Chess Tutoring, Chess Coaching, Chess Classes with NM Will Stewart

It’s not easy to keep up with the constantly changing schedules, venues, player lists, etc. for the elite chess tournaments of 2012, so I decided to centralize my research here. The climate at the top of the chess world has become very interesting lately, as Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian have greatly distanced themselves from other super-grandmasters on the current ratings lists – Carlsen at #1 with 2835 FIDE and Aronian stubbornly chasing at #2 [...]

The 7th Mikhail Tal Memorial Chess Tournament 2012 has been confirmed for June 7-19th in Moscow, Russia and will showcase an incredible line-up of elite grandmaster talent. Tal Memorial Chess 2012 has arranged the participation of 7 of the top 10 highest rated players in the world, only missing current World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand at #4, Sergey Karjakin at #8, and Vassily Ivanchuk at #10. The Tal Memorial 2012 promises to be one of [...]

The 2012 Aeroflot Open Chess Tournament has featured some incredibly creative chess, as many of the participants are very close to making it into the next level of Super-Grandmaster and are looking for a break-out performance. Aeroflot Chess 2012 does feature a handful of 2700+ players, most notably Evgeny Tomashevsky, Fabiano Caruana, Quang Liem Le (winner of Aeroflot Chess 2011), Francisco Vallejo-Pons, Baadur Jobava, and Krishnan Sasikiran. For the most part, the aforementioned group represents [...]

The sacrifice in chess is exactly what has made this game so popular in the last few hundred years. From the early tactical masterpieces of Paul Morphy to the almost uncontrolled aggression of Mikhail Tal and the sheer insanity created by Alexey Shirov, games with incredible sacrifices have always been considered more attractive. For this article, I’ve decided to present a few critical positions from a recent game between two of the youngest Super-Grandmasters in [...]

The Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2012 is the strongest chess tournament ever held in Wijk Aan Zee, bringing in 14 of the world’s top players in the A group to boast an average FIDE rating of 2755! The organizers have really done an incredible job of putting the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2012 together, featuring 8 of the top 10 highest rated chess players in the world (only missing former World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik [...]

Hikaru Nakamura is playing legitimate lights-out chess at the 54th Reggio Emilia “Torneo di Capodanno”, taking the rest day on January 1st after 5 rounds with an undefeated score (3 wins and 2 draws). Nakamura is trailed by a determined Alexander Morozevich at 3.5/5 and Vassily Ivanchuk at 3/5. The younger players in this 6 player 10 round double round robin have not fared well: Anish Giri at 2/5, Fabiano Caruana at 1.5/5, and Nikita [...]

The 54th “Torneo di Capodanno” chess tournament is being held in Reggio Emilia, Italy and starts on December 27th 2011, ending on January 6, 2012. The organizers of the Reggio Emilia 2011 chess tournament have done an incredible job of putting together an all-star line up of 2700+ FIDE players: Vassily Ivanchuk, Alexander Morozevich, Hikaru Nakamura, Nikita Vitiugov, Fabiano Caruana, and Anish Giri. Just one week before the tournament began, last year’s winner Vugar Gashimov [...]