Summer chess extravaganza

Its summer time and as tradition goes Europe is choke full of chess tournaments.

These are not your usual 9 or 11 rounds Swiss tourneys but chess fiestas of extravagant proportions.

The 44th Biel Chess Festival is taking place from 18th to 29th July in Biel, Switzerland. There are several main groups : the Master Tournament (11 rounds Swiss- open to all); the Main Tournament (9 rounds Swiss- for players with Fide rating of 2050 and below); a Rapid and a Blitz tournament; Chess960 (Fischer random chess); Youth (free of charge for children) ,Simul exhibitions and tennis among the players . There also chess seminars for those who are interested to improve their play.

However the main interest is the Accentus Grandmaster Tournament with six very strong grandmasters playing a double round robin: Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexei Shirov, Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Morozevich and Yannick Pelletier. The scoring system is three points for a win, one for a draw and zero for a loss. No draw offers are permitted before move 30.

Another great tradition marks the 22nd year of the Pardubice festival in the Czech Republic.The festival has attracted 1445 players from 44 countries including 60 GMs and WGMs, and 81 IMs and WIMs.

It started last July 17 and participants of the festival can choose from almost 30 different types of chess tournaments.

For example there are the Polgar Superstar Chess World Championship and the Fischer Random Chess event. There is also a 4-member team tournament with 114 teams from the Czech Republic alone and several foreign teams competing.

The 39th Dortmund Chess Meeting started yesterday up to the 31st in the theater at Hiltropwall in Dortmund, Germany.
There are 4 main events- the Super tournament , Helmut Kohl's Tournament with ten players and the Sparkassen Open A and B which take place in the Dortmund Town Hall.
6 players compete in the double round robin Super Tournament. 9 time winner Vladimir Kramnik heads the field that also includes Hikaru Nakamura, Ruslan Pononmariov (last year's winner), Anish Giri, Le Quang Liem (qualified from the Aeroflot Open) and Geog Meier (the German number 2 player). The tourney boasts of an average rating of 2740.
For the second time the Sofia rule is in effect. The GMs are not allowed to offer a draw during the game.
Another important Fide event is also now taking place in Ningbo, China. The 2011 World Team Chess Championship is currently on-going from July 15-July 26 at the playing venue in New Century Grand Hotel Ningbo.
This 8th edition It is a kind of exclusive Olympiad, in which only ten elite teams compete for top honors. As such, most of the players are world class. The players are treated like royalty with single rooms in the 5-star hotel. Each team consists of five players (including one reserve) and one coach/captain of the team for a total of 6 .
According to FIDE Regulations the following Federations are entitled to send a team: China (host country),Russia (winner 2009),Ukraine (Olympiad 2010),Israel (Olympiad 2010),Hungary (Olympiad 2010),Azerbaijan (Europe qualifier),India (Asia qualifier),USA (America's qualifier),Egypt (African qualifier),Armenia (FIDE President's nomination).
Mingglanilla Chess Club. The Club recently was organized and elected the following set of Officers: Mario Mangubat-president,Eto Cañada-vice president, Dannie Reroma-secretary, Jason Orfano-treasurer, Francisco Nebria-auditor, Dennis Gonzales-PRO, Sgt at arms-Doming Villamor and Jerwin Flores.Directors-Romeo Delima and Marlon Dosados. Adviser is Manny Manzanares.
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