Very funny:).

Obviously the story with Vladislav Tkachiev still remains in the top of chess news. There are many big newspapers published their version of what happened in India, but today ( with help of Jacob Aagaard ) I found the following article  http://politiken.dk/bagsiden/article782985.ece

Well, of course it’s impossible to undertand the language, but it’s for sure article about Tkachiev case ( we can see his name a few times), but with my picture from recent “Politiken Cup”.  Very strange I should say, though Jacob Aagaard confirmed , that at some place it’s mentioned that another player is on the picture :).

Very sad story .

The following article has been published todayhttp://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/drunk-chess-star-dozes-off-concedes-match-at-kolkata-open/512679/

A very sad story I would say. Vlad Tkachiev is originally from Kazakhstan, the same country I was borned and he is a good friend of mine. I was always sure he has a huge talant ( his positional undertanding is exceptional) and he could easily reach 2700+ and to be the top player , but this story ( and there were many like this) is the reason why he is just a strong GM and not the player of Linares calibre.

Here is the Russian version http://lenta.ru/news/2009/09/04/chess/

My best Elo.

Yersterday FIDE published the official ratings for 1st of September. As I was expected after two very successful tournaments ( Politiken Cup and Zurich Open) I gained 27! points and reached 2668. That’s the highest rating in my chess career, that allowed me to move 40 places up in top 100 players and currently to be number 3 in Israel rating. As always here I give you the list of Top 100 in the World

Rank	Name	Title	Country	Rating	Games	B-Year
1	Topalov, Veselin	g	BUL	2813	0	1975
2	Anand, Viswanathan	g	IND	2788	0	1969
3	Aronian, Levon	g	ARM	2773	13	1982
4	Carlsen, Magnus	g	NOR	2772	10	1990
5	Kramnik, Vladimir	g	RUS	2772	10	1975
6	Leko, Peter	g	HUN	2762	23	1979
7	Radjabov, Teimour	g	AZE	2757	10	1987
8	Ivanchuk, Vassily	g	UKR	2756	42	1969
9	Gelfand, Boris	g	ISR	2756	33	1968
10	Morozevich, Alexander	g	RUS	2750	18	1977
11	Jakovenko, Dmitry	g	RUS	2742	24	1983
12	Svidler, Peter	g	RUS	2741	9	1976
13	Ponomariov, Ruslan	g	UKR	2741	9	1983
14	Gashimov, Vugar	g	AZE	2740	0	1986
15	Wang, Yue	g	CHN	2736	0	1987
16	Nakamura, Hikaru	g	USA	2735	17	1987
17	Grischuk, Alexander	g	RUS	2733	0	1983
18	Shirov, Alexei	g	ESP	2730	18	1972
19	Alekseev, Evgeny	g	RUS	2725	23	1985
20	Karjakin, Sergey	g	UKR	2722	13	1990
21	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	g	AZE	2721	2	1985
22	Dominguez Perez, Leinier	g	CUB	2719	13	1983
23	Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	g	FRA	2718	31	1990
24	Eljanov, Pavel	g	UKR	2717	13	1983
25	Malakhov, Vladimir	g	RUS	2715	10	1980
26	Movsesian, Sergei	g	SVK	2711	9	1978
27	Motylev, Alexander	g	RUS	2710	0	1979
28	Bacrot, Etienne	g	FRA	2709	23	1983
29	Short, Nigel D	g	ENG	2706	10	1965
30	Rublevsky, Sergei	g	RUS	2703	0	1974
31	Kasimdzhanov, Rustam	g	UZB	2702	30	1979
32	Bu, Xiangzhi	g	CHN	2702	0	1985
33	Onischuk, Alexander	g	USA	2699	0	1975
34	Akopian, Vladimir	g	ARM	2698	13	1971
35	Jobava, Baadur	g	GEO	2696	9	1983
36	Vallejo Pons, Francisco	g	ESP	2696	9	1982
37	Moiseenko, Alexander	g	UKR	2694	20	1980
38	Kamsky, Gata	g	USA	2692	32	1974
39	Navara, David	g	CZE	2692	9	1985
40	Ni, Hua	g	CHN	2692	8	1983
41	Miroshnichenko, Evgenij	g	UKR	2690	28	1978
42	Wang, Hao	g	CHN	2690	0	1989
43	Bologan, Viktor	g	MDA	2688	8	1971
44	Tomashevsky, Evgeny	g	RUS	2688	7	1987
45	Nielsen, Peter Heine	g	DEN	2687	10	1973
46	Polgar, Judit	g	HUN	2687	0	1976
47	Naiditsch, Arkadij	g	GER	2685	10	1985
48	Almasi, Zoltan	g	HUN	2685	9	1976
49	Grachev, Boris	g	RUS	2684	11	1986
50	Adams, Michael	g	ENG	2682	25	1971
51	Najer, Evgeniy	g	RUS	2681	17	1977
52	Volokitin, Andrei	g	UKR	2681	2	1986
53	Vitiugov, Nikita	g	RUS	2681	0	1987
54	Sargissian, Gabriel	g	ARM	2678	10	1983
55	Sutovsky, Emil	g	ISR	2676	9	1977
56	Harikrishna, P.	g	IND	2673	8	1986
57	Tiviakov, Sergei	g	NED	2670	45	1973
58	Tkachiev, Vladislav	g	FRA	2669	11	1973
59	Kurnosov, Igor	g	RUS	2669	0	1985
60	Avrukh, Boris	g	ISR	2668	19	1978
61	Timofeev, Artyom	g	RUS	2668	10	1985
62	Cheparinov, Ivan	g	BUL	2667	20	1986
63	Areshchenko, Alexander	g	UKR	2667	9	1986
64	Guseinov, Gadir	g	AZE	2667	2	1986
65	Meier, Georg	g	GER	2664	18	1987
66	Inarkiev, Ernesto	g	RUS	2664	13	1985
67	Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter	g	ROU	2664	11	1976
68	Georgiev, Kiril	g	BUL	2663	26	1965
69	Berkes, Ferenc	g	HUN	2663	18	1985
70	Pashikian, Arman	g	ARM	2663	18	1987
71	Dreev, Alexey	g	RUS	2662	27	1969
72	Caruana, Fabiano	g	ITA	2662	17	1992
73	Fridman, Daniel	g	GER	2661	26	1976
74	Sasikiran, Krishnan	g	IND	2661	9	1981
75	Andreikin, Dmitry	g	RUS	2659	9	1990
76	Milov, Vadim	g	SUI	2659	0	1972
77	Fressinet, Laurent	g	FRA	2658	23	1981
78	Roiz, Michael	g	ISR	2658	20	1983
79	Sokolov, Ivan	g	BIH	2657	10	1968
80	Beliavsky, Alexander G	g	SLO	2656	9	1953
81	Landa, Konstantin	g	RUS	2655	0	1972
82	Predojevic, Borki	g	BIH	2654	18	1987
83	Efimenko, Zahar	g	UKR	2654	0	1985
84	Postny, Evgeny	g	ISR	2651	33	1981
85	Krasenkow, Michal	g	POL	2651	27	1963
86	Van Wely, Loek	g	NED	2650	19	1972
87	Tregubov, Pavel V.	g	RUS	2649	9	1971
88	Smirin, Ilia	g	ISR	2648	17	1968
89	Kobalia, Mikhail	g	RUS	2648	9	1978
90	Lastin, Alexander	g	RUS	2648	0	1976
91	Zhigalko, Sergei	g	BLR	2646	32	1989
92	Baklan, Vladimir	g	UKR	2646	18	1978
93	Riazantsev, Alexander	g	RUS	2646	11	1985
94	Seirawan, Yasser	g	USA	2646	0	1960
95	Fier, Alexandr	g	BRA	2644	31	1988
96	Granda Zuniga, Julio E	g	PER	2644	27	1967
97	So, Wesley	g	PHI	2644	9	1993
98	Fedorchuk, Sergey A.	g	UKR	2643	37	1981
99	Amonatov, Farrukh	g	TJK	2643	13	1978
100	Kazhgaleyev, Murtas	g	KAZ	2643	9	1973

A very nice article with a lot of statistics has been published on ChessBase site. Here is the link http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5729

A recommendable chess web page.

Some days ago I discovered an interesting web page http://www.yourchess.net

This site gives you links of all well-known chess web pages, also you can find there the list of coming events, videos and in general you can search for any useful information regarding chess. For a few days there is a cross link to my blog in the middle of the main page.

Interesting positions.

The position in diagramm

is from my game against  Igor Betansky from the Israeli Team Cup ( that evantaully has been won by our Club after big drama in last round). The position is extremely complicated, but somehow I managed to create serious activity on the kingside. White’s king is pretty much in danger and Igor with his last move Nf4-d5 intends to swap queens, that would really help White to reduce Black’s activity on the kingside.

Can you find a nice refutation of White’s idea ?

A great success for my student.

My German student Tobias Graf has became a winner of Vienna open in B-section. In my opinion this is a tremendous achievement to win a section under 2000 with personal rating 1768!

My big congratulations to Tobias!

Here is the web page with the results of the tournament http://chess-results.com/tnr19377.aspx?art=4&lan=1&flag=30&m=-1&wi=1000

Zurich Jubilee 2009

It was definitely a very successful tournament for me. I scored incredible + 6 ( 7,5 out of 9) and shared 1-2 with Ukranian Grandmaster Areshchenko. Apparently one of my greatest achievements in my chess career. There was a lot of luck in my last game against Alexander Morozevic, but to win such a strong tournament you definitely need some:). So in general I had a fantastic summer , sharing 1-2 place in two very strong Opens and gaining a lot of elo points.

Here in my blog I want to share my thoughts about last round game from Zurich Open, Kuzubov-Areshchenko , which cost me about 7,500 franks. I have no doubts the game was pre-arranged the day before, which was very obvious to any GM in the tournament. They are two friends and I will never believe that such a solid player like Kuzubov, will lose so badly (in 20 moves) with White pieces, then draw secures a big prize for both players. I also heard in tournament hall, that Morozevic was complained about this game and he was a bit shocked when he saw such an easy win for Black  (during our game). It’s true I cannot prove nothing ( I didn’t have a recorder or camera to catch them), so I just have no respect to these players.

Here is a good link about the tournament http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5680

Below you can find also official tournament page.

Politiken Cup 2009

This year I decided to make a serious change in my summer schedule and instead of playing “my favourite” Biel Open I took part in famous Danish open. This time it was a successful attempt and I shared first place with Indian Grandmaster Negi with unexpectedly high score of 8.5 out of 10.

I should say that organization was on very high level, especially for open tournament. A private car was waiting for us when we landed in Copenhagen Airport and our trip to the place, where the tournament was held took us only 40 minutes. The place is called “Lo-Skollen” and it’s mostly used for different kind of meetings and conferences. In general the place is ideal for playing chess with nice green nature around the complex. You can have a nice walking before and after the game.

You can even eat some fresh fruits during the walk

After 10 minutes you can get close to the Baltic Sea

All the meals you have inside the complex, as well as you can have a free cofee and tea 24 hours. The playing hall has very interesting structure : first 12 boards has been played in the main room , which I should say looked very nice and was comfortable for everybody players and spectators ( big screens with live coverage). Not every close tournament has such a good conditions.

The tournament field was quite strong for open tournament. We had one 2700+ player Vladimir Malakhov, I was seeded number 7 behind such a strong players like: Peter Heine Nielsen, Sergey Tiviakov, Gabriel Sargissian, Alexey Dreev and Evgeny Postny. There were also all the best players from Sweden, Norway and of course Denmark.

First round was quite easy for me. I won very convincing game against Hansen (one of many :))

Black’s  last move  26…g5 was a huge error. After 27 Ne4 Qf4 28 Qf4 he resigned not waiting for a nice mate in two after 28…gf 29. Nf6 followed by 30.Nf7.

In  second round I faced Swedish player Vanman Kent. The game was more competative than the first one, we were both short of time when we reached the following position:

Black has obvious positional edge, but White seems pretty solid. I managed to discover a nice manoeuvre 26…Re3! 27.Kg1 Rb3 my rook became very active and the game was decided in a few moves.

I was slightly worried about third round, since we played two games in one day and second one always promises tough struggle. My opponent was German Fide Master Mattias Bach. Already in the opening he suprised me with interesting exchange sacrifice

13 fe Qe7 Black has got interesting compensation for the exchange. During the game it was obvious to me that my opponent followed his home preparation, that he recognized immediately after the end of the game. The line actually has been suggested in my book, so he rightly guessed that I can choose this line. In the middlegame my opponent missed some good opportunities and game transfered to favourable endgame for me, that was converted to a full point not without mistakes.

In round four my opponent was Danish International Master Antonsen. The game saw a thematical complicated Grunfeld middlegame. I managed to outplay my opponent but in mutual timetrouble I missed a few easy wins. After we passed the mark of 40 moves Black still was clearly better, but his 43.Bg3

Allowed an elegant finish: 43…e2! 44.Re1 fg3 45.Qe5 hg 46.Qh2 Qd4+ and in view of 47…Rh7 my opponent resigned.

Round number five. Here comes the worse game of the tournament. My opponent Jonny Hector suprised me in the opening with very rare line in Slav:

After 11…f6 Black usually opts for long castle and chooses either 12…Nc5, or 12…Be6. 12 …0-0-0 came as a big suprise to me and no wonder , since this move occured very rarely on practice. My reaction was quite natural 13.Qc1 removing the queen from d-file, but he quickly reacted with interesting pawn sacrifice 13…Nc5 14.Be5 fe5 15.Qe3 Nb3! 16.Rad1 Bc5 and indeed he got a reliable compensation for the pawn. The idea to play 19.Nc4 followed by 20.Na3 was very poor, but I didn’t realized this during the game. In the following diagramm

my opponent found very strong idea  20…Nd2 21.Rfe1 Rf8! 22.e3 Bg4 23. Rc1 Ba3 24.ba3 Nf3 25.Bf3 Bf3 and has got a clear plus. Still it was possible to defend much more stubborn, but being already short of time I lost without much resistance.

Before the next round I was speaking with my close friend by telephone and he said me that I should play careful and draw might be a good result with Black pieces after such a painful loss. I couldn’t even imagine how right he was. My opponent was Swedish International Master Berg Claus. In the opening I decided to opt for the line of my childhood and telling the truth I was not really updated with the latest theory. In the following position

He suprised me with positionally sound  12.g4 !? Later I discovered a serious amount of games in my Database. Black has no choice and should play 12…f5 13.g5 Nf7. The critical moment appeared  on move 16th

Every normal player would have captured with rook without much hesitation, while I decided to play original and recaptured with knight intending to continue with Be6 and Nc6 . Unfortunately this move is a big error, since I simply missed  17.Nb5! , which creates a very unpleasant threat of 18.Nc7 followed by 19.Ba7 . Black’s position appears to be critical, but somehow I managed to survive after my opponent comitted a mistake in mutual timetrouble.

In round seven I played against Danish player Skytte. He tried to suprise me already on move 2! choosing Budapesht Gambit, but I was pretty familiar with this opening, as recently I worked on this Gambit for my book. The middlegame saw quite interesting battle, that ended in my favour with extra pawn. The tecchnical part was very convincing I believe.

Round 8. My opponent was the member of Danish national Team from Dresden Olympiad- Rasmussen A. I rightly quessed that he will go for fashionable line in Breyer, that has been played by Anand in Amber tournament. I was studying intensively this position before the game, but I am not sure that my play in the opening was good enough. The critical moment arised after 21…ed4 , instead of recapturing my central pawn with knight my opponent played inaccurate 22.cb5

That allowed nice tactical touch 22…d3! and after 23.Bd3 cb5 Black remained with extra pawn. Later I played very bad and managed to win this game only due to my opponent’s blunder in the following position:

Here instead of 38 Bb2 , that should make an easy draw, my opponent commited desicive mistake by playing 38.Bd2? after 38…Ra7! Black is winning due to the weakness of White’s first rank.

In round 9 I played against young Norway young Grandmaster Ludvig Hammer. It looks like the opening was a suprise for him and he has spent a big amount of time, nevertheless he played very good moves (as later I discovered he followed the play of Vaganian). I didn’t manage to pose him any problems and he equalised comfortably, while I catched him on time.  We both were very short of time and in the following position

I wanted to play 28. Re1, but then I discovered that after 28…Re6! it’s not easy to discover a decent move for me, when I was shocked to see my time expired with 3,2 and 1 seconds and indeed it’s unbelievable how I managed to play 28.Nd6 without losing on time. It looks like my opponent was even more shocked and after two moves he blundered an elegant tactical blow

The last move he captured my pawn on c5, but this appeared to be a decisive mistake, as after 30.Nb7! Nb7 31.Qc6 Black’s position appears to be losing , as he cannot deal with misplaced position of his knight and weakness of his last rank together. It was really a shocking game and of course I will remember the moment when I managed to make my move with 1 second remaining for a long time:).

Last round gave me a great chance to fight for the tournament victory. I played with White against Russian Vladimir Malakhov the player with 2707 rating , who was leading through all the tournament, but somehow the round before he made a quick draw with White pieces against Indian Negi, that suprised me a lot, as it was obvious that in the last round he will face the player, who will try to fight for a win. It was a score of 2,5-0,5 in his favour before our game, but all the games he played with White pieces, so I was full of energy to take a revenge and to improve the overall score. Undoubtefully this was my best game in the tournament. There was everything important opening , interesting middlegame and finally very nice finish. In a few days I would like to publish this game fully commented here.

Scoring + 7 out of 10 appears to be unsufficient for the victory in the tournament. I shared first place , but the winner of the tournament was claimed Inidian Negi, who played an extraordinary tournament. He also missed good winning chances against Postny and Sargissian respectively. Certainly I was very satisfied with my final result and especially with last game win!

The final standings of the Politiken Cup you can see here : http://www.ksu.dk/politiken_cup/turnering/stilling.aspx?tur_id=627&aar=2009&aar=2009

FIDE Rating list July 2009

Two days ago FIDE published a new rating list for the 1st of July. If I understand correctly now they change the system and next rating list suppose to appear in two months and from this point every two months we will get a new rating list. Not a bad system in my opinion. The most remarkable think is  that 2635 would have been enough to be in the top 100 last time, now this mark has risen to 2641 and this allowed me to stay in top 100  :).  Here is the full list of first 100.

Rank	Name	Title	Country	Rating	Games	B-Year
1	Topalov, Veselin	g	BUL	2813	10	1975
2	Anand, Viswanathan	g	IND	2788	2	1969
3	Carlsen, Magnus	g	NOR	2772	12	1990
4	Aronian, Levon	g	ARM	2768	13	1982
5	Jakovenko, Dmitry	g	RUS	2760	15	1983
6	Kramnik, Vladimir	g	RUS	2759	0	1975
7	Leko, Peter	g	HUN	2756	13	1979
8	Radjabov, Teimour	g	AZE	2756	0	1987
9	Gelfand, Boris	g	ISR	2755	27	1968
10	Morozevich, Alexander	g	RUS	2751	0	1977
11	Gashimov, Vugar	g	AZE	2740	9	1986
12	Svidler, Peter	g	RUS	2739	36	1976
13	Wang, Yue	g	CHN	2736	10	1987
14	Grischuk, Alexander	g	RUS	2733	20	1983
15	Shirov, Alexei	g	ESP	2732	38	1972
16	Ponomariov, Ruslan	g	UKR	2727	3	1983
17	Bacrot, Etienne	g	FRA	2721	32	1983
18	Kamsky, Gata	g	USA	2717	22	1974
19	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	g	AZE	2717	17	1985
20	Karjakin, Sergey	g	UKR	2717	13	1990
21	Eljanov, Pavel	g	UKR	2716	44	1983
22	Movsesian, Sergei	g	SVK	2716	31	1978
23	Dominguez Perez, Leinier	g	CUB	2716	10	1983
24	Alekseev, Evgeny	g	RUS	2714	20	1985
25	Akopian, Vladimir	g	ARM	2712	13	1971
26	Nakamura, Hikaru	g	USA	2710	35	1987
27	Motylev, Alexander	g	RUS	2710	16	1979
28	Malakhov, Vladimir	g	RUS	2707	7	1980
29	Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	g	FRA	2703	31	1990
30	Ivanchuk, Vassily	g	UKR	2703	30	1969
31	Rublevsky, Sergei	g	RUS	2703	16	1974
32	Bu, Xiangzhi	g	CHN	2702	11	1985
33	Ni, Hua	g	CHN	2701	17	1983
34	Onischuk, Alexander	g	USA	2699	34	1975
35	Adams, Michael	g	ENG	2699	7	1971
36	Naiditsch, Arkadij	g	GER	2697	41	1985
37	Miroshnichenko, Evgenij	g	UKR	2696	29	1978
38	Vallejo Pons, Francisco	g	ESP	2693	7	1982
39	Wang, Hao	g	CHN	2690	38	1989
40	Bologan, Viktor	g	MDA	2689	12	1971
41	Tomashevsky, Evgeny	g	RUS	2689	6	1987
42	Navara, David	g	CZE	2687	19	1985
43	Polgar, Judit	g	HUN	2687	1	1976
44	Short, Nigel D	g	ENG	2684	14	1965
45	Jobava, Baadur	g	GEO	2684	2	1983
46	Almasi, Zoltan	g	HUN	2684	1	1976
47	Moiseenko, Alexander	g	UKR	2682	9	1980
48	Timofeev, Artyom	g	RUS	2681	7	1985
49	Vitiugov, Nikita	g	RUS	2681	6	1987
50	Nielsen, Peter Heine	g	DEN	2680	17	1973
51	Harikrishna, P.	g	IND	2679	24	1986
52	Volokitin, Andrei	g	UKR	2678	14	1986
53	Cheparinov, Ivan	g	BUL	2678	0	1986
54	Sutovsky, Emil	g	ISR	2675	27	1977
55	Inarkiev, Ernesto	g	RUS	2675	15	1985
56	Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter	g	ROU	2675	10	1976
57	Tiviakov, Sergei	g	NED	2674	34	1973
58	Kasimdzhanov, Rustam	g	UZB	2672	29	1979
59	Caruana, Fabiano	g	ITA	2670	25	1992
60	Grachev, Boris	g	RUS	2669	19	1986
61	Sasikiran, Krishnan	g	IND	2669	18	1981
62	Kurnosov, Igor	g	RUS	2669	13	1985
63	Fressinet, Laurent	g	FRA	2667	28	1981
64	Sargissian, Gabriel	g	ARM	2667	18	1983
65	Fridman, Daniel	g	GER	2665	23	1976
66	Guseinov, Gadir	g	AZE	2664	9	1986
67	Najer, Evgeniy	g	RUS	2663	26	1977
68	Beliavsky, Alexander G	g	SLO	2662	23	1953
69	Dreev, Alexey	g	RUS	2660	15	1969
70	Milov, Vadim	g	SUI	2659	2	1972
71	Roiz, Michael	g	ISR	2658	31	1983
72	Meier, Georg	g	GER	2658	21	1987
73	Socko, Bartosz	g	POL	2656	30	1978
74	Fedorchuk, Sergey A.	g	UKR	2655	41	1981
75	Landa, Konstantin	g	RUS	2655	33	1972
76	Van Wely, Loek	g	NED	2655	33	1972
77	Sokolov, Ivan	g	BIH	2655	32	1968
78	Efimenko, Zahar	g	UKR	2654	30	1985
79	Tregubov, Pavel V.	g	RUS	2652	30	1971
80	Areshchenko, Alexander	g	UKR	2651	40	1986
81	Tkachiev, Vladislav	g	FRA	2650	17	1973
82	Smirin, Ilia	g	ISR	2650	15	1968
83	Savchenko, Boris	g	RUS	2650	12	1986
84	Pashikian, Arman	g	ARM	2650	2	1987
85	Shulman, Yuri	g	USA	2648	34	1975
86	Andreikin, Dmitry	g	RUS	2648	20	1990
87	Lastin, Alexander	g	RUS	2648	16	1976
88	Postny, Evgeny	g	ISR	2647	33	1981
89	Granda Zuniga, Julio E	g	PER	2647	26	1967
90	Berkes, Ferenc	g	HUN	2647	20	1985
91	Riazantsev, Alexander	g	RUS	2647	16	1985
92	So, Wesley	g	PHI	2646	22	1993
93	Seirawan, Yasser	g	USA	2646	4	1960
94	Georgiev, Kiril	g	BUL	2645	18	1965
95	Kobalia, Mikhail	g	RUS	2645	0	1978
96	Mamedov, Rauf	g	AZE	2645	0	1988
97	Predojevic, Borki	g	BIH	2644	30	1987
98	Karpov, Anatoly	g	RUS	2644	0	1951
99	Amonatov, Farrukh	g	TJK	2641	24	1978
100	Avrukh, Boris	g	ISR	2641	13	1978

Richard Riordan Chess Festival

Only a few days ago I found that our Chess Festival during the 18th Maccabiah is called in honor of Richard Riordan. Here is some interesting inormation about the main sponsor of Chess event.

In 1981, successful lawyer, businessman, hi-tech investor and venture 
capitalist Richard Riordan created the Foundation that bears his name. 
His simple goal: enable people to acquire skills necessary to compete 
successfully in society. He had an equally simple plan: teach children 
to read and write at an early age, and nurture leadership skills in 
young adults. The Riordan Foundation has an impressive record of 
computer-based, early childhood literacy programs across America and 
youth development and leadership programs with over 2,400 graduates. 
Its signature Rx for Reading programs have distributed over 25,500 
computers to over 2,140 schools in 40 states and provided funds for 
over 172,000 books purchased for elementary schools.

Richard Riordan won a decisive election victory in Los Angeles in 
1993, and quickly became one of the most successful and admired of big 
city mayors in the USA. He won a second term by a landslide in 1997, 
and had he not himself imposed the consecutive-terms limit, he would 
undoubtedly have been Mayor after 2001. For 8 years, he accepted a 
salary of exactly $1 per year. In 2003, he was the natural choice to 
serve as California Secretary of Education in Governor 
Schwarzenegger's first cabinet.

It will not surprise any Chess player to learn that Richard Riordan, 
the confirmed believer in the power of early education, is also
a lifelong aficionado of Chess and a friend of many leading players. 
When his advisor and friend Steve Soboroff formed the Los Angeles 
Committee of 18, Richard Riordan was moved to sponsor the 18th 
Maccabiah Chess Festival in recognition of Maccabi World Union's 
encouragement of young chess players in many countries.

The Richard Riordan Chess Festival (Israel, July 12-23 2009) includes:

A super-tournament (12 participants, average rating 2656, rapid and blitz)
Three festive sinultaneous displays by Boris Gelfand, Judit Polgar and 
Pavel Eljanov
A round-robin GM tournament and 2 IM tournaments
Open and Youth tournaments
Further attractions such as open blitz, and for the first time in 
Israel, underwater blitz!