I found this link over at ChessBase, but it's certainly worth reposting here. Fergal Keane recently interviewed Garry Kasparov, and the entire interview can be listened to on the BBC Radio 4 site. The interview covers a number of topics: Garry's chess career, his work in the Russian political system, as well as his family and childhood.

It's interesting to hear Kasparov speak candidly about his life and a variety of topics that are obviously important to him. The interview will only be up on the website for another six days, so catch it now while it's there.

One final note: the solution to the problem in my last post, as solved by James Ruffin, was 1. Ng5+ hxg5 2. Rh1+ Qxh1 3. Rxh1#. I'll add another chess puzzle this weekend -- hopefully, one that will be more challenging for some of my more experienced readers! As mentioned in the comments of my last post, we have a wide variety of readers, so some may find these problems too easy, or too hard. I'll try to strike a balance over time, with some problems appropriate for beginners and some tough enough for relatively strong players.

Our first puzzle is a mate-in-three for White.

Feel free to post your ideas or solutions in the comments section. I'll reveal the solution in my next post!

The 2008 Pan-American Intercollegiate Chess Championship was held just before New Year's, and ended in what has become a predictable result: the top teams once again came from the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). In this case, the two college chess powerhouses tied for first, with UTD taking the championship on tiebreaks.

The tournament featured 29 teams from North and South America, with the top two international teams both coming from the University of Toronto.

The battle for the last two spots in the President's Cup -- known as the Final Four of Chess -- was heated; unlike the top two spots, various schools have filled out the President's Cup field in recent years. There were several strong teams with average ratings of over 2000, including NYU, Miami Dade College, and Harvard. In the end, Stanford University and the University of Texas at Brownsville won out.

The President's Cup will be held in April, at UTD. While it would be nice to see a new school break into the top two, it's almost certain that the championship will come down to UTD vs. UMBC yet again. UMBC has the slightly stronger lineup, and sports three grandmasters, but UTD showed they can hang with them at the Pan-Am. Who do you think will come out on top?

The 2008 tournament season ended with the FIDE Grand Prix event in Elista, Russia. Although there were a few dropouts, the remaining field of 14 was quite strong, including some top flight players such as Peter Leko, Wang Yue and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

In the end, three players tied for first: Teimour Radjabov, Dmitry Jakovenko and Alexander Grischuk each finished at 8/13. Radjabov remains the leader in the Grand Prix standings, just ahead of Wang Yue and Vugar Gashimov.

Two other events of interest are going on right now. In Gjovik, Norway, Magnus Carlsen and Peter Svidler will be meeting in the finals of a 4-player rapid event. The two tied with Hikaru Nakamura with 4/6 scores after original double round-robin (GM Kjetil Lie was the unlucky owner of an 0/6), and advanced to the final after a blitz playoff.

Meanwhile, Peter Leko and Vassily Ivanchuk are battling it out in a six game rapid match taking place in Mukachevo, Ukraine. The first four games have all ended in draws. The two top GMs played a similar 12 game match last year, which ended in a 6-6 tie; Ivanchuk took the blitz tiebreaks to win the match.