All things considered, 2018 was a fantastic year for Chess.com! Our Alexa ranking shot up over 350 places, caused by an extra 1.8M registrations compared to 2017. We held more prize events than ever before, and just a few days ago the Live Chess team recorded 50k users online for the first time!This is all terrible, terrible news. More spammers, more cheaters, more sandbaggers, frauds, bots, trolls, impersonators, rating manipulators and people who put that invading squiggly text into their comments...
Anish Giri and Ruslan Ponomariov are among the players to make their debut in the 2019 season of the PRO Chess League. Week seven is another Battle Royale week, played on Tuesday beginning at 8:00 a.m. PT and on Thursday beginning at 7 a.m. PT.
Preview by IM Greg Shahade.
This week marks the second Battle Royale of the 2019 PRO Chess League Season and the first time that all four divisions will be mixed together and be competing with one another. Lots of points will be up for grabs as...
The recently concluded Tata Steel chess tournament was very memorable for the U.S. grandmaster Sam Shankland.
From now on he will be forever remembered as a chess player who the beat the former world champion Vladimir Kramnik in his last professional classical game. But Sam will also be remembered as a grandmaster who resigned in a book-drawn position.
Sam Shankland. | Photo: Alina l'Ami/Tata Steel Chess.
I bet you've already seen that game:
A resignation in a dead-drawn position is so unusual...
If you like chess where caution is thrown to the wind in an all-out effort to checkmate the other guy, take a trip to London in 1883 when Johannes Zukertort conjured a blistering attack against Blackburne.
Yesterday I finished to study the puzzles from the 1st book of puzzles from Iosif Slavin. It is a collections of basic checkmates of 1, 2, 3 or more moves. I solved 145 puzzles in 2 hours.
I wish to improve my calculation skills to be as good as the great Mikhal Tal's skills.
I share a few checkmates with you.
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You can watch the preparation...
The recently announced FIDE Grand Swiss tournament, where the winner will qualify for the 2020 Candidates', will be played October 9-20, 2019 in Isle of Man and organized in cooperation with Chess.com. This became official today.
The news was just posted on the FIDE website: The event that was formerly known as the Chess.com Isle of Man International will this year be serving as the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament (the exact name is yet to be determined).
It will be bigger, longer and more prestigious,...
In a continuation from the last article, Is Classical Chess Dead From Draws, we will be comparing different time controls in the Grand Chess Tour (GCT). Mike Klein just wrote a recent piece highlighting the new 2019 format and the players on the invite list.
Last month we analyzed the classical chess draw rate by year when both players were rated over 2750. In the past couple of years, that rate has increased above 70%!
Data CollectionThe data for this article contains all Grand...
In the all-decisive and all-Russian clash, Valentina Gunina held Alexandra Kosteniuk to a draw and won the $40,000 first prize of the inaugural Cairns Cup in St. Louis. Irina Krush came third thanks to beating Harika Dronavalli.
"I’m so happy but I didn’t realize it yet, so I need time!" said Gunina after her last game. She seemed to be suppressing a smile when she shook hands with Kosteniuk, confirming the draw, but her victory at the first Cairns Cup simply hadn't sunk...
The Bullet Chess Championship will run from April 3-7, and will be broadcast live on www.Twitch.tv/Chess. The total prize pool is $15,000. Below you will find a breakdown of the rules, prizes, confirmed players and the complete schedule.
Players
Prizes
Schedule
Rules and Format
Players:
Hikaru Nakamura — Chess.com #1 Bullet player at time of invitation.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave — World #2 blitz (FIDE) at time of invitation.
Alexander Grischuk — Three-time world...
