 Four for Mexico City.....
Aronian, Leko, Grischuk and Gelfand qualify
 After two sets of six-game matches at the Candidates in Elista, Kalmykia, the original starting field of 16 has finally been reduced to the final four - but not without some memorable, epic encounters along the way.
Levon Aronian, Peter Leko, Alexander Grischuk and Boris Gelfand - after wins, respectively, over Alexei Shirov, Evgeny Bareev, Sergei Rublevsky and Gata Kamsky - emerged victors from Elista, and will now go forward to join Vladimir Kramnik, Vishy Anand, Alexander Morozevich and Peter Svidler to contest the World Championship tournament this coming September in Mexico City.
Not only will ICC Chess.FM have live coverage of the World Championship tournament, but standby for details coming soon of an exclusive ICC members online event to win an all-expenses paid trip to Mexico City!
JOHN B. HENDERSON
 Good Ol' Walter Browne!
They say that the strategies for playing chess and poker are similar. And for the past year now, the renowned Dutch magazine New In Chess has featured a series of full-page ads placed by PokerStrategy.cc looking to recruit top chess players.
Even Russian ace Alexander Grischuk, the final player to qualify from the Candidates to the World Championship tournament is believed to have spent more time playing poker in the last year than he has chess - and in the process winning more money.
Veteran six-time U.S. champion Walter Browne has been a known card shark for years before the growth on TV of Texas Hold 'Em. A couple of weeks ago, he arrived at the Hotel Rio in Las Vegas to compete in the U.S. National Open alongside fellow grandmasters such as Hikaru Nakamura, Alex Shabalov and Viktor Korchnoi etc.
But Walter didn't even make it to the chess tournament. The Chess Hall of Famer had to withdraw before the start after a winning run at poker in the same hotel that saw our hero making it all the way through to a World Poker Tour final table, where we walked away with $58,000 for a seventh place finish.
Not content, "Mr. Six-Time" then entered a second WPT event - and remarkably came second to increase his overall winnings at the poker tables to $189,000!
Not a bad payday, especially when you consider his fellow grandmasters where collectively beating their brains out for a pittance at the U.S. National Open, as ICC top dog Hikaru "Smallville" Nakamura, on
a winning score of 5.5/6, took home less than $6,000 for his cerebral efforts!
Walter Browne at the US Championship.
[Photo: John B. Henderson]
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  Video Game of the Day
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ICC Chess.FM video commentary
 Each day during the Candidates Matches in Elista,
ICC Chess.FM's crack commentary team of GMs Larry Christiansen,
Joel Benjamin, Jon Speelman, Varuzhan Akobian, John
Fedorowicz and Gregory Kaidanov give their spin on "Game
of the Day" with 15 minutes worth of full audio & board
analysis. You can also rate each of the shows by voting
on the best performance from our team.
This service is FREE to members and non-members of
the ICC as a sampler of our full 4 hour daily shows
hosted by Mig Greengard, featuring the famed New In
Chess Trivia Quiz, where each day listeners to the
show can win a 1-year subscription to New In Chess
magazine.
Check it out now at ICC Chess.FM |
 Take the Ronen Challenge
Friday & Saturday, [20:00 EDT | 02:00 CET]
 Former
world under-16 junior champion GM Ronen Har-Zvi has a reputation of being
one of the toughest simultaneous masters on ICC.
Each Friday and Saturday, at 20:00 EDT, Ronen will take on 30 all- comers (restricted to 2150 Elo or below) in a series of twice weekly simuls (time control 45 20), with the winners receiving a 3-month membership extension and going forward to the second grand prize final on Saturday, 30 June 20:00 EDT, with a prize of a 1-year membership extension going to anyone who can beat Ronen in the final. Do you have what it takes for the Ronen Challenge?
Read
the full announcement
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John Watson Chess & Book Show
Tuesdays [21:00 EDT | 03:00 CET]
New
on ICC Chess.FM! Tune-in
for The John Watson Chess & Book Show on Tuesday, 18 June at 21:00 Server Time.
Each week, John's 90-minute show will be reviewing all the latest titles and discussing books with his guests
This week's guest is GM Jon Speelman, ICC Chess.FM commentator and chess columnist for UK national newspapers, The Independent and The Observer. Jon is also a two-time former world candidate and three- time British champion. He has written a number of books on chess, including several on the endgame, among them Analysing the Endgame,Endgame Preparation, and Batsford Chess Endings (co-authored with Jon Tisdall and Robert Wade). Among his other books is the critically acclaimed Jon Speelman's Best Games.
This show will be made available
for 7-days ONDemand for members
Chess
FM page on our website
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ICC
Quiz #3016
submitted by BMG
White mates in 2
To play this puzzle on the ICC type:
tell trainingbot number 3016
Then type: play trainingbot
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| ICC
Quiz #3019
submitted by Asclepio
White mates in 3
To play this puzzle on the ICC type:
tell trainingbot number 3019
Then type: play trainingbot
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 Dortmund, Category XX.
  The elite annual German even takes place 23rd June to 1st July 2007.
The field for the 2007 edition includes: Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), Viswanathan Anand (India), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan), Peter Leko (Hungary), Boris Gelfand (Israel), Arkadij Naiditsch (Germany), Magnus Carlsen (Norway) and Evgeny Alekseev Russian)
Visit the official
website of the event. |
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Spanish Team Championships
  The semifinals of one of Europe's top national team championships will be played in two groups
The first group plays in Lugo, Galicia, June 20-24th, with the second group starting a few days later in Torrelavega, June 27th - July 1st. Each group is composed of 6 teams; the winners of each group going forward to contest the finals.
Among the strong teams participating, the line-up of club Magic looks mightily impressive, featuring Aronian, Mamedyarov, Adams, Ponomariov, Akopian, Shirov, Rublevsky, Sargissian and Cheparinov!
Visit the official
website of the Spanish Chess Federation
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Immortal Game, The - David Shenk
 In
his wide-ranging and ever-fascinating examination of chess, David
Shenk gleefully unearths the hidden history of a game that seems
so simple yet contains infinity. From its invention somewhere in
India around 500 A.D., to its enthusiastic adoption by the Persians
and its spread by Islamic warriors, to its remarkable use as a moral
guide in the Middle Ages and its political utility in the Enlightenment,
to its crucial importance in the birth of cognitive science and its
key role in the aesthetic of modernism in twentieth-century art,
to its twenty-first-century importance in the development of artificial
intelligence and use as a teaching tool in inner-city America, chess
has been a remarkably omnipresent factor in the development of civilization.. Read
more
Price $24.95 - Buy
now!
Rybka 2.3 UCI & Chess Openings 2007
 Rybka
2.3 UCI & Chess Openings 2007 is a standalone program which includes
an advanced interface:
Broad opportunities for playing and analyzing Multi-variant and infinite
analysis Opening Encyclopedia 2007 Powerful search system Chess Opening
Encyclopedia 2007 includes rich theoretical material on all the openings,
more than 8,000 annotations from GM Kalinin and 500,000 expert evaluations
to key opening positions. The theoretical material is presented in
a familiar form of the encyclopedic table and allows you to replay
the opening lines on the chessboard
. Read
more
Price $49.95 - Buy
now!
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Informator 98
 Chess
Informant 98 brings together a thoroughly refined selection of 432
annotated games and 490 game fragments from the events held between
September 1st and December 31st, 2006. Chess Informant 98 brings
together a thoroughly refined selection of 432 annotated games and
490 game fragments from the events held between September 1st and
December 31st, 2006. Chess Informant 98 brings together a thoroughly
refined selection of 432 annotated games and 490 game fragments from
the events held between September 1st and December 31st, 2006. The
usual selection of world class players annotate the games. Read
more
Price $34.95 - Buy now!
Bob Wade: Tribute to a Chess Master - compiled and edited by Ray Cannon
Bob Wade OBE is the doyen of British chess. Arriving from New Zealand,
Wade swiftly made his mark on British chess, shining against the
home grown contingent both by virtue of the sharp attacks and astute
endgame skills.
Wade went on to earn the FIDE International Master title, the Commonwealth
Grandmaster title, compete in the World Championship Interzonal,
twice win the British Championships, take first prize in numerous
touraments and inflict defeat on such luminaries of the game as Korchnoi,
Olafsson, Benko, Portisch, Uhlmann, Penrose, Speelman and Ray Keene.
. Read
more
Price $39.95
- Buy
now!
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Solution
to ICC Quiz #3016
submitted by BMG
1.Rxe8+! Qxe8 2.Qxg7#
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Solution
to ICC Quiz #3019
submitted by Asclepio
1.Rg6+ fxg6 2.Rxf8#
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