The Internet Chess Club (ICC) is the longest running, most popular, and best place to play chess on the Internet. Nowhere else can you find as many chess enthusiasts ready for a quick round of blitz, a short chat, an impromptu tournament, or simply enjoying the wealth of Chess.FM shows and live event coverage. It is not uncommon to find more than 3,000 chess players hanging out on ICC where more than 100,000 games are played each day.

ICC Dasher is a Windows program for playing chess. Membership enables you to play chess online within the ICC community, challenging your skills at ICC online tournaments. You can download Dasher for free and use it to play offline or online and to register for a free trial ICC account.

Russian Woes and The Oldest Olympian

Have you read and viewed the latest two entries on Chess.FM's exciting new blog? Svidler on Russian's woes is a 4 min audio interview by Macauley Peterson, as the five-time Russian champion rebuts former World Champions Boris Spassky and Anatoly Karpov, who both raised concerns about the present state of the Russian Olympiad Team after failing to win a medal in Dresden.

Also not to be missed is The Oldest Olympian, as Jonathan Hilton talks to Olympiad legend Bill Hook of the British Virgin Islands, who at 83 was playing in his 17th Olympiad. In this 5 min video, Hook talks about his career and his best-selling memoir for New In Chess, Hooked on Chess.

Anyone can read the blog, but ONLY ICC members can login to leave comments. Other features in the blog include Macauley Peterson's video reporting direct from Dresden, where he's given Chess.FM scoops on the Kamsky-Topalov match. There's also audio and video from Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Boris Gelfand (Israel) , Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Boris Spassky (France), Fabiano Caruana (Italy), Varuzhan Akobian (USA), Irina Krush (USA), Alejandro Ramírez Álvarez (Costa Rica), David Smerdon (Australia), Baadur Jobava (Georgia), Wang Hao and Hou Yifan (China), and Georg Meier (Germany).

En Passant - IM Bob Wade OBE (1921-2008)

ICC was saddened to hear that IM Robert “Bob” Wade OBE, regarded by many as the doyen of British Chess, died last week in London of complications from pneumonia, aged 87.

A three-time New Zealand champion, Bob was born in Dunedin, New Zealand 1921. Early in his career though, he emigrated to the U.K. and became British champion at Chester 1952, and again in 1970 at Coventry. He represented England in seven Olympiads between 1954 and 1972.

From 1969, Bob edited Batsford Chess Book’s - a famed series known to all that launched a publishing boom for chess material in English across the world. He also had an extensive chess library that was consulted by authors, journalists and top players alike - and he even supplied secret files on Taimanov, Larsen, Petrosian and Spassky for Bobby Fischer, on his road to capturing the world title in 1972 (and also his 1992 rematch with Spassky).

But arguable his greatest contribution was that in laying the foundations for the English chess explosion, as he and Leonard Barden successfully groomed a stable full of young players to top grandmaster level, resulting in England, during the mid-1980s being the main threat to the Soviet dominance in the game.

Bob was awarded his OBE by the Queen of Gt. Britain for his services to chess in 1979. With a ready quick wit, he was one of the most likable and trusted personalities on the chess scene and will be sadly missed by all in the game.

A fuller obituary of Bob's outstanding career and service to the game can be found at Mark Crowther's TWIC. Other obituaries come from Malcolm Pein at The Daily Telegraph, Leonard Barden at The Guardian. There's also an interesting 1999 interview with Bob Wade by John Saunders at the British Chess Magazine.

Regular ICC Events

ICC Newsletter XLVIII

November 28, 2008

In this issue: Olympiad Finale, Olympiad GOTD, Mig's podcast, Chess.FM videos, and the ICC Store.

All events are free to ICC members unless noted. All times are Eastern Standard Time. Add 5 hours for GMT. Add 6 hours for CET.

Wednesday, December 03
	00:45	Tournament Sleepless - 3 tournaments, 5 rounds of 3 0
	07:00	Tournament Early Morning - 7 rounds of 3 1
	07:00	Simul 30 30 ch 71 Im Alejo de Dovitiis
	10:00	Tournament Cronos Challenge - 8 rounds of 1 0
	11:30	Tournament WeekDay Series - 5 rounds of 5 0
	13:00	Tournament WeekDay Series - 5 rounds of 5 0
	14:15	Tournament Slomato 4 Rounds of 20 0
	15:00	Webcast Attack with LarryC! video series
	18:00	Simul 45 10 ch 71 FM Mussanti
	18:00	Tournament Slomato 5 Rounds 15 0
	23:00	Tournament Nightly U1500 - 5 rounds of 2 6
	23:00	Tournament Nightly O1500 - 7 rounds of 5 0

View this week's entire event list

"There are more than 300 places to play chess on the internet but, as with nightclubs, there is only one place the 'A list' gravitates to: the Internet Chess Club."
— The Sunday Telegraph (London)

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