Video clip: Simon Williams

Here’s an interview with English grandmaster Simon Williams, who won a spectacular game today in a Botvinnik Semi-Slav against the young Danish IM Simon Bekker-Jensen. This is how it finished: Bekker Jensen,S (2405) – Williams,Si (2498) 25…Nf4+ 26.Kg1 Nde2+ and resigned because of 27.Bxe2 Qg3+! and mate. [vsw id=”VGBy3fDcIAA” source=”youtube” width=”560″ height=”315″ autoplay=”no”]

Video clip: Wesley So

An interview with Philippine GM Wesley So, right after his interesting draw with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. So also talks about Webster University, where he’s a freshman. [vsw id=”qcDq9Dr4RFY” source=”youtube” width=”560″ height=”315″ autoplay=”no”]

Cinderella overslept!

So far, one of the surprises of the tournament has been the American Adarsh Jayakumar. Despite allowing a draw against a 1600 in the first round and then getting a 1610 rated player in the 2nd round, he was remarkably on course for an IM norm after 5 rounds! He followed his sub-par performance in…

Rounds 4-5: Chess tourists

As Oscar Wilde once quipped, the Icelanders are very smart people. “They discovered America and kept quiet about it!” This quote was one of many little stories that were told by our tour guide on Friday, when over fifty chess players went on the famous Golden Circle tour, which visits Iceland’s main touristic attractions. In…