The Icelandic Championship sabotaged?

Censored by the Panda.

The Olympiad coming up

Iceland's teams for the Olympiad has been officially announced as such, yet the captains have yet to be "revealed".

Iceland's team for the "Men's" Olympiad will be as follows:

1. GM Hannes Hlifar Stefansson
2. GM Héðinn Steingrímsson

3. GM Henrik Danielsen

4. IM Stefán Kristjánsson

Res. GM Þröstur Þórhallsson (Throstur Thorhallsson - photo)

The board of the ICF has nominated Gunnar Björnsson, the chairman of the second strongest chessclub in Iceland, Hellir, and the Don of the Hellir Mafia, as the captain, yet, some things have to be solved before that can be announed. Another name mentioned is IM Sævar Bjarnason (IM Gubka), a vetaran who has often been on the fringe of making it to the Iceland's national team.

The Women's team will be as follows:

1. WGM Lenka Ptacnikova
2. WFM Guðlaug Thorsteinsdottir (Þorsteinsdóttir)

3. Hallgerður Helga Thorsteinsdottir (Þorsteinsdóttir)

4. Sigurlaug Regina Friðthjofsdottir (Friðþjófsdóttir)

Res. Elsa Maria Kristinardottir (formerly "Thorfinnsdottir")

No captain has been appointed yet, however, the names of Omar Salama (Lenka's husband) and Geir Omarsson Waage (Iceland's "Sakaev") have been mentioned.

Hopefully these teams will do be successfull. I wish that the Men's team will at least top the other Nordic countries.

Aronian wins

The Sochi Grand Prix tournament is over. GM Levon Aronian from Armenia emerged victorious.

Chessbase Report


This tournament was a thriller. Many wonderful games were played and many interesting novelties were brought to light.

I was sad to see Boris Gelfand finish near the rock bottom and Ivanchuk being far from his best. That is a signal to myself to stop playing! We are simply getting to old for this kind of energy consuming activities.

One has to wonder why Grischuk took the Leko-pill before the tourney. One win, two losses, the rest draws. Maybe his poker-gambling lifestyle has taken a toll. And he is one of the few top GMs who still smoke.

The Chinese Wang Yu was the only one not to lose a game, two wins the rest was draw. He was one of the Chinese players who participated in the Reykjavik open 2008, and I think I am not confused when I say that he lost against a friend of mine with c.a. 2360 in the first round - was totally beaten. Obviously that friend of mine, currently the President of the Icelandic Chess Federation, is sooooooo much better than those muppet GMs at Sochi

Roar...or maybe it was an one lucky strike!

Is Chessbase 10 really worth it?

I tried out Chessbase 10 for the first time a couple of days ago. I was happy with the layout and the improved search-speed in Megabase 2008. And some of the "bugs" from Chessbase 9 had been eliminated. Also, some additional features were installed.

Yet, I was definately not pleased. I had actually expected more. Chessbase 10 is in fact more of an update to Chessbase 9 than a program that would merit a special identifying number.

Is this worth 150 euros (incl. VAT)?

I use Chessbase almost every day and have been doing so since I returned from my retirement in 2002. I know this program fairly well.

But I will have to say no. At least not according to what I experienced. Some bugs have gone...new have emerged.