Wijk aan Zee

The famous annual Wijk aan Zee chess tournament is underway, and England’s Mickey Adams is in good form.

Here is Mig Greengard’s summary of his encounter yesterday with Ivanchuk, on chessbase.com:

“Adams notched a nice win against Ivanchuk, who slipped into a passive position after coming out of an opening experiment in okay shape. Black played Nfd7 preemptively, inviting a white pawn storm. Adams obliged. After exchanges Adams got to work his magic with a slight space advantage and Ivanchuk cracked with 34..b4 and an unfortunate rook incursion. White infiltrated with his queen and the game ended quickly after that.”

The game, along with all the others from the A-group, can be replayed here.

Also one to watch is the youthful prodigy Magnus Carlsen who is presently, albeit with a bit of luck in hand, leading the second group. For those who are interested, the book by his old trainer, Simen Agdestein, on the amazing story of this, the world’s youngest chess Grandmaster, is worth a read (a .pdf sample of which can be viewed here). He is potential future world champion material, and has already been called the ‘the Mozart of chess’ by The Washington Post!

Today Mickey will be facing Anand who has the White pieces, so it won't be easy for the Englishman. However, at the time of writing, Mickey looks to have a lovely position, and it putting real pressure on the Indian's queenside. As a great resource for those of us who love chess: all games can be followed live here.