I do not write too often about the most up-to-date chess news, but this one would be very interesting. According the Chessdom server Magnus Carlsen could be a second of Vishy Anand in the upcoming match Anand – Topalov.

Although this news have been denied later, it was something which I did not expect at all.

Regardless the result of Anand – Topalov match, Anand will still be a player who will fight for the chess crown in next years. And now, when Carlsen (widely expected world champion in the period of a few years) would become a part of Anand’s team, Anand himself would help Carlsen to learn even more about Anand’s style, work and chess weapons.

From the perspective of a chess fan the cooperation Anand + Carlsen (and Kasparov hidden) would be something I would really enjoy. But from the perspective of Anand’s fan I would be in very ambivalent stage – it would be great for the upcoming match against Topalov, but too dangerous for the future.

What are your thoughts about cooperation of Anand and Carlsen (no matter it has not been confirmed after all)?

A few weeks ago my chess-blog-fellow The Prodigal Pawn announced a chess books giveaway for those who read his chess blog and are active there (it means leave comments there at least).

As I am one of those cases, I kindly asked The Prodigal Pawn for Chess Endings: Essential Knowledge by Yuri Averbakh. The author is one of the best teachers of chess endings and those of you, who read my blog carefully, knows that my knowledge of chess ending is something what I want to improve rapidly next year.

Tommy (the real first name of The Prodigal Pawn) was so nice and he sent me also another book – Purdy’s Fine Art of Chess Annotation: Volume Two by C. J.S. Purdy. I hadn’t known too much about this author but when I looked at his book, it grabbed my attention almost immediately. Purdy describes there a method how to study and learn much from masters’ games. I will disclose more details about the method in some of next posts here.

Unintentionally the books became another Xmas gift for me as they were delivered by post yesterday ;)

I would like to thank to The Prodigal Pawn for very nice books this way. I will go through them carefully, do not worry! I am sure they will be useful for me! If you do not know his blog yet, please, go here and enjoy his interesting articles!

White to move.

This post is not going to be about chess and it is highly predictable at this time.

I would like to wish you MERRY CHRISTMAS! Enjoy beautiful holidays with your families and friends and relax!

Last Sunday my chess club organized Xmas blitz tournament and I thought it was a good idea to close my chess year by attending this event.

The time limit was 2×10 moves, 11 round. There were 52 players attending the tournament and my starting rank was 31. It was more or less funny tournament for me, I wanted to test some variants during it, so I didn’t want to be to pushy regarding my result. But still – I always want to be better then my starting rank at the end of any tournament.

In the first round (opponent’s ELO 2158) I blundered badly after some incident in the tournament room, which I was listening to instead of thinking about my moves.

2nd round. I played against one of the weakest players in the tournament (ELO 1321) and I created better position in the game. My opponent had a worse time and finally he lost the game because of fallen flag.

3rd round. Another strong opponent (ELO 2040) and one of strangers in the tournament. I was a quite better against him, grabbed a pawn, but I lost it later. We agreed on a draw both having few seconds on clocks.

4th round. One of known opponents, we play a lot of tournaments together (ELO 1846). He has active score with me and also this game finished better for him. I lost a piece and resigned then.

5th round. This was probably my best game in the tournament. My opponent (ELO 1447) played a variant, which I studied a lot. So I knew what is unpleasant and I played it. I gained huge positional advantage in the middle game and I won the game after all.

6th round. I met this opponent after a few years (ELO 1929). I won our game after nice sacriface a few years ago (the game was very important at that time as we both went to win a tournament) and I thought I could have some chances again. And indeed! My opponent lost a piece, but I was very bad on time. So we agreed on a draw and I must say it was very nice of my opponent, because he could easily won because of my bad time.

7th round. Again one of the old and known opponents (ELO 1553). Our last game he opened 1.b4 and won. Guess what? He did it again! But this time I managed the game better and one point went to my pocket.

8th round. I am back on the top 10 tables. But was terrible defeated. I lost my queen almost in the opening phase, so I resigned against my opponent (ELO 2022).

9th round. It was a quite easy game, my opponent (ELO 1418) fell in known trap (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.Bd3 cxd4 7.cxd4 Nxd4 8.Nxd4 Qxd4 9.Bb5+).

10th round. We are going to the final. My opponent had ELO 2015 and he won instead I was a pawn up during the game. But then my position went worse and also my time was bad. I lost the game.

11th and the final round. My team-mate (ELO 1807) was my last opponent in the tournament. I wanted to play something romantic so I chose King’s gambit. My opponent mixed several variants and play it very passively. So I gained nice attacking position and decided the game very quickly.

I grabbed 6 points out of 11 rounds which meant 19th place for me. Very nice place, which I did’t hope for before the tournament! I can call it “a success”, I think. I was even #3 of my club as there were a lot of players from many different chess clubs. My performance was 1822 (my ELO is 1735).

This Xmas blitz tournament was my last tournament of this year. Was it a good chess year for me or not? I am going to summarize my chess year in a few days in a special post.