Tata Steel: status after 4 rounds

After 4 rounds, the chess players have their first rest day today (17th January). Let’s take a look on how the tournaments (both Masters and Challengers) are going: Masters: The first round was (as usually these days in super tournaments) dry with 6 draws and a single win for Eljanov with white against the always

Preview: Tata Steel Chess tournament

The Tata Steel Chess Tournament kicks off the chess year, a tournament with long traditions which can be stretched all the way back to 1938. This year is the 79th edition. The tournament is also known as Wijk aan Zee, the seaside town where the tournament has been held since 1968 and where 11 of

500 Internal Server Error…

Been far too long since last post, much thank to a lengthy troubleshoot trying to fix the dreaded 500 Internal server error. The site seems fine for the moment, so it’s maybe time for a very quick update for the various categories;  Chess The World Championship match is done and dusted and Magnus Carslen is

It starts today!

The day we’ve* all been waiting for the last couple of months are finally here; Carlsen vs Karjakin. I have written up a summary of the basics for the upcoming match, but thought I’d explain about how the Norwegian coverage of the championship will be. *By we I mean chess fans. NRK NRK is the

FIDE World Chess Championship match 2016

The World Chess Championship match between reigning champion Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin is fast approaching so it’s time to take a quick look on the match which starts on Friday 11th November. MATCH RULES The match is played over 12 games, 1 point for victory, ½ for draw, first to 6.5 points (tiebreak if

Chess Olympiad – halfway update

After five rounds and a rest day the Olympiad is moving on to the crucial second half of the tournament. There have been a few upsets already and as more top seeded teams will clash in the coming round let’s take a look on the favourites and if the predictions I made before the tournament

Chess Olympiad starts on friday

The 42nd Chess Olympiad starts Friday the 2nd September. This year the Olympiad is held in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan and a total of 182 teams from 176 countries are registered for the open section and 141 teams for 137 countries in the women’s section. Sadly Armenia is not participating (due to the strained

Sinquefield cup – predictions

The next leg of the Grand Chess Tour starts  Friday 5th August in Saint Louis with the Sinquefield cup, a 10 player-round robin tournament and the first classic chess in this year’s Grand Chess Tour.  With  about 20 hours left before the first moves are made, here are my thoughts concerning the players and my

Why write about chess

Well, the obvious answer is “why not write about chess”? As a Norwegian it’s hard not to take some notice to the chess world. Magnus Carlsen, world no. 1 and reigning world champion, is of course the main reason we Norwegians went chess-mad autumn 2013 during the first wc-match between Carlsen and Anand. An event

Norway – a chess-mad country

In the wake of Magnus Carlsen rise to the become the current world champion in chess there have been a gigantic boom of interest in chess in his home-country of Norway. It started with the unlikely tv-success of the world championship match between Carlsen and Anand in 2013. Suddenly “everybody” followed the moves from Chennai,