 Dos
Hermanas Unplugged
  We've
all witnessed on ICC Jorge Sammour-Hasbun winning
his second successive Dos Hermanas title recently - and
now we move from online to over the board with the XIV Dos
Hermanas tournament underway this weekend.
The knockout four-player field is led
by world #4 Veselin Topalov (pictured above), Alexei
"Fire On Board" Shirov, the world's strongest
female player of all-time, Judit Polgar, and former
world under 18 champion Paco Vallejo.
The event will have a similar format
to the Leon 2008 chess tournament with 4 rapid games of
20 minutes+10 seconds/move each in semi final and final
round.
Official site: www.doshermanas.net
ICC will also have live coverage of
all the games starting at 10:30 ICC Time. For further information:
Finger
DosH-OTB
FIDE
Grand Prix
 Also
not to be missed is the Fide Grand Prix in Baku, Azerbaijan,
which gets underway on Monday, 21 April.
The stellar fourteen-playyer field
(in rating order) includes: Magnus Carlsen (Norway),
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan), Teimour Radjabov
(Azerbaijan), Peter Svidler (Russia), Sergey Karjakin
(Ukraine), Michael Adams (England), Gata Kamsky
(USA), Alexander Grischuk (Russia), Etienne Bacrot
(France), Ivan Cheparinov (Bulgaria), Wang Yue
(China), Ernesto Inarkiev (Russia), Vugar Gashinov
(Azerbaijan) and David Navara (Czech Rep.)
ICC will be relaying the games live
each day and also providing a
daily GOTD video with GMs Larry Christiansen
and Ronen Har-Zvi giving their spin on the best game
of each round. The ICC calender can be found here.
The FIDE Grand Prix website is http://baku2008.fide.com/
U.S.
Amateur Team Championship
 U.S.
Amateur Team Championship - Triumph for The Foreclosure
Doctors
Last weekend ICC played host for the playoffs for the ever-popular
U.S. Amateur Team Championship, with champions from the
East, South North and West battling it our for the overall
title.
It ended in a resounding victory for
the South's "The Foreclosure Doctors", who beat
Western champs "We Have Cox" in the final to take
the title. Top board FM Bruci Lopez, who was the
highest-rated player in the event, and third board Javier
Gonzalez went a combined 4-0, with Jeffrey Haskell
and Gilberto Luno scoring a trio of draws to clinch
each match.
Photo Feb 2008 of The Foreclosure Doctors
(Luna, Gonzales, Haskel & Lopez) winning the Southern
title courtesy of Harvey Lerman.
Download
games
Are
You A Member of the USCF?
Well, if so, now is the ideal time to try out ICC's new
fun and friendly sister-site World Chess Live, where April
has been declared "USCF Month"!
In a new sponsorship deal with the United
States Chess Federation, ALL current members of the USCF
will qualify for a free 6-month membership! Simply enter
your USCF membership number and PIN at the bottom of the
WCL
registration page in the Group ID and Group PIN boxes.
If you're already registered with WCL, go to your
account page and use the link in the Memberships/Affiliations
section at the bottom. (Sign-up for this offer ends on September
30, 2008.
WCL is pleased to also announce the
sponsorship of USCF's 2008 Grand Prix and 2008 Junior
Grand Prix. We're providing prize funds of $20,000 and
$7,500, respectively, and will also be running Online Grand
Prix events all year, beginning in April.
WCL also gets set to host the U.S.
State Champion of Champions final this weekend, 19-20
April, at 15:00 EDT - with the winner going forward to the
2008
Frank K. Berry U.S Championship! The four IMs contesting
the finals after battling their way through last week's
Eastern and Western conference qualifiers will be: Western
Conference: IM Vinay Bhat (CofC-NorthCalif), with
a score of 12.5/14, and IM Enrico Sevillano (CofC-SoCal),
with 10.5/14. Eastern Conference: IM David Vigorito
(CofC-MA), with a score of 17/18, and IM-elect Ray Robson
(CofC-Florida), 13.5/17.
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GM Ronen Har-Zvi "New Ideas
in the Marshall Attack"
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One of the world’s first Grandmasters
of chess, America’s Frank J. Marshall (1877-1944),
left behind a lasting legacy to the chess world with
his revered gambit against the Ruy Lopez – the
Marshall Attack with 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4
Ba4 Nf6 5 0-0 Be7 6 Re1 b5 7 Bb3 0-0 8 c3 d5!
The Marshall Attack is one of the
most important openings in the history of chess and
is still deployed with regularity at super Grandmaster
level. In current theory the ideas and strategies
of both approaches are studied in-depth, and nowadays
experts have come to the conclusion that White has
no clear superiority in the main theoretical lines.
And in the latest of his "New Ideas in..."
series, GM Ronen Har-Zvi, takes a closer look under
the microscope at Marshall's revolutionary idea.
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Click here for a free
5 minute preview of Ronen's latest video. To listen to the
full videoss, sign
up for membership!
"Chess Talk" with IM John Watson
 Tune-in
for Chess Talk with IM John Watson on ICC Chess.FM.
John's weekly 60+ minute show (members only) will feature
an interview with leading chess personalities. All shows
run on demand for members after airing.
This week (Tue., 15 April), joining
IM John Watson on Chess Talk is ICC Blitz ace Jorge Sammour-Hasbun.
The former Honduras prodigy, who now lives in the U.S.,
made a remarkable comeback to the game last year after a
long layoff to win the Dos Hermanas online blitz tournament.
Recently, he repeated this remarkable feat by winning Dos
Hermanas for the second successive year - despite again
being the only untitled player among seven grandmasters
in the final.
Jorge, who has five IM norms but no
title (as yet!), also top-scored for new USCL champions
Boston Blitz last season, undefeated on 6.5/7 (his only
draw being with Hikaru Nakamura) and a 2800 performance.
His new project involves teaching chess to kids in schools.
Find below a selection of free 5-minute
previews of the latest shows. To listen to the full shows,
sign
up for membership!
Attack with LarryC!
 New
at ICC Chess.FM - Attack With LarryC! A
weekly 30 min+ show on Wednesdays at 15:00 EDT
(and available on-demand thereafter for members), featuring
three-time U.S. Champion Larry Christiansen, one of the
most dangerous and respected attacking players of his generation.
Larry is a feared competitor and attacker
who authored two popular books that showcase his aggressive
style: Storming the Barricades and Rocking
the Ramparts. And each week on his show, Larry will
feature various attacking motifs and themes and showing
you how best to play for mate.
Click "Play
Video" for a free 5 minute preview of Larry's latest
video. By popular demand from members, we are now archiving
previous Attack
with LarryC shows. This video is just one of the many
benefits of being a full member of ICC - so, sign
up for membership!
Ask the Renaissance Man
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Tune-in for "Ask the Renaissance
Man" with National Master Dan Heisman
every Thursday at 21:00 EDT. You send in the questions
and Dan provides the answers every week on his Q&A
show. Questions on tournament rules, opening play,
chess books, chess politics, current events, and more!
Click
"Play Video" for a free 5 minute preview of Dan's
latest show. To listen to the full show, sign
up for membership!
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Boris Alterman's Gambit Guide
Israeli GM Boris Alterman
is best known as a leading chess advisor for the multi-title
winning chess software program (Deep) Junior, where he specialized
in developing its opening book.
GM Joel Benjamin "Game
of the Week"
 Three-time
U.S. Champion GM Joel Benjamin starts his
weekly show every Friday at 15:00 Server Time. Click "Play
Video" for a free 5 minute preview of Joel's latest
show. To listen to the full show, sign
up for membership!
Joel is regarded by many as one of
the best commentators and analysts' we have in the game
today, and each Friday he will be giving us his insight
and spin with his selection of Game of the Week. And for
the month of April only, each week viewers to Joel's show
will get the opportunity to win a personally autographed
copy of his hit new book, American Grandmaster. You
need to be a full member of ICC to enter competition.
This is a not-to-be-missed 30-minute
video is exclusively for ICC members only -- so if you want
to get ahead of the game, get ready to tune-in! By popular
demand and requests from members, ALL
of Joel Benjamin's GOTW videos are available. Enjoy!
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Wild
25 Championships!
It's time once again for the
Three Checks Championship! The idea of this wild variant
is to either give three checks or checkmate your opponent.
Qualifiers will be held from April 18-23 in both 1
0 and 3 0 time controls. The 1 0 section will be 12
rounds of Swiss in all qualifiers, while the 3 0 section
will be 7 rounds of Swiss. The top 3 finishers in
each qualifier will advance to the finals along with
the next best 4 finishers in the total series. Full
details on all the championships can be found here.
Interested
in Becoming a Tomato Manager?
Are you 17 years of age or older?
Have you played in a minimum of 50 tourneys? Do you
have a good record of behavior on ICC? If so, maybe
being a Manager is for you! Tomato managers run tournaments
and are here to serve the ICC community. It's a good
way to have some fun, meet some great people, and
be of service to our great chess club! Read "help
manager-new" for more info.
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ICC Store
Challenge!
Every weekday morning at 10:00,
Flash holds an 8 round swiss bullet tourney. On Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday, the time control is 1 0, while
on Tuesday and Thursday the time control is 0 1. Monthly
prizes are awarded to the top 3 finishers in the series
for "best" and "most". To see
the current standings, type "tell flash series
best (or most) apr08iccstore" For more details
on the ICC Store Challenge, type "help
iccstore".
 Tourney
Tip of the Week: Watch those dr-points!
In an effort to minimize
disruptive behavior in tournaments, ICC awards dr-points
(disruptor points) in certain situations. The most
common ways to accumulate these points is by repeatedly
starting your tournament games late or disconnecting/
leaving a tourney before it's finished. Be careful,
because if you accumulate 50 dr-points, you'll be
banned from participating in tourneys for a week.
The good news is that successfully completing tournaments
without any disruptive behavior reduces your dr-points.
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Nick's Best - Lawrence Day
Selected Games of IM Bryon Nickoloff
 Canada's
eccentric International Master Bryon Nickoloff was
a genius at opening preparation and endgame strategy.
The main reason he never became a Grandmaster was
habitual time trouble with the clock. He was simply
addicted to the adrenaline of time scrambles. So this
book will be very educational for students of openings
and endgames, but a dramatic 'cautionary tale' regarding
the time-consuming search for perfection in the middlegame.
295 pages, soft cover.
Price $28.99
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Buy
now!
Roman's Lab 56: Reverse Openings: Advantages and
Disadvantages of Playing...
 In
Volume 56
Reverse Openings: Advantages and Disadvantages of
Playing the Sicilian, King's Indian, French, Alekhine,
Philidor, Benko, Grunfeld Panov Attack as White
On this highly instructional DVD,
Roman clearly demonstrates through novelties created
in his own games how to recognize an opportunity for
white to transpose into openings that are played for
black with the advantage of having an extra tempo.
Roman will also cover the disadvantages of trying
to play certain black openings as white. Roman answers
the rarely covered question: "Why can't I play
my favorite black opening for white."
Over one hour of instructional
video
Price $19.95
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Buy
now!
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Jon Speelman's Chess Puzzle Book - Jon Speelman
 Jon
Speelman is one of the most successful British chess-players
of all time, and is renowned for the creativity of
his play and his remarkable calculating ability. He
is also an extremely experienced writer and chess
coach. His personal selection of chess puzzles will
infuriate, entertain, test and instruct chess-players
of all levels.
Themed sections include: Finger
Exercises, Stalemate, The Skewer, The Pin, Pawn Promotion,
Line Opening and Closing, Loose Pieces, Mating Attacks,
The Back Rank, Knight Forks.
Price $19.95
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Buy
now!
Reykjavik 1972: Fischer v Spassky - 'The World Chess
Championship'
 The
world chess championship between Boris Spassky and
Bobby Fischer at Reykjavik in 1972 was the most widely
publicised and eagerly analysed beforehand of any
chess match to date. It seized the attention of the
world's press and media in general in unprecedented
fashion and inspired more books and column inches
than any chess contest before or since. Hardinge Simpole
now commemorate this stellar chess clash by reprinting
the eye witness accounts by Grandmaster Emeritus Harry
Golombek OBE and Professor George Steiner. Grandmaster
Golombek analyses the moves while Professor Steiner
searches for the meaning behind the circus. To top
it all, Arthur Koestler, one of the keenest intellects
of the 20th century, adds an introduction to complete
a remarkable tour de force of intellectual exegesis
of a great turning point in world chess.
208 pages.
Price $34.95
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Buy
now!
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