World Chess News 2011

Here is a quick update from Stephen M on what is going on in the world of chess ...

"In terms of recent chess news, the last couple of weeks saw the emergence of a new challenger for Vishy Anand’s world championship. Boris Gelfand from Israel somewhat unexpectedly won the candidates tournament, beating Grishuk in the final, and will go on to face Anand in 2012. Anand and Gelfand are relatively old in the elite chess-playing world, both in the early 40s. This match may well be the beginning of the end for the old guard of the chess world as the current crop of youngsters will soon supplant them, but it should be a good fight between very contrasting styles. After the challenger is announced, there is normally a protracted period of contract negotiations where both players argue over the terms and conditions of the match and play a few mind games. These two players might be relatively quiet on this front I’m afraid, but keep an eye out for the classic 'his chair looks comfier than mine' and the Fischer favourite 'he’s employing psychics to climb inside my brain' "

You can follow all the recent chess news on www.chessbase.com which also lets you flick through some recent games and has a decent shop as well.

Cheers all,

Steve