MY WORLD:WELCOME TO IT: January 2008

Monday, January 28, 2008

Gibtelecom Masters 2008

The Gibtelecom Masters 2008 chess tournament is presently being held at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar. A number of women are playing in the top section and are doing very well. After 8 rounds of play in the top section (The Masters event), GM Bu Xiangzhi of China is leading with a score of 6.5 points. WGM Xue Zhao has 5 points (23rd place), WGM/IM Cmilyte, GM Antoaneta Stefanova, IM Elisabeth Paehtz, and IM Wang, Yu A. all have 5 points. The official tournament website for this event is:http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com/gib2008/index.html

If you play through one chess game this year.....

let it be this one. In this game WGM Hou Yifan shows her talent by defeating fellow chess prodigy Jan Smeets at the Wijk aan Zee Tournament (B section). In this game, playing Black, much like Kasparov used to do, Yifan sacrifices a pawn (on move 17) playing Black, then on move 22 she sacrifices the exchange (a rook for a knight). At one point in this game Yifan uses 8 consecutive checks to force Smeets to move his king into the open:

[Event "Corus (Group B)"]
[Site "Wijk aan Zee NED"]
[Date "2008.01.19"]
[EventDate "2008.01.12"]
[Round "7"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Jan Smeets"]
[Black "Yifan Hou"]
[ECO "C13"]
[WhiteElo "2573"]
[BlackElo "2527"]
[PlyCount "116"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. e5 Nfd7 6. h4 Nc6
7. Nf3 Nb6 8. Rh3 f6 9. Bf4 fxe5 10. Nxe5 O-O 11. Qd2 Nxe5
12. Bxe5 Nd7 13. Bf4 c5 14. dxc5 Nxc5 15. Be3 Bd7 16. O-O-O
Rc8 17. g4 b5 18. Bxb5 Bxb5 19. Nxb5 Ne4 20. Qe1 Qd7 21. Nd4
e5 22. Nf5 Rxf5 23. gxf5 Qxf5 24. Rh2 d4 25. f3 Nc3 26. Bxd4
Nxd1 27. Bxe5 Nf2 28. Rxf2 Bxh4 29. Bc3 Qf7 30. Kb1 Rf8 31. a4
a6 32. Bb4 Bxf2 33. Qxf2 Qxf3 34. Qc5 Rd8 35. b3 Qd5 36. Qc7
Re8 37. Bc3 Qf7 38. Qc6 Qg6 39. Qd5+ Kh8 40. Qd7 Rf8 41. b4 h5
42. b5 axb5 43. axb5 Rf2 44. Qc8+ Kh7 45. Bd4 Rd2 46. Qc3 Rd1+
47. Kb2 Qg5 48. Qc4 Qf4 49. c3 h4 50. Qd5 Qc1+ 51. Kb3 Qb1+
52. Ka3 Qa1+ 53. Kb4 Rb1+ 54. Kc5 Qa7+ 55. Kd6 Qb8+ 56. Ke7
Qc7+ 57. Ke6 Re1+ 58. Be5 Rxe5+ 0-1

Yifan annotates her victory over GM Nigel Short, from Corus 2008, at the United States Chess Organizatuion website: A direct link to her analysis is: http://main.uschess.org/content/view/8121/431

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Hastings Chess Congress

The 83rd Hastings International Congress takes place from 28 December 2007 to 6 January 2008. This includes a 10 round Master Swiss, and an open FIDE Rated tournament 5-6 January. The official site for this tournament is: http://www.hastingschess.org.uk/

FIDE January 2008 Ratings List

The FIDE has released its ratings list for January 2008. Topping the list is GM Vladmir Kramnik of Russia. He played 9 games in the ratings period, which was 6 more than GM Vishy Anand. Both have a rating of 2799. The top-rated woman player is GM Judit Polgar (who is in the 22nd position with an elo of 2707. She dropped two places from the October ratings list).
GM Judit Polgar is the top-rated woman chess player in the world.
GM Magnus Carlsen is the top-rated Junior with an elo of 2733.
WGM Yifan Hou is the top-rated Girl with an elo of 2527.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

XVII Pampona International

The XVII Pampona International chess tournament took place from December 21st-29th 2007. GM Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain won the event with a score of 4.5 points in 7 rounds of play. Source:http://www.chesspamplona.com/

GM Halkias wins The Groningen Open

The Groningen Chess Festival took place 21st-30th December 2007. In the main event, GM GM Dimitrios Mastrovasilis, won first place on a tie-break (over 4 other players ) after all had finished the 9 round eventwith scores of 6.5 points.

Ivanchuk wins Carlos Torre Memorial

GM Vasily Ivanchuk of the Ukraine won the Carlos Torre Memorial chess tournament. It took place in Mérida, Yucatán, México from December15th-23rd December 2007. Ivanchuk beat 3rd seed Pentala Harikrishna in the final 3-1 after two rapid playoffs games.

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Thoughts worth thinking about

"Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives."-Sidney Madwed

Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every woman and man present their views without penalty, there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.- Albert Einstein Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. - Leo Buscaglia

A person's true wealth is the good he or she does in the world. - Mohammed

Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. -Albert Einstein

The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others. - Ghandi

The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves. - Helen Keller

Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make yourself a happier and more productive person. - Dr. David M. Burns

Life is as dear to a mute creature as it is to man. Just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not die, so do other creatures. -His Holiness The Dalai Lama

Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it. -

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That's the essence of inhumanity. -George Bernard Shaw

Ego's trick is to make us lose sight of our interdependence. That kind of ego-thought gives us a perfect justification to look out only for ourselves. But that is far from the truth. In reality we all depend on each other and we have to help each other. The husband has to help his wife, the wife has to help the husband, the mother has to help her children, and the children are supposed to help the parents too, whether they want to or not.-Gehlek Rinpoche Source: "The Best Buddhist Writing 2005 pg. 165

The hostile attitude of conquering nature ignores the basic interdependence of all things and events---that the world beyond the skin is actually an extension of our own bodies---and will end in destroying the very environment from which we emerge and upon which our whole life depends.

Alan Watts (1915 - 1973)

Source: The Book:On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (Vintage) Page: 9..10

One human being, one village, one city, or even one country can no longer live entirely on its own. Competitiveness - the desire to be the first, the best, the foremost, and only one - has simply become outdated as a "value." This desire may have been useful in the past. The concept of evolution describes a process from dependence toward independence, ultimately resulting in interdependence.

Frank Petter Source:The Spirit of Reiki (Shangri-La Series),Page 7

Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others' actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others. Nor is it so remarkable that our greatest joy should come when we are motivated by concern for others. But that is not all. We find that not only do altruistic actions bring about happiness but they also lessen our experience of suffering. Here I am not suggesting that the individual whose actions are motivated by the wish to bring others' happiness necessarily meets with less misfortune than the one who does not. Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort or another are the same for us all. But the sufferings which undermine our internal peace -- anxiety, doubt, disappointment -- these things are definitely less. In our concern for others, we worry less about ourselves. When we worry less about ourselves an experience of our own suffering is less intense.What does this tell us? Firstly, because our every action has a universal dimension, a potential impact on others' happiness, ethics are necessary as a means to ensure that we do not harm others. Secondly, it tells us that genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness and so on. For it is these which provide both for our happiness and others' happiness. Dalai Lama.

Source: Ethics for the New Millennium:His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Page: 62

"We can judge the heart of a (hu)man by his or her treatment of animals."-Kant"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights - that is the way of the whole human being!" (Abraham Lincoln "Complete Works")

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. We err in copying the lower animal world if we are superior to it."-Mahatma Gandhi

"It's not that humans and non-humans are identical... but the lack of understanding that led to the slave trade is the same lack of understanding many people have about animals today. When slaves were brought over from Africa, many people believed they were not humans, that they didn't have feelings. Many people believe that primates and other animals don't have feelings, too, but they do."- Jane Goodall

"Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."-

Robert F. Kennedy

"Man is not on the earth solely for his own happiness. He is there to realize great things for humanity."- Vincent van Gogh

"The only way in which one can make endurable man’s inhumanity to man, and man’s destruction of his own environment, is to exemplify in your own lives man’s humanity to man and man’s reverence for the place in which he lives".- Alan Paton

I think I could turn and live with the animals. They are so placid and self-contained. They do not sweat and whine about their condition. Not one is dissatisfied. Not one is demented with the mania of owning things. Not one is disrespectful or unhappy over the world. - Walt Whitman"

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men."-Alice Walker

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