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Friday, October 15, 2010

New chess simul world record attempt this Thursday

Chess news and chess trivia blog (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2010

GM Alik Gershon

Hello Everyone,

The net is abuzz with the news of an attempt at the World Record for biggest simul. On October 21 - next Thursday - GM Alik Gershon is going to take on the challenge in the Israeli city of Tel-Aviv.

More than 500 players will take part in the simul! The event is professionally managed by a team headed by GM Boris Alterman, the director of Shevach-Mofet Academy whose students will all be part of the exhibition too.

GM Alik Gershon was born in Dnepropetrovsk (Ukraine) in 1980 and learned the rules of the game at two (according to his father), starting a serious "professional" career when he was five years old.

He immigrated to Israel with his family at the end of 1990 and in 1993 he was already Israel U16 champion. It was just a year later when he was crowned as the world U14 champion (Szeged, Hungary 1994) and it took him another two years to become the world U16 champion too (Cala Goldana, Spain 1996).

Alik was awarded the IM title in 1997 and became a grandmaster when he was 20. Then he already saw the peak of his career when he won the national title for adults (together with GM Boris Avrukh).

He was the founder and editor-in-chief of the first Israeli chess online weekly "Schachnet" and was the co-author (with Igor Nor) of the best seller 'St Luis 2005' which was praised worldwide and earned him the prestigious "Book of the Year" award by the British Chess Federation. Though he still plays for Kfar-Saba club at the top Israeli division, he actually quit professional chess already in 2005 for software engineering studies.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
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6 comments:

  1. Hello Chess Queen, when will I get to play in a simul with you... :)

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  2. Saira Fernando, MadridOctober 15, 2010 at 9:56 AM

    Chess Queen what's your simul schedule? Will you be playing any this year in Spain or are you already busy with all your tournaments and World Championship etc coming up this year? By any chance do you play online? I would love to know your handle. Will keep it a secret if you tell me.

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  3. Hello, i will be an organiser for the simul. if you want i can send you pictures and notable games. my mail is itayzloto@yahoo.com

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  4. Hi!
    I announce my simuls usually in advance on my sites www.chessqueen.com or www.kosteniuk.com , now I'm training for tournaments.

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  5. Yes I play online, but anonymously to test new openings and ideas. No plans for Spain. Sure you can always send me chess info and I may post them! Thanks!

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  6. Saira Fernando, MadridOctober 16, 2010 at 9:51 AM

    hey thanks chess queen. wow. i thought you were unreal and didn't reply to fans. how coooooooooool. you're so sweet.

    ReplyDelete

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