The 2019 Chess.com Speed Chess Championship, with a prize fund of $50,000, takes off today with the first match in the round of 16 between Sinquefield Cup winner Ding Liren (China) and 2018 U.S. Champion Sam Shankland (USA).
The waiting is over. This year's Speed Chess Championship begins this first week of September with no less than four matches in the round of 16:
Monday, September 2: Ding vs. Shankland at 6:00 p.m. Pacific (9 p.m. Eastern, September 3 at 3:00 a.m. CEST)
Tuesday, September...
The favorites again advanced to the last stages of the knockout competition to determine the event's quarter-finalists with the top four seeds contesting a very even and tense bracket semifinal. Whether it was the makeup of the field or the starting positions that came out of the "hat," the last of the qualifiers seemed to unfold at a different pace from earlier editions with a much higher percentage of patient, nervy maneuvering and technical grinds.
With the later stages of the Fischer Random...
In the end of 1984, the leading Soviet magazine Chess In The USSR published a big article about the first game of the world championship match Capablanca-Alekhine, Buenos Aires 1927.
The author, master V. Goldin (no relation the U.S. grandmaster Alex Goldin) questioned many decisions by two legendary champions. Many chess players and analysts, including the famous coach Mark Dvoretsky, participated in the lengthy discussion.
It is difficult to imagine such an "analysts battle" today. Don't people...
Studying the games of chess masters is an important part of the improvement process in chess. Take the time to learn from the players who have gone before you to the peak of the chess world, and you might find more success in your own games.
Hello chess lovers. Today I share a great game where Vassily Ivanchuk got an amazing victory against Sergei Karjakin. It was a rapid game in Melody Amber, 2008, and the most spectacular aspect of this game is that Chucky played a wonderful novelty with queen sacrifice included, getting only two pawns in exchange. It is not clear, but it seems like he got a lot of compensation with this sac. Karjakin couldn’t find the best moves after that and White got a winning advantage.
Video with...
The discipline might be called Fischer Random, but the scenario that unfolded in the first four quarterfinal Knockout Qualifiers has been anything but. So far in the event, despite a regular helping of upsets and inspired underdog performances, each final match has been contested by the top seed from each side of the knockout tree. Qualifier Five was very different indeed.
Two slightly different ingredients were in the mix this time: The second invitee was Norway's reigning Nordic Champion,...
What is a pawn structure?
From my online glossary, I define it as “the positioning of the whole pawn mass. Also referred to as the pawn skeleton. This positioning of the pawns is what usually dictates the types of plans available in a given position due to open files, space, pawn weaknesses, etc.”
I am continuing my articles about pawn structures, since people seem to enjoy them and also learn from them. So here is another one!
Oh, one other thing: If you run into a pawn...
With an open qualification process that began in April, the FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship continues the final qualification phase as it plays down to the final six players who will qualify for the quarterfinals in early October.
The final two Knockout Qualifiers will be hosted on Chess.com this Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, featuring some of the strongest players in the world, including two of the top-ten players in the world in Leinier Dominguez-Perez and Wesley...
Reminder: Deadline for entries is 5:59 p.m. Pacific time September 2.
The biggest event in online chess is back for 2019, and the field of 16 grandmasters is set for the 2019 Speed Chess Championship beginning September 2 at 6 p.m. PDT.
While the best players in the world battle it out on the chessboards, you can be a part of the action by predicting the winners in our all-new fantasy chess contest. And don't think you can just pick the favorites, either, because there are bonuses for choosing...
