Caïssa problem of the week

This is a study from Farago, 1944
White to play and win.

Book review: Endgame tactics, by Ger Van Perlo.

Most players prefer to focus their preparations on openings or tactics, hoping that they will win the game with a nice opening trap or with a crushing mate attack in the middle game.
But it appears that most of the games reach the endgame, and the winner is the one with the better understanding of this part.

And it's probably the most difficult part of chess. 
The endgame books are usually very technical, very theorical, not to say boring.  After few chapters, the student closes the book and never gets back to it.

With this one, Ger Van Perlo offers something different. 
The author focus on real life practice. And more than that, it is really entertaining! Not only you will learn things that you will use in your own games, but you will have a really good time reading the book thanks to Ger’s sense of humor.

Ger Van Perlo died in 2010. This book is the fourth edition of the publication that won  both ECF Book  and ChessCafe 2006 Book of the Year. It’s a kind of tribute to the Dutch correspondence GM.
The publisher discovered in 2013 some unpublished extra batch of endgames collected by Van Perlo and these have been added in this new edition.

A must have !

Still not convinced ? You can download sample pages here.

British Chess Magazine:
“All chess life is here: brilliant wins, amazing draws and not infrequently defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.”
Andrew Martin on ChessBase Radio:
“Really excellent work. Very suitable for the vast majority of chess players who want to improve.”
Former US Champion Joel Benjamin:“A masterpiece.” 

End Game Tactics – A Comprehensive Guide to the Sunny Side of Chess Endgames
Publisher : New in Chess
608 pages

Caïssa problem of the week

Blacks seems to be in trouble but...

Black to play and win!

Caïssa’s Summer game, round 5

Hi Guys,

With this post, I officially close the question 4 of the summer quiz.

The answer was... well let's see the picture of one the competitor sent me, naming Laurence from France :

So, here the standing, with names or alias of the players:

		Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	All Quiz
1	James IPFuTuR	1	4	2	3	10
2	Vincent Moret	1	3	4		8
3	OlivierH	2	2	3	1	8
4	Hassan Sadeghi	4				4
5	Jean PY	3	1			4
6	StellaG				4	4
7	Myma (Alexis)		0	0	2	2
8	ChessStorm	1				1
9	Pascal Gaulupeau		1	0		1
10	Serge Picard		1			1
11	Guy Laroche		1			1
12	Kloch			1		1
13	Tristan			1		1
14	H.Jadot	0		0	1	1
15	Laurence F				1	1
16	Faloui	0				0

James IPFuTuR takes the lead again ! Congratulations. But it's not finished yet !!

Now, let's move on Quiz 5 : Guess who Am I !

Question 5:

I had 3 different names in my life. I got my last name in 1993.

I never been world chess champion, even if I won a match against Garry Kasparov in 1997, where I won this game in less than 20 moves.

Who am I ???

send your answer to contact@caissaprod.com

Remember, the first 3 winners will received a promo code to get Chess News 2 for free!

You don’t have an iOS device? Well… just play for fun and glory ;-)

Good luck to all !

quiz 1 / quiz 2 / quiz 3 / quiz 4

- Maxime Vachier-Lagrave wins Biel 2014 ! -

The end of the tournament was a bit difficult fo the French GM, but finally, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave managed to win his second Biel tournament in a row.

After suffering a loss in the 9th round, Vachier-Lagrave drew his last game against Radoslaw Wojtaszek to finish sole winner. This draw give the second place to Wojtaszek.

Despite a loss against Pentala Harikrishna in the last round, Hou Yifan can be very satisfyed of her overall performance. She’s gaining 32 points in 21 games. She only needs 15 points to get Judith Polgar’s place. We are near an historical event !

R10 results

Pentala Harikrishna	-	Yifan Hou	1 - 0
Alexander Motylev	-	Anish Giri	½ - ½
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	-	Radoslaw Wojtaszek	½ - ½

Final standing
1.	Vachier-Lagrave,Maxime	GM	2766	FRA	6.0	28.25
2.	Wojtaszek,Radoslaw	GM	2733	POL	5.5	26.25
3.	Harikrishna,P	GM	2726	IND	5.0	25.50
4.	Giri,Anish	GM	2750	NED	5.0	24.50
5.	Hou,Yifan	GM	2629	CHN	5.0	23.75
6.	Motylev,Alexander	GM	2698	RUS	3.5	18.25

Videos from Biel / Official site / live games / games in pgn

Caïssa’s Summer game, round 4

Hi Guys,

With this post, I officially close the question 2 of the summer quiz.

The answer was... Valery Salov ! Congratulations to those who found the solution.. and sent it to me ;-) 
I had 2 answers naming Victor Kortchnoï... I didn't notice any similarity but... why not... ;-)

So, here the standing, with names or alias of the players:

		Q1	Q2	Q3	All Quiz
1	Vincent Moret	1	3	4	8
2	James IPFuTuR	1	4	2	7
3	OlivierH	2	2	3	7
4	Hassan Sadeghi	4			4
5	Jean PY	3	1		4
6	ChessStorm	1			1
7	Pascal Gaulupeau		1	0	1
8	Serge Picard		1		1
9	Guy Laroche		1		1
10	Kloch			1	1
11	Tristan			1	1
12	Myma		0	0	0
13	Faloui	0			0
14	H.Jadot	0		0	0

Vincent Moret takes the lead ! Congratulations. But it's not finished yet !!

Now Let's move on Quiz 3 : the 7th differences !!

The match between Carlsen and Anand is coming... Let's give them a tribute : find the 7th differences between the following photos. : 

Find the most differences you can (7th max) 

send your answer to contact@caissaprod.com

Remember, the first 3 winners will received a promo code to get Chess News 2 (released soon) for free!

You don’t have an iOS device? Well… just play for fun and glory ;-)

Good luck to all !

quiz 1 / quiz 2 / quiz 3

Caïssa problem of the week

A very nice study this week.
White to play and win.

The solution of the last problem... Found by Michael Freeman. Congrates Michael !

Biel 2014, Round 7 : MVL on the road to victory...

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave - Photo http://www.bielchessfestival.ch/

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave has consolidated his first place beating with black pieces Alexander Motylev, and beeing the only winner of this round.
He's now 1.5 points ahead Pentala Harikrishna, Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Hou Yifan, who's performing a great tournament and grabing some points to get closer than ever to Judith Polgar.

R7 results:

Anish Giri	-	Pentala Harikrishna	½ - ½
Yifan Hou	-	Radoslaw Wojtaszek	½ - ½
Alexander Motylev	-	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	0 - 1

1.	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	2766	FRA	5
2.	Radoslaw Wojtaszek	2733	POL	3.5
	Pentala Harikrishna	2726	IND	3.5
	Yifan Hou	2629	CHN	3.5
5.	Anish Giri	2750	NED	3
6.	Alexander Motylev	2698	RUS	2.5

Dortmund, Round 6 : Caruana winner with one round to go !

Fabiano Caruana is very impressive in this event. He increased his lead by 1,5 points, beating Michael Adams with white, in a Berlin defense. Doing so, he consolidates his new 3rd place in live rating with 2801,7 Elo points.

Vladimir Kramnik is still not able to win a single game, and the least we can say is that is not showing great things on the board. He will have to forget this tournament.

Naiditsch is taking the second place with Peter Leko by beating Ruslam Ponomariov.



LINKS
Official site / games in pgn (from chessbase.com)

Round 6
Caruana, Fabiano	1-0	Adams, Michael
Naiditsch, Arkadij	1-0	Ponomariov, Ruslan
Kramnik, Vladimir	½-½	Leko, Peter
Baramidze, David	½-½	Meier, Georg

standing from chessbase.com

Biel 2014 : MVL clear leader

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Vive la France.

We have reached the first half of this tournament, and we can already observe few things :
- Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a clear leader, one point ahead, and he has reached the 8th rank in the live rating list !
- Hou Yifan is doing fine, has no fear of these men, and looks to be very well prepared
- Anish Giri is "Mister no draw". +2 -3. Keep fighting boy...

A great game from MVL

Rond 5 video report 

			1		2		3		4		5		6
1.	Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	2766	*	*	½	.	½	.	1	.	½	.	1	.	3,5	2856
2.	Wojtaszek, Radoslaw	2733	½	.	*	*	½	.	½	.	1	.	0	.	2,5	2713
3.	Harikrishna, Pentala	2726	½	.	½	.	*	*	½	.	0	.	1	.	2,5	2715
4.	Hou, Yifan	2629	0	.	½	.	½	.	*	*	½	.	1	.	2,5	2734
5.	Motylev, Alexander	2698	½	.	0	.	1	.	½	.	*	*	0	.	2,0	2648
6.	Giri, Anish	2750	0	.	1	.	0	.	0	.	1	.	*	*	2,0	2638

Official site / live games / games in pgn