Year: 2012

A FIDE Master Title for Elite GM’s

William of OnlineChessLessons.net offered a strong argument why FIDE should introduce an official Super-GM title for 2700+ rated chess players.

In 1972 there were 88 GMs and in 2012 there are now over 1200 GMs! However the vast majority (around 95%) of Grandmasters are rated between 2400 and 2699 FIDE. After the recent Chess Olympiad 2012 in Istanbul, there are now a total of 50 Super-GMs rated over 2700 FIDE.

Read more about Should FIDE have a Super-GM title for 2700+ GMs?

Personally, I’m in favor of his proposal of an official distinct FIDE title awarded to “elite” GM’s in order to separate them from, well, the not-so-elite ones. FIDE may not necessarily use a 2700 ELO rating cut-off, but they could devise certain criteria for eligibility.

However, I advise against the use of the “Super-GM” name. Why? Keep on reading »

Liveblogging with the Liveblog Plugin for WordPress

I thought I’ve missed it when I was scrounging for a liveblog plugin when the Istanbul 2012 World Chess Olympiad was about to start.

It appears I didn’t, because Automattic’s Liveblog plugin was released sometime last weekend only. Check out this video that explains what this plugin is all about:

[wpvideo tWpw6nCt w=480 h=269]

This Liveblog plugin could be a great blog extension if you’re covering live events, or just simply want to post one sentence updates to an event like the Chess Olympiad (which is a 2-week event).

I haven’t tested the plugin extensively yet, but, nevertheless, I just would like to point out some of my issues/concerns about it: Continue reading Liveblogging with the Liveblog Plugin for WordPress

Running Fritz 12 on a Mac via Crossover

Fritz 12 is a great chess product that unfortunately has no Mac version. I’ve installed it on a Bootcamp partition, and it works great. But I hate rebooting to Windows everytime I need it. Besides, all my files are in the OS X partition.

I also tried running Fritz 12 in a Parallels Desktop. It works fine as well, but then I have to boot Windows on top of OS X, which in the process they’re sharing the same computer’s resources, which proves to be an inefficient environment to run a resource hungry application like Fritz 12. I was only able to assign 3GB of RAM out of the total installed 8GB, and the application can only utilize 1 CPU out of the total 4.

So what about Codeweaver’s Crossover? Well, this is how it looks like: Check out the screenshot after the jump »

Nakamura vs. Kramnik Analyzed

An interesting analysis by ChessNetwork of the game between Hikaru Nakamura of USA and Vladimir Kramnik of Russia during the Round 9 of Istanbul 2012 World Chess Olympiad.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgBkRLzHpew&w=480]

A good insight into how these Grandmasters think.

Updates from Istanbul 2012 World Chess Olympiad

Liveblogging has been discontinued from this page since the end of Round 7 of [event]Istanbul 2012 World Chess Olympiad[/event]. To check out the latest about team Philippines in the said event, check out the link below:

Philippines in Istanbul 2012

The score card of the match between the 35th seed Philippines vs. the 4th seed Hungary follows:

Bo.
Philippines
Score
Hungary
1 Wesley So
1/2-1/2
 Peter Leko
2 Oliver Barbosa
0-1
 Zoltan Almasi
3 Eugene Torre
1-0
 Ferenc Berkes
4 Mark Paragua
1/2-1/2
 Csaba Balogh

Below are the links for the Live Games Round 7 Istanbul 2012 World Chess Olympiad:

Check out the Live Updates »

The Polgar Family

No doubt the Polgar Family of 3 women chess players and their remarkable achievements could now be considered as one of the pillars of the great and rich history of chess.

Recently, ChessBase reported:

For four years, an Israeli film-maker has collected archive material never seen before, and produced a documentary for Israeli TV that is epic and historic, but also personal and intimate.

And here’s the trailer to the documentary film: Watch the trailer »

Why Not ChessCube?

As you read through this blog, you might notice that I’m not so fond of Chesscube.

You know why? Because it’s so full of Flash. And you know what Steve Jobs has to say about Flash:

  • It is proprietary;
  • It has security problems and is the number one cause for Mac crashes;
  • Flash is a battery hog which doesn’t work well with mobile devices;
  • Use HTML5 instead.

And if you have kept up with the news lately, Adobe has removed Flash for Android from Google Play.

Now, have you seen a Chesscube app in the iTunes App Store or Google Play? There’s none, because they can’t do it.

That’s why I’m using an internet chess server like FICS for online play and Chess.com for correspondence chess.