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Chess notes

The international chess calendar has turned attention to two major events: The Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival (www.GibChess.com, Jan. 23- Feb. 1) and the 2018 Tata Steel Chess Festival (www.TataSteelChess.com, Jan. 12-28). The Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival features the warm Mediterranean weather and those entertaining, if thieving, Barbary macaques. This year it’s a 10-round Swiss, at 40/100; 20/50; 15/SD; +30 with a prize fund of about $270,000.

The featured players from the advance entry list are Levon Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Vassily Ivanchuk, Anna Muzychuk, and the defending champ, American Hikaru Nakamura. Other Americans playing are James Tarjan, Varuzhan Akobian, Gregory Kaidanov, Chris Yoo, and Cambridge’s Marc Esserman.

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Tata Steel is in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands and features a very strong 13-player round-robin. In the star studded field is the world champion, Magnus Carlsen; Americans Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So; former world champion Vladimir Kramnik; world championship candidate Shakhriyar Mamedyarov; and former women’s world champion Hou Yifan. An interesting question here is whether Carlsen can win a classical time control event, something he has not done in at least a year. The challenger section features the new world junior champion, Norwegian Aryan Tari; the Dutch’s #1 junior, Jorden Van Foreest; India’s #1 woman, Dronavalli Harika; and America’s best junior, Jeffrey Xiong. Dutch GM Robin van Kampen and Canadian GM Eric Hansen will lead the live commentary team.

The 2018 US and Women’s Championships (April 17-30) is once again hosted by the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. The club will supply the nearly $300,000 in prize money for both events.

MACA’s scholastic season is nearing conclusion, with the final Spiegel Qualifier scheduled for March 4 and the championships on March 18. Also, the final Spiegel Cup Series event is on Feb. 25, for more details check out the scholastic page on www.MassChess.org.

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Coming events: Jan. 9, Waltham Anderson G/25; d5 4-Round Swiss www.WalthamChessClub.org; Jan. 21, Boylston Spiegel Cup January Scholastic, Cambridge: Jan. 28, MACA’s Winter Team Challenge, Marlborough, www.MassChess.org.

Recent results: Sixth Boston Chess Congress (221 Players), Premier Section, 1st-5th: Xherebukh Yaroslav, Alexander Ivanov, Edward Song, Mika Brattain, Alejandro Botta, 4/5; U2100, 1st, Jonathan Ingellis, 4.5/5;

Answer to today’s problem: P. Keres v. P. Schmidt, 1935, 1...Bxf2+! Always check the checks! 2.Kxf2 Rxc1 3.Rxc1 Bxf3 4.Nxf3 Qe3+ 5.Kf1 Qxc1+.


Chris Chase can be reached at BostonGlobeChessNotes@gmail.com.