BOTW: 2016.06.09

John Upper's picture
Submitted by John Upper on Thu, 06/09/2016 - 07:36

Victor Korchnoi
(March 23, 1931 - June 6, 2016)

As everyone who follows chess will know, Victor Korchnoi died this week. 

The obituaries all hit the same highlights:

    • "strongest player never to become World Champion"
    • "Victor the Terrible"
    • survivor of the siege of Leningrad
    • four-time USSR Champion
    • Soviet defector
    • Soviet boycot of tournaments featuring Korchnoi 
    • Candidate finalist once (1974) 
    • World Championship Challenger twice (1978, 1981).
    • world-class player into his late 50s, strong GM in his 60s, still competing in his 70s

None of that will be new to long-time chess fans, and reading them again and again in every obit might dull their significance. So, to put this in perspective, we might ask ourselves whether there are any players in the World's Top 10 today who have had such remarkable lives.

Daniel King (remembers VK, warts and all, and analyzes the endgame from Korchnoi - Karpov g32, 1978)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ12ZLJ2v4k 

Edward Winter's Chess History (collection of photos and memorabilia)
http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/korchnoi.html

Kasparov tribute on ChessBase
http://en.chessbase.com/post/kasparov-pays-tribute-to-korchnoi

ChessBase obituary
http://en.chessbase.com/post/viktor-korchnoi-dies-at-85

 

Grand Chess Tour: Paris
June 9-12, 2016.

Speaking of World's Top 10... Carlsen, Nakamura, Caruana, Kramnik, Vachier-Lagrave, Topalov, Aronian, Giri, Fressinet, and So.

The Paris stop on the Grand Chess Tour is a four day event combining a 10-player Rapid RR, and a 10-player double RR blitz. There will be 5 rapid games June 9, and 4 rapid games June 10. Saturday and Sunday will each see 9 rounds of blitz. Games begin at 2pm Paris time, 8am EST.

Live games
Canadian GM Eric Hansen is one of the commentators from the St.Louis Chess Club feed:

http://grandchesstour.org/2016-paris-gct/watch-live

which is being rebroadcast on the Canadian Chess Supersite:
https://www.chesssupersite.com/view/broadcasts

 

2016 Saint Louis Invitational
June 8-16, 2016.

There are two St.Louis Invitational events sumultaneously: one for IM norms and one for GM norms. Both are 10-player, 9-round RRs. Two Canadians are playing: IM Aman Hambleton plays in the GM event, FM Lefong Hua plays in the the IM event. Unfortunately, and surprisingly given how media-friendly the SLCC is, they do not seem to have either live games or results online.

Results (now online) 
http://www.uschesschamps.com/information-2016-saint-louis-invitational/results 
After 3 rounds, IM Hambleton has +1 =1 -1, and FM Hua has +0 =1 -2.

Schedule
June 8, 12, 13 - 1 round per day (5pm St.Louis; 6pm EST)
June 9, 10, 11 - 2 rounds per day (11, 5pm St.Louis; noon, 6 EST)

Links
http://www.uschesschamps.com/2016-saint-louis-invitational-gm-norm-field
http://www.uschesschamps.com/2016-saint-louis-invitational-im-norm-field

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