Championship 25 Semifinal, ICCF.

There have been held semifinals of the championship 25 ICCF (e-mail). One of the participants, IM Alexander Alpert, one of the Convekta Ltd. staff and also the author of Convekta’s famous program Chess Endgame Training, has commented specially for Chess Weekly on an endgame fragment of interest as well as 4 games of his own taken from the recent tournaments.

Commented Games

Warsaw (Poland) Ch Poland, 22.04-4.05.2003

The 60th jubilee Polish championship which certainly took place in Warsaw proved to be one of the strongest recent events. As many as 14 participants, with 8 GMs among them and the rest also ranked internationally, the 12th category and a single round - are there many countries that can boast of such national championships?
The chamionship ended in a somehow unexpected triumph of the young GM Tomasz Markowski who scored 10,5 out of 13. He was followed by GMs Bartosz Socko, Michal Krasenkov and Bartolomiej Macieja who were left 2 and a half points behind!

Commented Game

Bilbao (Spain), 1-3.05.2003

3 world class stars that is Viswanathan Anand, Anatoly Karpov and Judit Polgar got together in a team of 3 opposed by 3 local chessplayers GMs Felix Izeta and Jose Fernandez as well as IM Mario Gomez. The opponents played micromatches each consisting of 2 games of 3 types: quick chess (50 minutes + 5 second per move), blindfold and advanced chess. During the 3 days the opponents were playing a match a day.
The Basques were of course not expected to show any strong resistance. They were slashingly defeated 14,5:3,5 by the guests.

Commented Game

• Advanced high speed RISC processor giving the Star Diamond master level strength (estimated ELO rating: 2,500 (USCF)
• A huge array of features and an elegant easy-to-play SENSOR CHESS BOARD
• Connection via serial Interface to the NOVAG UNIVERSAL CHESSBOARD, or any IBM compatible PC which allows you to record and display its full thought processes easily
• 64 preset playing levels and unlimited independent level settings for Black/White
• 6-digit LCD provides easy access to many game options
• Extensive openings library of 123,000 plus user programmable book
• A possibility of varying the style of play by selecting active or passive opening book, selective or full width search, with or without extensions. In addition one of 4 levels of randomness can be selected
• Rating System - evaluate your own playing strength
  Warranty of 1 year.