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Why I Run Rated Chess Tournaments for Kids

For the most part, every tournament run by the Torres Chess and Music Academy is rated by the United States Chess Federation. The TCAMA believes that rated tournaments are beneficial for youth chess players because they: 1) Use an official set of rules so that our competition will be fair. 2) The official nature ofContinue reading “Why I Run Rated Chess Tournaments for Kids”

How important are chess ratings for children?

A chess rating is just a number used in chess to estimate the strength of a player based on his/her past performance. For years, I have been advising chess coaches, parents and kids to avoid becoming preoccupied with ratings as doing so creates unnecessary problems for children. Some common problems I see regularly from overContinue reading “How important are chess ratings for children?”

FIDE Top 100

Below is the FIDE top 100 list for November(source http://www.chess.co.uk/twic/).  Vugar Gashimov broke into the top 10 for the first time in his career. Born in 1986,  Mr. Gashimov  hails from Azerbaijan and is known for his extreme skill in one minute chess. Below is a recent example of his Brilliant play against American grandmasterContinue reading “FIDE Top 100”

The 2700 Club Is Becoming Crowded!

The October 2008 FIDE Rating List now has 32 players with ratings above 2700. Here they are in order of ranking: Rank Name Country Rating 1Topalov, VeselinBUL 2791 2Morozevich, AlexanderRUS 2787 3Ivanchuk, VassilyUKR 2786 4Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2786 5Anand, Viswanathan IND 2783 6Kramnik, VladimirRUS 2772 7Aronian, Levon ARM 2757 8Radjabov, TeimourAZE 2751 9Leko, Peter HUN 2747Continue reading “The 2700 Club Is Becoming Crowded!”

World Chess Championship?

Here are the new world chess rankings based on FIDE ratings. This makes the upcoming Kramnik vs. Anand match seem questionable in its ability to crown a new world champion. Then again, any match is better than another FIDE farse world championship tournament. 01 Topalov off 2790           02 Morozevich off 2787Continue reading “World Chess Championship?”