip movement; kingkai and Tamsusis were victimized by it. kingkai caught a bad piece of luck against aDrENalin710 to hit the rail in 5th place: The other short stack, Tamsusis, wasn't far behind kingkai in reporting to the rail. aDrENalin710 did the honors once again. The pot was three-bet by Tamsusis pre-draw and called by both Ig123456789 (who opened with a raise) and aDrENalin710. On the first draw, Tamsusis drew 2, Ig123456789 drew 1, and aDrENalin710 drew 2. Ig123456789 led with a bet that both other plaeyrs called. The action was the same after the second draw, at which point Tamsusis was all in. Tamsusis pa

Beer-Sheba chess club-40 / Yochanan Afek Beersheba or the “Capital of the Negev desert” of southern Israel as it often referred to, it is the seventh-largest city in Israel with a population of approximately 200,000. The municipal chess club of the city, the country’s largest one, is celebrating four decades of highly successful local and International activity. The highlight of these festivities will be a strong rapid round-robin tournament starting next Sunday with the participation of eight local grandmasters and four European guest GMs to compete for a prize-fund of 20.000US $. Here is the list of participants: 1. Evgeny Alekseev 2700 (Russia) 2. Viktor Laznicka 2679 (Czech Republic) 3. Sergei Fedorchuk 2660 (Ukraine) 4. Daniel Fridmann 2648 (Germany) 5. Maxim Rodshtein 2663 6. Evgeny Postny 2637 7. Michael Roiz 2617 8. Tamir Nabaty 2579 9. Boris Avrukh 2576 10. Alexander Huzman 2572 11. Alon Greenfeld 2538 12. Ilya Khmelniker 2494 Tournament director is IA Eliahu Levant Games will be played from Sunday 26/05 through 29/05 starting daily at 16.00 (15.00 European time), 3 rounds a day and 2 rounds on the closing day. Time control: 25 minutes + 10 seconds increment per move. Organizers promise to transmit the games live on the Israeli federation website: www.chess.org.il The Beer Sheba chess club was founded by Eliahu Levant, a reputed trainer and arbiter already in his native city of St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), right after his immigration to Israel in 1973. Within just a couple of years the club and its chess school turned under Levant’s most energetic leadership to be the most dominant factor in the Israeli chess scene and by now it can boast more than 20 national team championships, numerous youth and adults national titles and an impressive list of International events hosted by the city over the years with the participation of numerous world class players highlighted by the finals of the world team championship in 2005. The city arguably holds a world record of number of grandmasters per capita (1:20,000). Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar

A crossword is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white and shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answers. Today's Theme "Who Speaks Spanish?"Play Here

Solving equations may look like a piece of cake to the math masters, but is it still easy when you need to spot the needle in the haystack? Come and check if you are observant enough in this interesting puzzle game with a mathematical twist! Your goal is to solve the given equations one by one, then locate the answers in a grid which contains numerous numbers. Play Here

Official website: http://thessaloniki2013.fide.comFull pairings here: http://thessaloniki2013.fide.com/en/component/turnuva/?task=fileview&kid=1Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar

Dwan has already rattled off over 20,000 hands in the high-stakes games in May and is still going strong.  The aggressive pro went into full beast mode this weekend and picked up $793,616, according to highstakesdb.com. Formerly known as a No-Limit specialist, Dwan has been particularly effective in the big FLO8 games that have been running and most of his profit this weekend came exclusively from the format. Although Dwan came down to earth a bit yesterday, losing close to $500k, he’s still showing a massive profit of over $600k on the year. Fans Still Waiting for Big Dwan vs. Cates Showdown Dan Cates is ready.   Interestingly Dwan has also put together a few victories against archrival Dan “jungleman12” Cates in the durrrr Challenge this year, albeit small ones. This weekend Dwan and Cates recommenced the challenge for a short session. Dwan only won about $30k but he’s actually won every match since they re-started the challenge in 2013. Railbirds have been desperate for a huge durrrr Challenge session and while that hasn’t transpired yet this year Dwan has steadily grinded $270,000 from Cates, which is significant considering he was facing a $1.5 million deficit at the start of the year. A massive session could be imminent considering Dwan is feeling some confidence from other big wins and jungleman12 has been chomping at the bit for some action.Visit www.pokerlistings.com

FIDE is pleased to announce the fourth stage of the FIDE Grand Prix Series will be held in Thessaloniki (Greece) between the 21st of May and 4th of June 2013. The 5-star Makedonia Palace Hotel and its owner, international business investor and philanthropist Ivan Savvidi, are FIDE's sponsors for the 12-player Grand Prix Chess Tournament. "This event could happen thanks to the active support of the well known philanthropist Ivan Savvidi. According to the wish of Mr Savvidi, an elite chess event is coming to Greece. As FIDE has its principal secretariat in Athens, we are quite happy to have such an elite event in Greece. Additionally, the Greek Chess Federation is one of the most experienced and organized chess Federations in the world and their involvement in the organization of the event will be critical to its success," said FIDE President Kirsan Iljumzhinov. The opening ceremony will take place at the Makedonia Palace Hotel at Thessaloniki at 6.30 p.m. on 21st of May. The games start at 14:00h local time except the last round. The prize fund to be shared by the players in Thessaloniki is 170,000 EUR, while the organizer provides further 70,000 EUR to the accumulated prize fund for the overal Grand Prix series standings. Participants include three former World Champions Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine), Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Uzbekistan). GM Teimur Radjabov has withdrawn from the Thessaloniki Grand Prix for personal reasons and has been replaced by GM Etienne Bacrot from France. There will be a systematic renewal of images, reports, as well as live commenting (English, Greek) and press-conferences with the players. Official commentators are GM Ioannis Papaioannou and GM Stelios Halkias. Time control: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then each player will be allotted 15 minutes after the second time control and an increment of 30 seconds per move will be allowed from move 61 onwards. The Grand Prix Series consists of six tournaments to be held over two years (2012-2013). 18 top players participate in 4 of these 6 tournaments. The winner and second placed player overall of the Grand Prix Series will qualify for the Candidates Tournament to be held in March 2014.PlayersName FED Title Rating Bacrot, Etienne FRA GM 2725Caruana, Fabiano ITA GM 2774Dominguez Perez, Leinier CUB GM 2723Grischuk, Alexander RUS GM 2779Ivanchuk, Vassily UKR GM 2755Kamsky, Gata USA GM 2741Kasimdzhanov, Rustam UZB GM 2699Morozevich, Alexander RUS GM 2760Nakamura, Hikaru USA GM 2775Ponomariov, Ruslan UKR GM 2742Svidler, Peter RUS GM 2769Topalov, Veselin BUL GM 2793 Average: 2753Official webpage thessaloniki2013.fide.com Pictures of players: http://thessaloniki2013.fide.com/images/stories/gallery/Players%20Thessaloniki/index.html Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar

In my last article I discussed “fetish chess moves.” I consider a move to be a fetish if it’s out of the ordinary, has serious positional clout, and gives the person who played it such deep pleasure that his reaction can almost b...

A Farewell, After 34 Years, and a Memorable 1952 GameBy ROBERT BYRNE Published: November 12, 2006 This chess column is my last; I am retiring after 34 years. The following game is one of the best and most exciting of my career, against David Bronstein at the Chess Olympiad in Helsinki in 1952. Bronstein had just tied in his world championship match with Mikhail Botvinnik. Bronstein’s 4 Nc3 introduced a sharp gambit, in which Black has trouble even if he refuses it. If 4 ... e6 5 e4 Be7 6 Bc4, White has the superior pawn center without being obliged to pay anything for it. After 9 ... f6, the white knight was denied the invasion squares at e5 and g5. About this point, Paul Keres, first board on the Soviet team, got up from his game with Samuel Reshevsky and intercepted me as I was pacing the floor while Bronstein pondered his move. Keres admonished me "for playing anything that gives White such powerful attacking chances against such a genius of attack as Bronstein." I made no reply because I was unwilling to admit that I had not anticipated my opponent’s gambit and was just struggling to do my best. This move 10 g3 was tried out repeatedly after this battle and is still the subject of debate. At first I thought Bronstein’s fianchetto was the right way to go. But I later learned that my old friend Al Horowitz, a star on Olympiad teams in the 1930s and later the chess columnist for The New York Times, had discovered an even more dangerous weapon in the weak-looking yet powerful 10 Be2! After 12 Be3, it was necessary to get my queen off the semi-open e file as soon as possible, but 12 ... Qc8 13 d5, threatening to open the game before I had finished my development, was dangerous. White’s 15 ab was wrong because it opened the a file before he was ready to exploit it. He should have considered 15 h4 with the idea of 16 Kh2 and 17 Bh3. I am not sure I could have defended against an incursion on e6.If 35 ... Rc5, then 36 Ra8 would have won for my opponent. But 35 ... Re5 virtually finished the struggle. If 36 Qc6, then 36 ... Qc6 37 Rc6 Kf7 38 Rc8 Ke6 39 c6 Kd6 40 Kg2 Rc5 wins. So, hoping against hope, he played 36 Qh3. But after 42 ... Rd5, he resigned. Source: http://www.nytimes.comChess Daily News from Susan Polgar