Chess - The Scotsman 01/03/2012

THE chess world is taking a cynical view of the new multimillion sponsorship announcement from Agon, the Russia-based media company owned by US businessman Andrew Paulson, basically because of the many past failures of similar Fide deals.

Agon is a new offshore company registered in Jersey only on 12 January this year, yet already they have secured the rights to Grand Prix tournaments, World Cups, Olympiads, Candidates Tournaments and World Championship matches after an agreement was reached with the previous rights holders Chess Network Company, whose past endeavours for Fide since their 2009 partnership achieved nothing much.

With the last four months of the year being top-heavy with premier elite events, Fide continues to insist that the Candidates Tournament will take place in London, commencing October 23, which will unfortunately have a direct impact on the Grand Slam Masters in Bilbao that ends in mid-October and the next London Chess Classic in early December. There’s now an outcry over the proposed clash.

Both the World No 1 Magnus Carlsen and the former world champion Vladimir Kramnik (both set to play in the Grand Slam Masters and London Chess Classic) were the first to raise concerns about the scheduling and asking for a change of date for the Candidates. And now the Bilbao organisers of the Grand Slam Masters have officially written to Fide asking for the Candidates to be moved into the first half of 2013.

L Seres - A Popovics

Hungarian Team Ch., (6)

King’s Indian Defence

1 Nf3 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 d4 Bg7 4 Nc3 0–0 5 g3 d6 6 Bg2 Nbd7 7 0–0 e5 8 e4 c6 9 h3 Qb6 10 Re1 exd4 11 Nxd4 Ng4 12 Nce2 Nge5 13 b3 Nc5 14 Be3 a5 15 Rb1 Re8 16 Nc3 Qb4 17 Qd2 a4 18 Red1 axb3 19 axb3 Ra3 20 Nc2 Nxb3 21 Nxb4 Nxd2 22 Bxd2 Nxc4 23 Ne2 c5 24 Nd5 Ra2 25 Bc3 Rxe2 26 Bf1 R2xe4 27 Bd3 Bxc3 28 Bxe4 Rxe4 29 Nxc3 Rd4 30 Rxd4 cxd4 31 Nd5 Bxh3 32 Rb4 Nd2 33 f4 Be6 34 Nc7 Bc4 35 Kf2 d3 36 Ke1 Nf1! 37 Ne8 d2+ 38 Kd1 Be6 0–1