Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Annotated FIDE World Chess Championship

Here are a number of places you can find news and annotated games from the ongoing FIDE World Chess Championship. I have made them all open up in new pages so that you can easily compare what they say about various games or view pictures side by side with analysis.

GM Sergey Shipov. Chess Pro.
http://www.chesspro.ru/events/sanluis05-en.shtml
Very useful impressions and analysis of the games by the Russian GM.

Dennis Monokroussos. The Chess Mind.
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/
Offers some very deep annotations to some games, with links to other useful commentary.

IM Maxim Notkin, "Pearl of the Day" at e3 e5
http://www.e3e5.com/eng/
Scroll down to find this and the next column under "News," with days corresponding to rounds.

Misha Savinov, "Night Watch" at e3 e5
http://www.e3e5.com/eng/
Sometimes philosophical reflections on the round by round play which read more like essays than news reports. Excellent stuff.

Inforchess
http://www.inforchess.com/
An excellent Spanish-language site with annotated games and reports after each round. They have a tradition of providing excellent notes, like these by IM Hectre Leyva on Round 4 match-up Topalov-Adams.

IM Alexander Alpert at Convekta
http://www.convekta.com/
"Commented games" presented in Convekta's own Chess Assistant Java Applet format. Notes in English but moves in Russian (?) algebraic.

Malcolm Pein of the Daily Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Useful daily chess column with news and games. Annotations, however, are usually sparse.

Susan Polgar. Susan Polgar Chess Blog and Chessville.com
http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/
Light annotations and predictions from the GM and sister to participant Judit. She does not risk many long variations, but her notes are useful.

ChessBase and ChessBase in Spanish.
http://www.chessbase.com
An excellent source of photos, round by round reports (by the charming GM Nigel Short), and games.

FIDE and FIDE-San Luis
http://www.fide.com/news/sanluis.asp
The FIDE site has news and photos off the main page and the San Luis news page.

Official Site
http://www.wccsanluis.net/home.asp?lang=en

The official site of the tournament includes recent pictures and commentaries by the ubiquitous Nigel Short.

The Week in Chess.
http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic.html
Offers photos and games, with occasional links to annotations in PGN by Malcolm Pein.

Google News
http://news.google.com/
You can always search the latest news about the tournament through Google.

Internet Chess Club (ICC)
http://www.chessclub.com/
If you are not a member, there is no better time to try the seven day trial. Personally, I don't play much online but I feel I've gotten more than my money's worth out of their championship coverage (though some of the kibitzing is offensive and should be monitored).

ChessFM
http://chess.fm/
Besides their wonderful live shows they offer round-by-round wrap-ups and will likely have some individually commented games. I recommend combining coverage on the ICC with ChessFM for the best live effect.

Playchess.com
http://www.playchess.com
If you bought Fritz, Shredder, or another ChessBase program in the past year, chances are you are already a free subscriber to this site. Otherwise, there seems no better time to sign up for their free 30-day trial! Word is that they have some excellent GM commentary by Yasser Seirawan and my favorite Andrew Martin.

World Chess Network
http://wcn.tentonhammer.com/
You can also view games live here.

Mig Greengard. The Daily Dirt Chess Blog.
http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/
Chatty kibitzing and useful links to other commentary.

The Closet Grandmaster from Australia
http://closetgrandmaster.blogspot.com/
TCG is fllowing the championship closely and blogging about it frequently, with useful links.

Chess News and Events by Goran Urosevic
http://chesslodge.blogspot.com/
A blog that features frequent news updates and useful links.

Clarin
http://www.clarin.com
The Argentinian national newspaper has some surprisingly good daily coverage of the tournament plus additional reports and commentaries. And it is open access--no annoying registration required. You will find the most articles by simply using the "buscar" ("to search") button and entering "ajedrez" (chess in Spanish). You can also navigate to the daily report (if it is not lined off the main page) via secciones (sections)>deportes (sports)> ajedrez.

El Diario de la Republica
http://www.eldiariodelarepublica.com
The local San Luis newspaper requires a very annoying and discouraging registration but the "suplemento especial" devoted to the championship is worth seeing. It is usually linked off the main page--I think the championship will be the biggest thing in town for the duration--and contains a game of the day with some commentary plus articles and photos that give a lot of local color. The pictures do add something--including one showing Topalov signing autographs for adoring fans which I have not seen elsewhere.

The Chess Drum.
http://www.thechessdrum.net/Thee
There is no name attached to these reports, which are based in large part on those of GMs in other media.

Net Chess News
http://www.chessnetwork.com/ncn/
Always an easy place to find recent games, including those from the FICE WCC, in java applet form.

Chessgames.com
http://www.chessgames.com/
The games are presented here to play over online, with a nice picture and some kibitzing by visitors.

Europe Echecs
http://www.europe-echecs.com/
Offers game summaries and round by round commentary.

The Chess Chronicle (subscription)
http://www.chesschronicle.org/
As far as I know, they have not yet come out with annotated games. But I expect this to be one of the most complete presentations, to judge by some of their sample issues available online, including the most recent free issue with player biographies.

Chess Today (subscription)
http://www.chesstoday.net/
The daily chess newspaper offers analysis if you subscribe.

I will add any others I come across or which readers recommend.

1 comment:

Milan Lee said...

WorldChessNetwork is also providing audio comments.

GM Alex Finkel, GM Larry Christiansen, IM Irina Krush (with help of Pascal C.), WGM Anna Zatonskih, GM Dima Tyomkin, GM Arthur Kogan, GM Victor Mikhalevski etc

radio address is http://audio.worldchessnetwork.com:8000

Best regards,
Goran