Chess Olympiads
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in 2020 and 2021, with a rapid time control that affected players' online ratings. The use of the name "Chess Olympiad" for FIDE's team championship is of historical origin and is not connected to the Olympic Games. Birth of the Olympiad The first Olympiad was unofficial. For the 1924 Olympics an attempt was made to include chess in the Olympic Games but this failed because of problems with distinguishing between amateur and professional players. While the 1924 Summer Olympics was taking place in Paris, the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad also took place in Paris. FIDE was formed on Sunday, July 20, 1924, the closing day of the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad. FIDE organised the first Official Olympiad in 1927 which took place in London. The Olympiad ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
35th Chess Olympiad
The 35th Chess Olympiad (), organized by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs and comprising an openAlthough commonly referred to as the ''men's division'', this section is open to both male and female players. and women's tournament, took place between October 25 and November 11, 2002, in Bled, Slovenia. There were 135 teams in the open event and 90 in the women's event. Both tournament sections were officiated by International Arbiter, international arbiter Geurt Gijssen (Netherlands). Teams were paired across the 14 rounds of competition according to the Swiss system tournament, Swiss system. The open division was played over four boards per round, whilst the women's was played over three. In the event of a draw, the tie-break was decided by 1. The Buchholz system; and 2. Match points. The time control for each game permitted each player 90 minutes for all their moves, with an additional 30 seconds increment for each player after each move, beginning with the first. In ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Jan Timman
Jan Timman (born 14 December 1951) is a Dutch chess grandmaster who was one of the world's leading chess players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career, he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known as "The Best of the West". He has won the Dutch Chess Championship nine times and has been a Candidate for the World Chess Championship several times. He lost the title match of the 1993 FIDE World Championship against Anatoly Karpov. Early career He is the son of mathematics professor Rein Timman and his wife Anneke, who as a schoolgirl was a mathematics student of former world champion Max Euwe. His older brother, Ton (1946–2014), held the chess title of FIDE Master. Jan Timman was already an outstanding prospect in his early teens, and at Jerusalem 1967 played in the World Junior Championship, aged fifteen, finishing third. Timman received the International Master title in 1971, and in 1974 attained Grandmaster status, making hi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
29th Chess Olympiad
The 29th Chess Olympiad (, ''29. Šahovska olimpijada''), organized by FIDE and comprising an openAlthough commonly referred to as the ''men's division'', this section is open to both male and female players. and a women's tournament, as well as several other events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between November 16 and December 4, 1990, in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia (present-day Serbia). This time around, the political controversy surrounded the Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – who had all recently declared their independence from the Soviet Union and wanted to send their own teams to the Olympiad. The Yugoslavian hosts, however, followed the decree from Moscow and refused to accept their entries. Despite a petition from several top players they weren't allowed to play. This meant that big names like Jaan Ehlvest, Lembit Oll, Alexei Shirov, and former world champion Mikhail Tal could not appear at the Olympiad. Incidentally, this would also tur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
28th Chess Olympiad
The 28th Chess Olympiad (, ''I 28i Skakistikí Olympiáda''), organized by FIDE and comprising an openAlthough commonly referred to as the ''men's division'', this section is open to both male and female players. and a women's tournament, as well as several other events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between November 12 and November 30, 1988, in Thessaloniki, Greece. After the successful 26th Olympiad in Thessaloniki in 1984, FIDE had agreed to hold every other Olympiad (the ones in Olympic years) in the home country of the Olympic movement - provided the Greek Chess Federation and government could provide the necessary funding. This was only the case once, in 1988; after that the Olympiad went back to a new host city every two years. Israel was back, having been effectively banned from the previous Olympiad in Dubai, as were the countries that had stayed away in sympathy: The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Also reappearing in the Olympic arena—af ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Judit Polgár
Judit Polgár (born 23 July 1976) is a Hungarian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster, widely regarded as the Strong (chess), strongest female chess player of all time. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, at the time the youngest to have done so, breaking the record previously held by former world champion Bobby Fischer. She was the youngest player ever to break into the FIDE top 100 players rating list, ranking No. 55 in the January 1989 rating list, at the age of 12. Polgár is the only woman to have been a serious candidate for the World Chess Championship, in which she participated in FIDE World Chess Championship 2005, 2005; she had previously participated in large, 100-player-plus knockout tournaments for the world championship. She is also the only woman to have surpassed 2700 Elo rating system, Elo, reaching a peak world ranking of No. 8 in 2004 and peak rating of 2735 in 2005. She is the only woman to be ranked in th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Women's World Chess Championship
The Women's World Chess Championship is a chess match played to determine the Women's World Chess Champion. It has been administered by FIDE since its inception in 1927, unlike the absolute World Chess Championship, which only came under FIDE's control in 1948. There have been three main eras in the history of the Women's World Championship: the Menchik era (1927–1944), the Soviet-dominated era (1950–1991), and the China-dominated era (1991–present). Vera Menchik won every Women's World Championship from 1927 to 1944. The Soviet Union won every Women's World Championship from 1950 until 1991, particularly Georgian champions Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze, who combined for ten titles in a row, five each in succession. From 1991 onwards, China has 16 of the last 21 titles, spread across six different champions, including two four-time champions Xie Jun and Hou Yifan, and the reigning five-time World Champion Ju Wenjun. The championship has not always used a matc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Vera Menchik
Vera Francevna Mencikova (, ''Vera Frantsevna Menchik''; ; 16 February 1906 – 26 June 1944), was a Russian-born Czechoslovak chess player who primarily resided in England. She was the first and longest-reigning Women's World Chess Championship, Women's World Chess Champion from 1927 to 1944, winning the championship a record eight times primarily in round-robin tournament, round-robin tournaments. In an era when women primarily competed against other women, Menchik was the first and only woman competing in master-level tournaments with the world's best players. Menchik was born in Moscow to a Czech father and English mother. She began playing chess competitively in school at age 14 not long before the Russian Revolution led her family to leave Russia and move to England in 1921. She joined the Hastings Chess Club in 1923, where she began training with James Drewitt and Géza Maróczy. Menchik established herself as the best female player in the country in 1925 by defeati ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Women's Chess Olympiad
The Women's Chess Olympiad is an event held by FIDE (the International Chess Federation) since 1957 (every two years since 1972), where national women's teams compete at chess for gold, silver and bronze medals. Since 1976 the Women's Chess Olympiad has been incorporated within Chess Olympiad events, with simultaneous women's and open tournaments. The trophy for the winning women's team is known as the Vera Menchik Cup in honor of the first Women's World Chess Champion (1927–1944). The Soviet Union has won it the most often: 11 times. Before the break-up of the Soviet Union, it has also been won by Hungary led by three Polgár sisters (twice) and Israeli team fully composed of Soviet-born players (once in 1976 when it was boycotted by the Eastern Bloc). In the post-Soviet era, China have won the event six times, Georgia – four times, Russia – three times, Ukraine – two times and India – once. Results From 1957 to 1974 the Women's Olympiad was a separate event (with ex ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Swiss System Tournament
A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the other competitors. Competitors meet one-on-one in each round and are paired using a set of rules designed to ensure that each competitor plays opponents with a similar running score, but does not play the same opponent more than once. The winner is the competitor with the highest aggregate points earned in all rounds. With an even number of participants, all competitors play in each round. The Swiss system is used for competitions in which there are too many entrants for a full round-robin (all-play-all) to be feasible, and eliminating any competitors before the end of the tournament is undesirable. In contrast, all-play-all is suitable if there are a small number of competitors; whereas a single-elimination (knockout) tournament rapidly reduc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov (born 5 April 1962) is a Russian oligarch, administrator and politician. He was President of the Republic of Kalmykia in the Russian Federation from 1993 to 2010, and was president of FIDE, the chess international governing body, from 1995 to 2018. He has also been at the forefront of promoting chess in schools in Russia and overseas. He is the founder of Novy Vzglyad publishing house. He has been an honorary president of the former Kalmykian FC Uralan. Personal life Ilyumzhinov was born in Elista, Kalmykia. His parents were subject to the Kalmyk deportations of 1943 when the entire Kalmyk population was deported to Siberia – Kirsan's own family had an impeccable record fighting the Germans (he was named after a great-uncle who served in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War and committed suicide after having been ordered to execute large numbers of captured Whites). He grew up in Elista, after the Kalmyks were allowed to return fo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
38th Chess Olympiad
The 38th Chess Olympiad (), organized by FIDE and comprising an open and a women's tournament, as well as several other events designed to promote the game of chess, took place from 12 to 25 November 2008 in Dresden, Germany. There were 146 teams in the open event and 111 in the women's event. In total, 1277 players were registered. Both tournament sections were officiated by International Arbiter, international arbiter Ignatius Leong (Singapore). In a change from recent Olympiads, the number of rounds of the Swiss system tournament, Swiss system were reduced from 13 to 11 with accelerated pairings. For the first time, the women's division, like the open division, was played over four boards per round, with each team allowed one alternate for a total of five players. In another first, the final rankings were determined by match points, not game points. In the event of a draw, the tie-break was decided by 1. Deducted Sonneborn-Berger; 2. Deducted sum of match points; 3. Game points. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Vasyl Ivanchuk
Vasyl Mykhailovych Ivanchuk (; born March 18, 1969) is a Ukrainian chess grandmaster. He was awarded the title of International Grandmaster, Grandmaster by FIDE in 1988. A leading chess player since 1988, Ivanchuk has been ranked at No. 2 on the FIDE world rankings three times (July 1991, July 1992, October 2007). Ivanchuk has won Linares International Chess Tournament, Linares, Tata Steel Chess Tournament, Wijk aan Zee, Tal Memorial, Gibraltar Chess Festival, Gibraltar Masters and M-Tel Masters titles. He has also won the World Blitz Chess Championship#FIDE World Blitz Championship (2006–2010), World Blitz Championship in 2007 and the World Rapid Chess Championship#World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championships (since 2012), World Rapid Championship in 2016. Career Early years Ivanchuk was born in Kopychyntsi, Ukraine. He won the 1987 European Junior Chess Championship in Groningen and first achieved international notice by winning the 1988 New York Open scoring 7½/9 points, ahe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |