Offerspill news - week 13

This week's update includes "the Magnus Carlsen story", updates from the Offerspill Online League and we celebrate former World Champion Vasily Smyslov.

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The Magnus Carlsen story

During the recently finished Magnus Carlsen Invitational, Chess24 published a series of interviews with colleagues, family members and Magnus himself concerning his life and career so far. The interview series is split into seven parts and covers childhoold, the present, and everything in between.

Read the article and watch the interviews here.

In other news, the Norway Chess tournament has been postponed to September 7-18 as a consequence of the worsened pandemic situation in Norway and Europe in general. Chess24 has written a piece on it.

Celebrating Smyslov

The legendary Vasily Smyslov became the seventh World Chess Champion in 1957 after beating fellow Russian Mikhail Botvinnik. Later, he would lose the return match and his title. Smyslov was known for his deep understanding of chess and his many wins could often be dedicated to perfect harmony between his pieces. Much like the current World Champion Magnus Carlsen, Smyslov had the ability to make chess look easy - or at least understandable.

Furthermore, Smyslov was part of the absolute chess elite for many years. He challenged Kasparov for the title as late as in 1984, albeit unsuccessfully.
Smyslov also won 17 medals in the chess olympics - a remarkable feat.

This past week the international chess community celebrated what would have been Smyslov's 100th birthday. The former World Champion passed away in 2010.

Chessbase has written an excellent article commemorating the positional play virtuoso.

Smyslov at the Amsterdam Interzonal tournament in 1964

Smyslov outplays Karpov

Let's enjoy the following game where Smyslov showcased his trademark technique and understanding when outplaying the then 20-year old Karpov in 1971. The game started out just how Smyslov preferred it - nice and quiet.


Smyslov was also an avid composer of chess problems - many of them were brilliant, such as this one.

White to move and win

This one is not easy - White to move.

Online League Thematic Arena

This week's opening was a tricky one, the slightly dubious Chigorin Defense against the queen's pawn opening 1.d4.

We recorded a short video to give you an introduction the opening - available on YouTube.

Standings


It's fully understandable if you have grown tired of the following sentence, but here it goes: congratulations to Gvein for winning yet another tournament in the Offerspill Online League! As usual, he impressived massively with a win rate of 100 percent and a 2515 rating performance to boot.

M-P-M and TraintoBusan also performed strongly, but were unable to challenge Gvein for first place.

This season of the Offerspill Online League  is coming to an end.
The season lasts until the end of March - make sure to score as many points and achievements as you can before season ends.

Check out standings and all achievements in the Offerspill Online League here.

Quarantine League

After a couple of rough weeks Offerspill was back in business last week by winning our group in the 7th division, thus qualifying to play in the 6th division this week.

Powerhouse Jon Kristian Haarr (PusheenMeow) lead the pack with a 2622 rating performance closely followed by Lara Janželj (LaraJ) and grandmaster Aryan Tari (Recapture).

Standings

LaraJ deals with the King's Indian Defence


Full results from the Quarantine League are available here.