25.08.12 - It’s better late than never for Hikaru Nakamura, as the reigning
US champion confirms his invitation only a few days ago to complete the
nine-player line up for the London Chess Classic, at Kensington Olympia, 1-10
December, 2012. He joins World No 1 Magnus Carlsen, World Champion Vishy Anand,
world No 2 Levon Aronian, the defending champion Vladimir Kramnik, the UK No 1
Mickey Adams, the UK No 2 Luke McShane, Women’s World No 1 Judit Polgar, and
newly-crowned British Champion Gawain Jones, who will all battle it out for the
year-ending elite spectacular in London.
Three-time US champion Hikaru Nakamura is nicknamed the ‘H Bomb’
for his totally explosive and uncompromising style of play - not only that, but
he always gives fan value by playing for a win either face to face or online and
invariably will shun any draw offers. His fondness for double-edged moves once
prompted Garry Kasparov, when he was acting as his coach, to urge him to play
more solidly. But taming Nakamura is “like tethering a wild stallion,” according
to chess columnists Harold Dondis and Patrick Wolff of The Boston Globe.
He’s now though firmly established himself as a member of the
World Top-10 (currently No. 7), having first exploded into the elite club after
he sensationally won the 73rd Tata Steel tournament in Wijk aan Zee in 2011,
ahead of Anand, Aronian, Carlsen and Kramnik! This was the biggest success of
his career and according to Kasparov was "the best result achieved by an
American in 100 years.”
Hikaru Nakamura has broken every Bobby Fischer age-group record
in the US save for that of being the youngest US champion. Naturally,
comparisons with the late great American world champion have been made - and in
late September, he finally gets his chance to follow in Fischer’s footsteps by
being the top seed in the London Grand Prix, the first of six series that kicks
off the next World Chess Championship Cycle.
16.08.12 - Luke McShane, who recently
supplanted Nigel Short as the new England No 2 - and
fast homing in on Mickey Adams’ No 1 spot - is the
latest to confirm his invitation to play in the
London Chess Classic, at Kensington Olympia, 1-10
December, 2012. He now joins world No 1 Magnus
Carlsen, World Champion Vishy Anand, world No 2
Levon Aronian, the defending champion Vladimir
Kramnik, the UK No 1 Mickey Adams, Women’s world No
1 Judit Polgar, and newly-crowned British Champion
Gawain Jones in the confirmed line up so far for the
year-ending elite spectacular in London.
Luke McShane was the golden boy of
the British chess scene during the early 1990s. He
won the World Under-10 title at the age of eight and
going on to be sponsored by the computer company
Psion. Big things were expected at the age of 11,
and there was talk of him being a potential world
championship challenger to follow in the footsteps
of Nigel Short when, at 16, he became the
youngest-ever British Grandmaster, followed by being
runner-up for the world under-20 crown to Aronian.
But Luke was always a more rounded individual than
most chess prodigies, and he devoted more time to
his school studies over chess, and all but went into
a self-imposed four-year hibernation from the game
while studying at Oxford.
Luke, now world no 32 on the latest
FIDE list, holds the unofficial title of world’s
best amateur player in today’s game, as he juggles
chess with his full-time career as an investment
banker in the City. Despite the 9 to 5 job, his
outstanding performances at the last two London
Chess Classics wowed not only the home crowd but
also the chess fans across the world - and in an
online poll, they overwhelmingly voted him the
wildcard pick for the final spot in this year’s Tal
Memorial, where you have to hand it to Luke for
coolly beating in Moscow three of the biggest names
in the game, Aronian, Kramnik and Alexander
Morozevich.
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07.08.12 -
Last Saturday, Gawain Jones was celebrating the win
of his first British Chess Championship title in
North Shields - but the popular young English
grandmaster turned it into a double celebration with
the confirmation of his invitation to play at the
London Chess Classic, at Kensington Olympia, 1-10
December, 2012. This is the biggest event of Gawain
Jones’s career, and he now joins World No 1 Magnus
Carlsen, World Champion Vishy Anand, World No 2
Levon Aronian, the defending champion Vladimir
Kramnik, the UK No 1 Mickey Adams, and Women’s World
No 1 Judit Polgar in the
confirmed line-up so far for the year-ending
elite spectacular in London.
Yorkshire-born Jones, 24, has risen
rapidly through the junior ranks to mature into one
of England’s best young hopefuls in the game today,
who along with Luke McShane and David Howell are all
vying to replace the long-standing top dogs of Adams
and Nigel Short. The latest Fide world rankings also
shows him established in the world top 100.
And while the London Chess Classic
will see him rise onto the elite stage for the first
time, he will certainly be no pushover, as some may
think, judging by his past results: He top-scored
with 75 percent for the England team in the 2010
Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansisk, and then went on
to take first equal with GM Simon Williams at the
London Chess Classic Open, ahead of Boris Avrukh and
Abhijeet Gupta; in 2011, he won the Bunratty
Masters, ahead of former world championship
challenger Short, whom he defeated; also in the same
year, he won the Commonwealth Championship title.
And now, he’s the new 2012 British Champion and
voted the English Chess Federation's Player of the
Year.
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23.07.12 -
Judit Polgar celebrates her 36th birthday today with
the news that she’s confirmed her participation for
the 4th London Chess Classic, at Kensington Olympia,
1-10 December, 2012. Polgar now joins World No 1
Magnus Carlsen, World Champion Vishy Anand, World No
2 Levon Aronian, the defending champion Vladimir
Kramnik, and the UK No 1 Mickey Adams as those that
have so far confirmed their invitations to play in
the year-ending elite chess spectacular in the
Capital City.
Judit Polgar is by far the strongest
female chess player in history. In 1991, she
achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15
years and five months, the youngest ever to do so at
the time, as she beat a 34 year age record set by a
certain Bobby Fischer. Judit has never played in
women’s tournaments or indeed for the Women’s World
Championship. “I always say that women should have
the self-confidence that they are as good as male
players, but only if they are willing to work and
take it seriously as much as male players,” she once
commented.
And over the years, Judit - now a
married mother with two children, Oliver and Hanna -
has proved that women can indeed break the glass
ceiling to gain entry into the most exclusive clubs:
She has been a frequent visitor to the world’s top
ten and was the first woman in history to play in a
Candidates Tournament. And along the way, she’s
defeated nine current or former world champions in
either rapid or classical chess: Karpov, Kasparov,
Spassky, Smyslov, Topalov, Anand, Ponomariov,
Khalifman, and Kasimdzhanov.
As they would say in the animal
world, the female can be the deadlier of the species
- and Judit Polgar, with her very aggressive
attacking brand of chess, is highly capable of being
deadlier at the board than the rest of the male
field at the London Chess Classic!
13.07.12 -
The former World champion, Vladimir
Kramnik, becomes the fifth player to confirm his
invitation for the 4th London Chess Classic, at
Kensington Olympia, 1-10 December, 2012. Kramnik,
who will be back to defend his title, having won the
2011 edition of the London Chess Classic, joins
World No 1 Magnus Carlsen, World Champion Vishy
Anand, World No 2 Levon Aronian and the UK No 1
Mickey Adams as the five players confirmed so far in
a line up that's shaping up to be the mega event of
the year.
And London is becoming something of
a happy hunting ground for Kramnik. Not only did he
win here last year, but back in 2000, he shocked
everyone by beating Garry Kasparov in a title match
at the Riverside Theatre that saw him being crowned
the 14th World Champion in a heritage line that
stretches back to Wilhelm Steinitz in 1886.
Another happy hunting ground for
Kramnik is Dortmund in Germany, where today (Friday,
13 July) he not only starts the defence of his
Sparkassen Chess-Meeting title but will be looking
for a 10th title to break his own record of nine
wins in the same elite tournament!
09.07.12 -
The No.1 UK player, Michael ‘Mickey’ Adams joins
World No 1, Magnus Carlsen, World Champion Vishy
Anand, and the World No 2, Levon Aronian in becoming
the latest player to confirm his invitation for the
4th London Chess Classic, at Kensington Olympia,
1-10 December, 2012.
At 17, Adams became one of the
youngest players to win the British Championship
title and today is the top ranked player in the
United Kingdom and number 26 in the world on the
latest July 2012 Fide rating list. In the past
though, he has qualified to play in the PCA
Candidates Matches and scored well in the Fide
knock-out tournaments - the highlight of which being
the beaten finalist on two occasions, in 1997 (to
Anand) and 2004 (to Rustam Kasimdzhanov).
He can be a difficult opponent for
many of the world’s top players, so much so that
Garry Kasparov once nicknamed Adams “the Spider” and
the name stuck. The reason for the monicker was due
to Adams’ liking for “creepy-crawly moves” and the
ability to weave a web around his opponents, and
then wait for them to beat themselves before he
would strike with the decisive blow.
For many years, Adams had an intense
rivalry with Nigel Short for the top spot in the UK
game, but nowadays he has to worry about challenges
coming from the likes of Luke McShane. He also
writes a very topical chess column for The Daily
Telegraph every Saturday, and has a popular website
at
www.michaeladamschess.co.uk.
05.07.12 -
It’s shaping up to be the bumper event of the year,
as the World No.2, Levon Aronian, of Armenia, joins
World No 1 Magnus Carlsen and World Champion Vishy
Anand in becoming the third player this week to
confirm his invitation for the 4th London Chess
Classic, at Kensington Olympia, 1-10 December, 2012.
At 29 Aronian is in his lifetime
best form and has already won a major event this
year ahead of Carlsen, as he took the Tata Steel
title back in January. The chess public increasingly
views the real struggle for chess supremacy as
Aronian vs Carlsen, and the ever-popular Armenian
will be looking to end the year as he started it by
winning the London Chess Classic ahead of his rival.
In Armenia, chess rules above all
other sports, and Aronian, who is a national hero
with Beckham-like status with young girls and
aspiring chess players often chasing him for photos
and autographs, is a previous winner of the
sportsman of the year title. Armenia now also has
chess being taught as a compulsory subject in all
primary schools.
Aronian is easygoing and known to
have a wickedly wry sense of humour. But make no
mistake that when the battle starts over the board,
he is fiercely competitive and is arguably the most
skilled and creative player during the middle phase
of games. “Levon likes his money,” as the Elton
John/Bernie Taupin hit goes, and at the London Chess
Classic this particular Levon will be looking not
only to take the prize money for first place but
also the rating points that come with it.
03.07.12 -
Magnus Carlsen recently topped the Fide July rating
list with a personal best of 2837, just 14-points
off of the all-time 2851 record set by Garry
Kasparov - and the young Norwegian World No 1 could
be on-course to break that record in London, as he
now joins World Champion Vishy Anand in being the
second player to sign-up for the 4th London Chess
Classic, at Kensington Olympia, 1-10 December, 2012.
Carlsen, once famously described as “The Mozart of Chess”, is
one of the true superstars of the game, and this will be his fourth consecutive
appearance at the London Chess Classic. Since January 2010, Carlsen has held
onto the rating top spot 13 times, and is the current two-time winner of the
Chess Oscar (Player of the Year award). Next year, he will also be bidding to
win the Candidates tournament in London, in order to set-up a world title
match-up with Anand.
And he’s just as big a star off the board as he is on it. A
lucrative advertising campaign in 2010 with Dutch clothing label, G-Star Raw,
has also seen Carlsen stake a claim to being the first Grandmaster supermodel,
appearing alongside actress Gemma Arterton on billboards around the world.
Earlier this year, Carlsen also appeared on major US TV networks, such as CBS’s
flagship current affairs show, “60 minutes”, and Comedy Central’s “The Colbert
Report”.
02.07.12 - Fresh from yet another successful
title defence, World Champion Viswanathan Anand, of India, became the first
player to sign-up to play in the 4th London Chess Classic, at Kensington
Olympia, 1-10 December, 2012. It is no secret that London is one of Anand’s
favourite cities, and this will be his third successive appearance in the
tournament.
For well over a decade now, Anand has been among the world’s top
five players, and the first Indian to earn the grandmaster title. He played in
his first World Championship match back in 1995 in New York, losing to Garry
Kasparov. In May, he beat challenger Boris Gelfand in Moscow to clinch his fifth
world championship title. He has also won the Chess Oscar (Player of the Year
award) 6 times.
Anand is also something of a national hero in India, where in
2007 he won the Padma Vibhushan award, one of India’s most prestigious civilian
awards, ahead of several prominent sporting superstars, such as cricketer Sachin
Tendulkar. He has become a great ambassador for the game and his country, with
his high-profile success over the 64 squares seeing India developing rapidly
from a backward chess nation into one of the strongest in the world.
Players 2012
