CHESS : INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Miguel Illescas Cordoba of Spain and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria tied for first place in the Magistral tournament, an elite grandmaster round robin which finished last weekend in Madrid. Each scored five wins en route to totals of 6 1/2-2 1/2.

Next at 6-3 were two ex-Soviets who now live in Spain, Valery Salov and Alexey Shirov. Salov led the tournament until losing badly to Shirov in the last round. Other scores: Zurab Azmaiparashvili (Republic of Georgia) and Boris Gelfand (Belarus), 5-4; Michael Adams (England), 3 1/2-5 1/2; Alexander Morozevich (Russia), 3-6; Victor Korchnoi (Switzerland), 2-7; and Pablo San Segundo (Spain), 1 1/2-7 1/2. Azmaiparashvili was the only undefeated player.

Illescas, 30, played beautifully to achieve the finest result of his career. Losing only to Topalov, he pummeled most of his opponents with sparkling attacks.

Topalov’s success follows his great performance in Linares, Spain, in March. With two outstanding results and a rating of 2700, the 21-year old grandmaster joins the handful of young players regarded as potential world champions.

Joel Benjamin of New York scored an impressive 8 1/2-1 1/2 to win the third Hawaii International, a leisurely 35-player tournament organized by Eric Schiller. Benjamin defeated his closest rivals, GMs Eduard Gufeld of Los Angeles and Pavel Blatny of the Czech Republic, who tied for second place at 8-2. Next at 6 1/2-3 1/2 were IM Nathanael Situru of Indonesia and former Southern California champion Thomas Wolski, who fulfilled the requirements for his first IM norm.

The highest-rated tournament of all time began Tuesday in Dos Hermanos, Spain. Illescas and nine of the world’s top ten players (all but Anatoly Karpov of Russia) are competing.

All of the games in the first two rounds were drawn except for Viswanathan Anand’s win over Shirov and Gelfand’s win over Vassily Ivanchuk. World champion Garry Kasparov drew Anand and former U.S. champion Gata Kamsky.

LOCAL NEWS

Gym for the Mind, 4907 Topanga Canyon Blvd. in Woodland Hills, will begin a Friday-night knockout tournament on May 31. The schedule and the time limit will depend on the number of entries. Register at the site at 7:00 p.m., or call David Esser at (818) 710-8042 for more information.

The Antelope Valley Chess Club will host Action chess (30-minute games) quad tournaments on June 2. The club meets at noon Sundays at American Legion Post 771 at 39463 10th St. East in Palmdale, and also at 6:00 p.m. Tuesdays at VFW Post 7283 in Lancaster. For details, call Dec Cuerdon at (805) 726-1323.

East Los Angeles College will offer a course titled “Chess Club for Beginners” as part of its summer extension program. The class, taught by expert Julio-Cesar Marin, will be held from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on six Saturdays, beginning June 8. The registration fee is $24. Call (213) 265-8793 to register, or call Oscar Paez at (213) 265-8851 for more information.