While other world top-10s have had their struggles at the 2018 Chess.com Isle of Man International, GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave keeps making it look easy through three rounds. Even a birthday celebration couldn't stop his lucid play. He's faring just as well as a 28-year-old as he did at 27.
The top French player of all time leads the pack of a half-dozen GMs on 3.0/3. He was also the first to get to that score by switching to 1.d4, as he expected a Grunfeld, where he has no shortage of knowledge....
It's been several years since the Chess.com Isle of Man International was a combination chess and poker event, but GM Levon Aronian showed in today's round two that there's still room for bluffing. On top board, he played a calculated risk that worked to move him to 2.0/2, where he was joined one board lower by a birthday boy. GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave gave himself the best 28th birthday gift—a winning rook ending.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave seems to have been given a Chess.com...
The year was 1985 and I was playing a tournament where I had an opportunity to get my first master norm. At that time, tournaments with master norms were very scarce in the Soviet Union. In fact, we had only one such tournament per year in my home city of Tashkent, so it was definitely the chess event of the year for me.
As it turned out, I wasn't strong enough for this kind of a competition, so my final result was very modest. Nevertheless, the experience there was invaluable.
On...
Two masters of poker join two masters of chess for a game that will take them all out of their element: hand and brain chess! Watch Daniel Negreanu and Jen Shahade battling Daniel Rensch and Liv Boeree as the masters name the piece to move, but the poker players pick the move.
Throughout the show, we'll be counting down to the winner of the Pokerstars platinum pass which goes to the best chess/poker hybrid game!
Endgame tablebases are software that provides perfect play information with total accuracy for any position with up to seven pieces. They can determine (1) the outcome – win, loss, or draw – of every legal move in such positions based on optimal play by both sides, and (2) the precise number of moves required to force a mate for each winning or losing move. I gave a brief overview of tablebases in my previous blog and considered how they have been utilised in the field of chess...
It turns out you don't need randomized pairings to make for an eventful opening of a chess tournament.
The 2018 Chess.com Isle of Man International, the strongest open tournament in history, fielded a score of 2700s. But after only the first round, nearly half are already smarting from an early draw. Nine of the 20, including one of the two top seeds, couldn't escape the opening day without ceding a draw to an IM who was 300 points lower rated.
One former world champion, GM Viswanathan Anand, got...
HOW TO START OUT
I get many, many players (rated 800 to 1200) asking me what their style is, why do they lose when they had a better game, are their opponents cheating, how to get good fast, or simply how to get a higher rating.
All these players think these questions are something that only they go through, but the truth is that most suffer through the same things as the others. Apparently they think that there is a quick fix that I can give them. Alas, there is no such thing. You have...
The European Club Cup became a "Petersburg Tale" as Mednyi Vsadnik defeated Sjakklub Valerenga and then edged out AVE Novy Bor on tiebreak. Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo won the women's section.
The European Club Cup lasts just seven rounds, but it was still one round too many for Magnus Carlsen's Valerenga. Its successful run finished in a big anticlimax as the two heroes of the previous two matches were the ones who lost their games in the match with the eventual tournament...
Looking for a great way to kick off your school's chess club in the fall? The Fourth "Hour of Chess Week" is the first time we will host the event outside of the spring!
This back-to-school edition still gives you a chance to win 500 gold memberships for your entire school, which is valued at $5,000 USD!
Once again, we will dedicate one full week to encouraging chess in schools (in every school) for at least one hour. We're borrowing from the KhanAcademy playbook (a website and organization...
