Content NIC’s Café Your Move Passing on the Tradition Yuri Averbakh, the oldest grandmaster in the world, celebrated his 90th birthday. Wonderful Wijk aan Zee The two top-seeds arrived in high spirits, well rested from sunny vacations in Egypt and Asia, and highly motivated to leave their mark on the 74th edition of the finest chess festival in the world. Magnus Carlsen dealt the first blows, but in the end he could not keep up with Levon Aronian, who showed great resilience and played amazing chess. Interview: Levon Aronian Following his star performance at the Tata Steel tournament, the current number two in the world rankings speaks about the intense work he has done and continues to do to weed out imperfections in his play and his desire to take his game to an entirely new level. Moving Up Pentala Harikrishna and Maxim Turov left Wijk aan Zee with pleasant memories and something to look forward to. Chess and the Arts Mark Glukhovsky talks to Russian billionaire Andrei Filatov, the financial backer of the World Championship match between Anand and Gelfand in Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery coming May. Hertan’s Forcing Moves ‘Did Cleopatra play chess?’ Jimmy Adams portrays chess diva Lisa Lane, who made newspaper headlines after withdrawing from the 1961/62 Hastings tournament because she was too much in love to concentrate on her games. Gibraltar Jubilee Hou Yifan (a spectacular 2872 performance) and Nigel Short (winner after a blitz play-off) wrote history at the 10th Tradewise Festival. In the Land of Sultan Khan A Short story about the prospects of chess in Pakistan. Through the Luking Glass Luke McShane has no trouble switching from the amazing Garry Kasparov to the amazing Baron Munchausen. Back to the Coast Jan Timman notes that the B-Group has grown a lot stronger 42 years after he made his Wijk aan Zee debut in this group. Just Checking Which three people would Mihail Marin like to invite for dinner?     Did they play your opening? In this issue games with the following openings were annotated by world class players: Sicilian Hou Yifan-Polgar, by Hou Yifan French Adams-Fridman, by Adams Ruy Lopez Bruzon-Harikrishna, by Harikrishna Queen's Gambit Declined Giri-Aronian, by Aronian Ernst-Harikrishna, by Timman Slav Laznicka-Howell, by Howell Caruana-Giri, by Caruana Queen's Indian Carlsen-Karjakin, by Karjakin l’Ami-Timman, by Timman Grünfeld Indian Radjabov-Navara, by Radjabov Benoni Sasikiran-Short, by Short English Opening Carlsen-Gashimov, by Carlsen Aronian-Navara, by Navara Adhiban-Turov, by Turov Réti Timman-Ernst, by Timman