The U. S. Amateur Team East, also known now as the World Amateur Championship, continues to be the most popular chess festival on the USCF tournament calendar. Read Al Lawrence's report in this month's issues of Chess Life. Also in this month, Gata Kamsky faces Veselin Topalov in Kazan, Russia in the opening round of the Candidate Matches. As he contemplated the road to a potential 2012 World Championship match against Viswanathan Anand, Kamsky sat down to talk about past misconceptions, his preparations, and his planned retirement from competitive chess. This, plus a lot more!