14th World Champion Alexander Khalifman present
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Position of the day
Black to move and win.
Black to move and win.

01.01.14
27.02.07
02.02.07
 

Autumn came round. Mastodons are going to come soon...

It was not a eventful summer. The most interesting event was the Anand - Ponomariov match which resulted in a determinate victory of Anand. How can he keep the lost positions? And it is not for the first time! It was a mystery!

And then we saw some new records for the Guinness Book. Beyond doubts Sergey Karjakin is very talented. And he is able to become a strong grandmaster. But doesn't it make sense to hurry? But the titles are so debased nowadays that all the discussions about it are ridden to death. Nevertheless there is another fact which might be more interesting for the Guinness Book. Vasily Malinin outscored Karjakin by one point and won the tournament. Vasily Malinin is 55 years old. He is Russian colonel of militia and he makes a very rapid progress recently. He has been hidden his light under a bushel for many years. Though at St. Petersurg, his home city, he was known only as not a bad blitz player. All his results in the local tournaments were from -1 to +1. Perhaps our St. Petersburg chess school is really so strong or the permission to declare the talent of the proper authorities was obtained. Anyhow, the success was great!

With a suspicion of sadness I recollect the time when it was necessary to win an USSR championship to become a GM. And there is no comparison between passed championships and the ones of today.

Now the amount of IM and GM grows as a geometric progression. Especially when the candidate to the title is the man of substance.

However, our school is still using the good old methods. We try giving our students a maximum of knowledge. And only then we can promise them some titles which can be got any time in case of strong playing.
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