A month after being crowned the new World Senior Champion 50+, Michael "Mickey" Adams wins the traditional London Chess Classic elite tournament outright. Adams has been a leading English player for more than three decades, consistently achieving outstanding results and being a formidable and reliable team player. A former child prodigy, Mickey won his first British Championship title (of eight to date) in 1989 and his most recent this year. The reigning British Champion (2023) and reigning World Senior Champion (2023) is truly Mister Evergreen! ChessBase congratulates the winner of the LCC 2023 by taking a brief look at a remarkable career and personality. | Photo: Adams at the Chennai Olympiad 2022 | Photo: FIDE
After six rounds of the 2023 FIDE World Senior Team Championships, team USA leads the 50-and-over section with five wins and one draw, while German team Germany Lasker Schachstiftung GK leads the 65-and-over section with a perfect 6–0–0 score.
The 2023 FIDE World Senior Team Championships begun today in Struga, North Macedonia, with both a 50-and-over (50+) section and a 65-and-over (65+) section. The tournament format is a nine-round swiss, with each round consisting of four-player matches played at a classical time control of 40 moves in 90 minutes with an additional 30 minutes on move 40 and a 30-second increment beginning on move one. 48 teams are competing overall, with 22 in the 50+ and 26 in the 65+.
Pia Cramling, the Grande Dame of Chess is celebrating her 60th Anniversary today. Heartfelt congratulations! Looking back and forward, our author, who was a spectator at the tournament where she made her final GM norm to obtain the Grandmaster title as fifth woman on earth, presents fantastic facts and funny figures from an unparalleled biography. | Photo: Carolina Byrmo via hemtrevligt.se
Do you know the Hippopotamus Defence. It is a series of irregular chess opening systems in which Black moves a number of pawns to the sixth rank, and keeps his pieces on the seventh rank. Many experts considered it basically losing, but it has maintained a solid fifty percent for Black, even at the highest level of competition. In the British Chess Magazine Raymond Keene reviews the book The Hippopotamus Defence by Italian IM Alessio de Santis on the subject. | Picture Samuele Giglio, Unsplash