Janis Klovans, 1935-2010

Latvian GM and correspondence GM Janis Klovans died a couple of days ago, on Tuesday. He's not as well known as some of his countrymen (most obviously his great contemporary Mikhail Tal), but he was a very impressive figure in his own right, winning the Latvian Championship 9 times and the World Senior Championship three times, for starters. His list of scalps includes players like Tal (more than once), Karpov, Bronstein, Shirov, Ivanchuk and many other extremely strong players, and this doesn't even cover his achievements in correspondence chess.

To learn more about this man, who also helped train the young Shirov, have a look at this nice memorial article over at ChessVibes. The article concludes with 44 of his notable wins; you can replay it there or download the PGN (here's a direct link to the download).

Cebalo and Klovans, Gaprindashvili are World Senior Champions

Miso Cebalo and Janis Klovans have won the World Senior Championship with 8½/11, half a point ahead of group including last year's co-champs, Larry Kaufman and Mihail Suba.  It's the first senior title for Cebalo, and the fourth for Klovans. In the (just-for-) women's division, former women's champ Nona Gaprindashvili won with 7½ out of 9, half a point ahead of Elena Fatalibekova. Gaprindashvili is also a repeat champion.

Congratulations to both players!

HT: Chess Today