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Taking a Break From Poker to Win a Championship — The French chess championship was notable for the outcome on the women’s side and for a stirring display of sportsmanship among the men in the face of tragedy. Almira Skripchenko won the women’s title for the fifth time. Skripchenko, who was born in Moldova, was the top seed, but she no longer competes regularly in chess: she is a professional poker player. Skripchenko has said she switched to make more money. She has won about $250,000 since she started playing poker in 2003. Other accomplished chess players who have switched to cards include Dan Harrington, who is now one of poker’s top stars and was the Massachusetts chess champion in 1971; Josef Klinger, an Austrian chess grandmaster; and ...

Young Hua schools his elders on way to chess victory — He’s an excellent student, has played a piano recital at Carnegie Hall and just scored an unexpected triumph in one of Washington’s signature chess tournaments. It will be interesting to see what David Hua will achieve when he’s old enough to drive. As detailed here last week, the 15-year-old rising sophomore at Princeton (N.J.) High School finished alone in first at the 44th annual Atlantic Open last month, scoring 41/2-1/2 and crossing the 2400 ratings mark for the first time. He is believed to be the youngest chess player ever to win the event. “I had no real expectations,” Hua told Chess Life Online’s Jamaal Abdul-Alim, but he handled the late-round pressure superbly with a draw against top-seeded GM John Fedorowicz and ...

Magnus Carlsen Storms New York's Chess Scene — They could barely reach the other side of the chess board, but playing against the world's top-rated grandmaster Magnus Carlsen was a thrilling experience for many New York kids. Carlsen visited New York during the last two weeks in August. He played chess against children at the NYC Chess summer camps and against adults at the club near the Washington Square and the Marshall Chess Club. He was also engaged at the chess board with a billionaire investor and philanthropist, George Soros, and played a blitz game against one of the world's leading economists, Kenneth Rogoff. He shot baskets at pick-up games, visited the New York Yankees, and saw friends. Some people may recognize Magnus from his appearance on ...

Russia face a battle for gold at the Istanbul Olympiad, as England collapse — Russia faces a tense battle for the gold medals while England tries to recover from late defeats when the final round of the 150-nation Chess Olympiad is played in Istanbul on Sunday. The No1 seeds have not won the biennial Chess Olympiad since 2002, so the team's grandmasters had to attend a pre-Olympiad training camp with "bruising" fitness sessions, while the legendary Yuri Dokhoian, who helped Garry Kasparov, was hired as coach. After eight of the 11 rounds Russia led with 15/16, two points clear, after the ex-world champion Vlad Kramnik scored a key win over Armenia's world No2, Levon Aronian. Kramnik opened as White with the Exchange Slav, seemingly too quiet for a must-win game but an old favourite of the Soviet chess patriarch Mikhail Botvinnik, who ...

Anand Brings His Game to the U.S. — Viswanathan Anand, the world champion, is a natural ambassador for chess. He has promoted the game all over Europe and has fostered chess programs in many schools across his native India. But he has spent little time in the United States. Until last month, his last visit was in 1999. In his latest trip, from Aug. 5 to Aug. 22, Anand taught chess classes for two days. He also played a simultaneous exhibition against 20 of the best chess players from those classes, winning 15 games and drawing the rest. The rules in simultaneous games, which players call “simuls,” are fairly simple. The player giving the exhibition walks from chess board to chess board. Each time he stops, his opponent makes a move so he can see it, and he responds before ...

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