Hey all, I’ve been on a little hiatus from blogging the last couple of weeks. For good or for worse, I’ve started playing a lot of poker again, and it’s been taking up a lot of my time. Anyhow, my team didn’t travel down to the Amateur Team East last weekend because a few of […]

So the last couple weeks I’ve been a little bit too busy to update my Blog, and I couldn’t have picked a worse 2 weeks to be busy since there has been so much action!
Fischer died last week the day I was heading down to the Liberty Bell Open in Philadelphia (Report Coming Soon). Before […]

We had a couple of big upsets today. Radjabov beating Anand with the white pieces was probably the biggest one of the day. It seems to me that once Radjabov was able to build this pawn chain with d6 and e5, Anand had very little chance of saving the game.

Notice the pawn can not be […]

Gata, Gata, Gata! That’s what the crowd was chanting in Siberia.. or not.. As you can see from the picture, chess is not the most popular game in the world, especially when the tournament is held in the middle of nowhere.
Kamsky’s World Cup victory is especially impressive given the fact he had no real opening […]

Both Gata Kamsky and Alexei Shirov proved that experience outweighs age in their semi-final victories over Carlsen and Karjakin. Who would have predicted that it would be the “Battle of the Old Men” in the finals? Usually these grueling fast time controls favor the young, but Kamsky and Shirov are both in insane form so […]

Junior chess player Ray Robson started the UTD GM Invitational Tournament off with a BANG, with 2 wins over GMs and 2 wins over strong IMs. If he can continue this pace, he should have no problems achieving a GM Norm (IM Norm is almost a given at this point) Here is the Robson “Hit […]

Chess fans around the country have started to chant: Kamsky!, Kamsky!, Kamsky! Ok, maybe they haven’t, but I have! Gata Kamsky just defeated his greatest challenge yet, Ruslan Ponomariov, to move on to the semi-finals where he will be facing Darth Vad… I mean Magnus Carlsen. Speaking of Magnus, my Cheparinov upset prediction over Carlsen […]

Kamsky continued to “Use The Force” today in his tiebreak match against Peter Svidler. The first game saw Kamsky play a line of the English as white which is not considered too threatening. Nevertheless he managed to get a nice advantage with the bishop pair, but Svidler played accurately and held the position. In the […]

It is now the round of 16 at the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia and only 1 American is left standing. GM Gata Kamsky is the last hope for the United States after Alexander Onischuk was downed in round 3 by GM Alexei Shirov. Shirov has been “On Fire” as of late; He had […]

Stephen Brudno and Isaac Saidel-Goley tied for 1st with 3.5/4 yesterday at the 2007 New Hampshire Amateur Championships. Since Brudno is from Massachusetts, the title of NH Amateur Champion went to Isaac.
The tournament took place at the Comfort Inn in Manchester, NH. I stopped by to watch some of the action, since I live only […]

This was not a very good day for Americans at the World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. GMs Alexander Shabalov, Alexander Ivanov, Sergey Kudrin, and Julio Becerra were all eliminated. The biggest surprise to me was Shabalov’s loss, since he is the current US Champ and was playing “down” against GM Dusko Pavasovic of Slovenia. These […]

I just happened to catch this on the news tonight, Garry Kasparov has been reportedly arrested and sentenced to 5 days in prison by a Moscow court. According to Kasparov’s publicist,Marina Litvinovich, the former chess champion was forced to the ground and beaten by riot police.
Over the past few months, Kasparov has become very […]

Going into the very last round, World #1 Vishy Anand and World #2 Vassily Ivanchuk were tied with for first place with 24.5/37. It came down to 1 dramatic game, with Anand taking the white pieces. Anand seemed to achieve a winning position quite easily in a Sicilian Kan with 5. Bd3, but in blitz […]

“Former” World Champion Vladimir Champion impressed just about everyone at the recent Tal Memorial Super Tournament with an amazing +4 with no loses and a 2901 performance rating. Ok Ok, Topalov and Anand were both absent from this event, but +4 in an all +2700 crowd is great no matter who those 2700+ players happen […]

The USCL Semi-Final between Boston Blitz and New York Knights is tonight, and I’m definitely looking forward to the games. There has been lots of live chess action lately with the Tal Memorial and European Championship both being broadcasted on ICC. But all these Super GM tournaments pale in comparison to USCL action!
I expect […]

The word on the street is IM David Pruess has just recently earned his 2nd GM norm with 7/9 in a tournament in France. Josh Friedel had a solid performance with 6.5/9, which was just shy of the norm. I guess the two of them are traveling Europe for norms this month, as Josh just […]

IM David Vigorito has proved once again that he is one of the strongest players in New England with a convincing 8/9 score at the Boylston Chess Club Championship. Charles Rirodan finished 2nd with a very respectable 6/9 after he and Vigorito drew in the last round.
Dave showed me his 8th round game against FM […]

Brian Goldstein is the first BradenBournival.com Correspondent. You can reach Brian at brian@bradenbournival.com

Well, this is my first blog for Brad’s site… I normally don’t do any pro-bono shit, but I figured this could be a great place to get my anger out, since I am too lazy to maintain my own blog.
Anyways enough with that […]

A NY Times article came out today concerning the lawsuit Sam Sloan has filed against Susan Polgar and Paul Truong, among others. Sam Sloan has accused Polgar/Truong of impersonating him on various internet chess boards. I have seen some of these fake posts first hand, and I guess this impersonator has been at it for […]