Get set for the annual extravaganza that's "Ciudad de Dos Hermanas", the biggest, grandest and best online tournament, hosted only on ICC - and play gets underway today!

The total prize fund amounts to EUR 7,600 (about $10,400), with Euro 2,000 (roughly $2,700) first prize, plus additional class prizes and ICC membership prizes for amateur players. Entry is completely FREE but you DO need to be a member of ICC (and register) to play!

This is one of the most important Internet chess tournaments in the world with the last four editions boasting an entry of over 5,000 players from all over the world. Will previous two-time winner, Jorge Sammour-Hasbun, go for a third title in four years, or will defending champion GM Dmitry Kononenko (Dako) join the untitled online blitz maven by becoming the second player to win back-to-back titles? Other top grandmasters who have vied for the title in the past include: Shahriyar Mamedyarov, Tigran L. Petrosian, Gata Kamsky, Hikaru Nakamura, Kiril Georgiev and Sergey Shipov.

As in previous editions, the playing system is as follows: twelve 12-round Swiss qualifiers using the playing rate of 3 minutes per game. Qualifiers are held twice a day from March 12th to March 17th, with the finals being held on March 19th & 20th. The 12 qualifier winners plus the 20 best scores qualify to go forward to the 32-player KO final.

Even if you are not aiming to win a prize, this tournament gives you a unique chance to meet world class players! We hope that Dos Hermanas will become the internet chess tourney of the year once again. Make sure to register early only at the official site below! Your registration is valid for all qualifiers, but you do not need to play all.

Full rules, guidelines and registrations can be found at our special Dos Hermanas website.

Please download the latest versions of Dasher (1.3) or BlitzIn (2.7) to play.

  Qualifier Schedule

It's that time of the year again when the cream of world chess collectively close their eyes and move quickly as they meet at the grandiose Hotel Palais de la Mediterranée on the Promenade des Anglais, in Nice, France, for the 19th Amber Rapid and Blindfold Chess Tournament.
 

Twelve of the world's top grandmasters from eight countries will take part in this hotly-contested annual contest. On offer is a 216,000 Euro ($296,000) total prize-fund. The event is organized by the Association Max Euwe, and generously sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Van Oosterom from Monaco.

This year's field is as strong as ever, and includes (in rating order): Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Alexander Grischuk (Russia - a late replacement for Alexander Morozevich), Peter Svidler (Russia), Boris Gelfand (Israel), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine), Sergey Karjakin (Russia), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba), and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands).
 

And each day here at ICC, the Chess.FM team will be back in action to cover every round. Mig & co-host GM Ronen Har-Zvi will be joined by GMs Larry Christiansen, Joel Benjamin, Jon Speelman, and Nick De Firmian, who will also be providing our GOTD service.

Also on the video scene in Amber will be the inimitable double act of Macauley Peterson (Chess.FM) and Peter Doggers (Chessvibes) - and both promise they'll be providing amazing behind the scenes coverage of the event! And to get you in the Amber mood, Macauley has posted on the Chess.FM YouTube page a brief look back at the 2009 event - go check it out now at http://www.youtube.com/user/ICCchessFM
 

This is one event you will not want to miss! Live coverage begins each day on ICC at 8:30 a.m. (EDT). There's also a New In Chess trivia and GOTD trivia each day where you can win prizes! Check out all the links below and don't forget to book your ringside seat now on ICC by becoming a member by clicking here.

ICC: finger Amber10

Official site: http://www.amberchess2010.com/

The 9th Aeroflot Open is taking place from February 9th to 18th, 2010, for the fifth year in succession in the tourist complex Izmailovo Hotel Gamma-Delta, where most of the participants also stay. The prize sum is EUR 180,000, including prizes for the World Blitz Qualification Tournament. Four Open Tournaments (A1, A2, B and C) are made up according to the rating of the participants. The A1 tournament has players with a rating of 2550 or higher.

Time controls: for tournament A1 and A2 it is 40 moves in 100 minutes, then 20 moves in 50 minutes, finally 15 minutes for the remaining moves, with an increment of 30 seconds per move from move one. For tournaments B and C: 90 minutes for the whole game with an increment of 30 seconds per move from move one.

Photos by WGM Yana Melnikova.

Ukrainian GM Andrei Volokitin, US GM Jaan Ehlvest

GM Sanan Sjugirov from Kalmykia playing US GM Gata Kamsky (draw in 36 moves)

Armenian GM Zaven Andriasian watches Motylev vs Shabalov (Motylev won in 27 moves)

Official tournament site

Crosstable of grandmaster group A

Crosstable of grandmaster group B

Crosstable of grandmaster group C

There was a safety-first start to the 72nd Corus Wijk Aan Zee tournament in the Netherlands, as all the top players had black on the opening day and it proved to be a cautionary tale of draws all round. The only winners on the opening day were Loek Van Wely and Alexei Shirov, who turned on the style to beat, respectively, Nigel Short and Peter Leko to lead at the end of the first round. GM Gregory Kaidanov's choice for GOTD was Van Wely vs. Short - ICC members can view this video in full below. Non-members can view a free 5 min preview of the video - to watch in full, join ICC now.

Rd Commentator Game Watch   Free 1 GM Gregory Kaidanov  GM Loek van Welyvs. GM Nigel Short

World #1 Magnus Carlsen heads the field for this year's Corus tournament that also includes World Champion Vishy Anand, former champion Vladimir Kramnik and last year's winner Sergey Karjakin. Completing the Corus line-up is: US champion Hikaru Nakamura, Vassily Ivanchuk, Leinier Dominguez, Fabiano Caruana, Jan Smeets and Sergei Tiviakov.

Chess.FM will have extended live coverage of Corus throughout starting each round at 7:30am ET (1:30pm CET local). Joining Mig Greengard each day will be our expert team of Chess.FM commentators that includes Peter Svidler, Jan Gustafsson, Gregory Kaidanov, Joel Benjamin, Larry Christiansen, Jon Speelman, Gawain Jones, Ronen Har-Zvi, Andy Martin and Nick De Firmian.

Macauley Peterson will also be in the press room at Corus for all the latest news & gossip and a round-up of all the best video action.

We'll also have the New In Chess trivia, where each day an ICC member can win a 1-year subscription to New In Chess magazine. There's also Game of the Day trivia sponsored by USCF Sales, where each day an ICC member can win a $70 gift certificate for the USCF Sales store.

Now is the time to join ICC for the best in all the live chess action from Corus here at Chess.FM. To join ICC, please click here.

 Final Ranking

The United States and Russia have both posted impressive 5-1 records to share the lead at the 2010 World Team Championships, taking place in Turkey. Despite the broken English, the official site has all the important information on the tournament. There's also a four way tie for third place between rivals Armenia and Azerbaijan, along with India and Israel.

The US team -- made up of Nakamura, Alexander Onischuk, Yuri Shulman, Varuzhan Akobian and alternates Robert Hess and Ray Robson -- lost their head-to-head match with the Russians, but got some help from the Greek team, who beat the Russians in the second round to give both leading teams a match loss.

Perhaps the story of the tournament so far has been the sensational win by Hikaru Nakamura over Israel's Boris Gelfand. Nakamura took the black side of a King's Indian and left his queen en prise for several moves in route to a big win.

It's been quite a while since I've seen such a spectacular game. Hikaru Nakamura's win with black against Boris Gelfand in Round 5 of the World Team Championships contained a number of wonderful tactical points. 24.dxc7? missed the full consequences of the rather wonderful mating threat of g2 mate that Nakamura set up with his following move. Then when the pawn disappeared the threat was replaced with Bg2 mate, the final blow was Qd3 placing the queen en-prise but setting up fatal threats on g2 and f3 again. Gelfand had to give up a ruinous amount of material to stave off mate. He resigned shortly afterwards. Malcolm Pein annotates.

Gelfand,B (2761) - Nakamura,Hi (2708) [E97]
7th World Team Championship Bursa TUR (5), 09.01.2010
[Pein,Malcolm]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Nd2 Ne8 10.b4 f5 11.c5 Nf6 12.f3 f4 13.Nc4 g5 14.a4 Ng6 15.Ba3 Rf7 16.b5 [16.a5 h5 17.b5 dxc5 18.b6 g4 19.bxc7 Rxc7 20.Nb5 g3 21.Nxc7 Nxe4!! Belyavsky - Nakamura NH Amsterdam 2010]

16...dxc5 17.Bxc5 h5 18.a5 g4 19.b6 g3 20.Kh1 [20.Nb5 Nxe4 (20...Nd7) 21.fxe4 Qh4 22.hxg3 fxg3 23.Rxf7 Qh2+ 24.Kf1 Qh1+ 25.Bg1]]

20...Bf8 21.d6 21. Bxf8 Nxe4 22. Nxe4 Qh4 wins.A game with a very similar idea was played in a tournament Nakamura competed in, that game finished: 21. Bg1 Nh4 22. Re1 Nxg2 23. Kxg2 Rg7 24. Nxe5 gxh2+ 25. Kh1 Nxe4 {0-1 Roussel Roozmon, T (2486)-Charbonneau,P (2499)/Montreal CAN 2008/The Week in Chess 720}

21...axb6 22.Bg1 [22.axb6 Rxa1 23.Qxa1 cxd6 24.Rd1 Rd7]

22...Nh4 23.Re1 [23.dxc7 Bh3 24.gxh3 g2#]

23...Nxg2 24.dxc7? 24.Kxg2 when either 24...Rg7 or possibly 24..h4 look best. Alternatives are less good: a) 24...Nxe4 25.Nxe4 Qh4; b) 24...Bh3+ 25.Kxh3 Qd7+ 26.Kg2 gxh2 27.Kxh2 Ng4+ 28.fxg4 hxg4; c) 24...Qd7 25.Kh1 Rg7 (25...g2+ 26.Kxg2 Qh3+ 27.Kh1 Rg7) 26.Bf1;

24...Nxe1

25...g2+! 26.Kxg2 Rg7+ 27.Kh1 Bh3 28.Bf1 Qd3 29.Nxe5 [29.Bxh3 Qxf3+ 30.Bg2 Qxg2#]

29...Bxf1 30.Qxf1 Qxc3 [If 30...Qxf1 31.Rxf1 bxa5 32.Nb5 White is back in the game now Black is a rook up]

31.Rc1 Qxe5 32.c8Q Rxc8 33.Rxc8 Qe6 0-1

The ICC e-mail:

As expected, we start 2010 with Magnus Carlsen of Norway becoming the youngest player ever to be world #1 with the publication on January 1 of the new FIDE rating list.

The 19-year-old won two of the biggest tournaments of the old year past at Nanjing and London, while finishing close to the top at almost every other elite tournament he played in 2009. Carlsen (2810) also now becomes only the fifth player in history to break the 2800 barrier as he tops the world rankings ahead of Topalov (2805), Anand (2790) and Kramnik (2788).

And ICC's countdown to Corus starts with Carlsen heading the field in one of the strongest super-tournaments of the year at Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands.

The annual "Dutch treat", sponsored by steel makers Corus, also sees an intriguing battle likely to ensue as World Champion Vishy Anand and former champion Vladimir Kramnik get set to again test the mettle of the young Norwegian teenager. The full field can be found by clicking here.

Chess.FM will also be on the air throughout bringing you all the best of the live action from Corus! We'll have the regular live broadcast with Mig and the grandmaster Chess.FM team. Macauley Peterson will also be in the press room at Corus for all the latest news and the video action.

We'll also have the New In Chess trivia, where each day an ICC member can win a 1-year subscription to New In Chess magazine. There's also Game of the Day trivia sponsored by USCF Sales, where each day an ICC member can win a $70 gift certificate for the USCF Sales store.

And with 2010 being officially the start of the Magnus Carlsen era, this could be the best year ever to join ICC as we follow his path to the World Championship and beyond! To join ICC in time for our Corus coverage, please click here.

The 2009 World Team Chess Championship takes place 5th till 14th January in Bursa, the old capitol of Turkey.

The Federations qualified to participate in the Championship are: Continental Champions - Russia, Brazil, India (replacing China) and Egypt; top three teams from the 2008 Chess Olympiad - Armenia, Israel and USA; two wildcard teams invited the approval of the FIDE president - Azerbaijan and Greece; and finally host team Turkey.

There's been some spectacular play so far during the first five rounds of the competition (checkout Gelfand-Nakamura Rd.5!). Russia and USA are tied in first place with 8-points with top seeds Russia with the better tiebreak scores. In 3rd-4th place is Armenia and India on 7-points. The last four rounds looks likely to be exciting, and you can follow the action each day live here on ICC. Play gets underway each day at 8AM ET (final round 3AM).