Friday 21 March 2014

chess24.com - for Playing, Studying and Following Chess

by Junta

I've recently been having a look at a new chess website, launched this year - chess24
. I've focussed on the news articles, but to back up their mottoes of 'your playground' and 'the only chess site you'll ever need!', there's also an online play arena, interactive tutorials and training, video lessons from masters, and more.

I was very impressed by the articles on the Candidates until I spotted the contributor's name, when I understood. Colin McGourty was the editor of Chess in Translation, which I was a big fan of - he had written last year that CiT would become inactive as he had been recruited to join an exciting new project, and it looks like chess24 is what he was talking about.

chess24 also has a horde of strong grandmasters and chess professionals contributing, including Macauley Peterson, Francisco Vallejo Pons, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Jan Gustafsson and Lawrence Trent. There are video series on openings and on chess in general, spearheaded by none other than Vishy Anand and Peter Svidler, and many other grandmasters, but payment is required to watch in full (I haven't subscribed, myself).

All in all, chess24 still seems to be in its early days, yet it may indeed become an all-round, high quality chess website that many flock to. I for one, am just content to be able to read articles by McGourty again!

Monday 10 March 2014

Candidates 2014 tipping!

Last year's Candidates tournament in London was an amazing event to follow, with Carlsen and Kramnik leading after Round 13/14. Both lost in a dramatic final round, resulting in Carlsen winning on tiebreaks, going on to take the title of World Champion from Anand by a score of 6.5-3.5 in November. 

Candidates 2013
Carlsen, Aronian, Kramnik, Svidler, Grischuk, Ivanchuk, Radjabov, Gelfand
Candidates 2014
Anand, Aronian, Kramnik, Svidler, Karjakin, Topalov, Mamedyarov, Andreikin

This year, the double round robin will be running in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia between March 11th-April 1st. Here are the predictions by the members of FIGJAM:

Andrew: 1st Aronian =2nd Karjakin, Kramnik, Topalov

Junta: 1st Kramnik 2nd Aronian 3rd Topalov

Moulthun: 1st Aronian 2nd Karjakin 3rd Kramnik