The Chess Mind

Starting with the World Junior Championships, the final result of the Open ("Boys'") section was long ago decided, but only now official: Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan regained the title he won in 2003. After blasting out with 8.5/9, he coasted home with four draws (three of which were merely pro forma) and a final tally of 10.5/13. Finishing in second was Hungarian Ferenc Berkes (9.5/13), while Evgeny Alekseev of Russia beat out Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan on tiebreak to take third (both had 9/13).

In the Girls' section, a late run propelled German IM Elisabeth Paehtz into first place with 10/13, half a point ahead of Gu Xiaobing of China and a full point ahead of Beata Kadziolka (presumably the third-place winner on tiebreak), Turkan Mamedjarova and Dronavalli Harika of Poland, Azerbaijan and India, respectively.

Congratulations to the winners, and congratulations too to the computers - or rather, their programmers - as they reasserted their dominance over carbon chess players in round 3 of the II People vs. Computers World Chess Team Match in Bilbao. Kasimjanov held a draw, with Black, against Fritz 9 (poor Fritz, again!), but Junior slowly ground down Khalifman and Hydra applied a fearful beating to Ponomariov, which you can replay here.

That puts the computers up 6.5-2.5 going into today's last round, and as of this writing, all three games were still going with the humans still kicking.