Σκακιστικά νέα

The 24th European Youth Chess Championship has officially started. The competition gathered 989 young chess players from 45 European countries, divided in 12 categories: U8, U10, U12, U14, U16 and U18, boys and girls separately.

The Championship takes place in Batumi, coastal town in Georgia, 18-29 October, 2014 in hotel Sheraton Batumi, and is organized by the European Chess Union and Georgian Chess Federation.

The Unive Hoogeveen Chess Festival 2014 took place on 11-18th October 2014 in Hoogeveen, in the Netherlands.

The event was split into several groups – two 6-game matches (the highlight of the event), 9-round Open tournament and two Amateur tournaments.

Lu Shanglei of China won the World Junior Chess title by defeating Aleksander Indjic of Serbia. In the girls section Aleksandra Goryachkina had successfully defended her title with a round to spare yesterday.

Intense, exciting tussles on the top boards yielded just one decisive result – Lu Shanglei of China defeating Aleksandar Indjic of Serbia, which was enough to crown him the World Junior Chess title at Hotel Hyatt, Pune.

The American Continental Chess Championship 2014 is taking place on 18-26th October 2014 at the Hotel Pipa Atlântico – Convention Center on Praia da Pipa in Brazil.

Top four (4) finishers qualify for the FIDE World Cup 2015 in Baku, Azerbaijan. In case of a tie, additional rapid/blitz games will be played.

The 40th Guernsey International Chess Festival will be held on 19-25th October 2014 at the Peninsula Hotel, in Guernsey.

The Open Tournament, sponsored by Intertrust Guernsey, is a 7-round FIDE Swiss event with first prize in the amount of £1,200.

Top seed is Canadian GM Eric Hansen (2574).

Official website

The 38th Zurich Weihnachtsopen will take place from 26th to 30th December, 2014, at the Crowne Plaza Zürich in Zurich, Switzerland.

The Master Tournament (for players rated over 2000) and General Tournament (U2050) will each be played over 7 rounds of Swiss system.

The 1st Annual Cleveland Classic will take place on 24-26th October at the Sheraton Cleveland Airport Hotel, 5300 Riverside Drive, Ohio, USA.

The event will have four sections: Open, U2000, U1700 and U1400. The playing format is 5-round Swiss with the time control 30/90, SD/60 d5.

The prize fund is USD 6000, guaranteed.

Open: $2000-650-350, top U2200/Unrated $500
U-2000, U-1700: $500-$250
U-1400: $500-250 (top U1100 $150)
Highest scoring female player (any section): $100

Stage 1b of the Top Computer Chess Championship (TCEC) is currently underway and there is little surprise: Houdini 4 and Komodo 8 are clearly dominating the field. After 10 rounds Houdini has the amazing 9,5/10, closely followed by Komodo with 9,0/10.

FIDE World Chess Championship 2014 between the World Champion Magnus Carlsen and the Challenger Viswanathan Anand is going to take place November 7th to November 28th, 2014.

The games of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2014 begin with round 1 on the 8th of November. The drawing of colors will happen two days earlier at the opening ceremony.

The second stage of the FIDE Grand Prix series 2014-2015 will take place from 20th October until 2nd November in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.