In sport, the "Magnus Effect" creates curves where there would otherwise be straight lines, but for Magnus Carlsen, it's another flat trajectory to his world championship defense. Just like in 2016, a series of draws has opened the 2018 world chess championship, but this time Fabiano Caruana is creating the vacuum.
In today's round three, both sides had a whisper of a chance. According to Carlsen, his opponent's came in the form of a single move. When that was missed, Carlsen got to apply some pressure...
The women's world championship is down to just eight players as another eight got eliminated in the third round. The biggest names packing their bags were Harika Dronavalli, Antoaneta Stefanova, Natalija Pogonina and Valentina Gunina.
The legendary trainer Mark Dvoretsky once told me that there were two types of chess players: the highly theoretical Academics and the practical Street Fighters. In a funny sort of coincidence the same can be said for the two concurrent world championships. Whilst...
When I was a kid, I didn't watch much TV. You see, 40 years ago we had only two state-controlled TV channels in the Soviet Union, so most of the kids spent their time outdoors rather than watching boring news. Nevertheless, there was one weekly program that I never missed. Of course it was The Chess School hosted by famous Soviet chess luminaries.
This program was so popular that even lyrics of one of the pop songs of that time stated that GM Averbakh opened chess school on TV.
At the end...
The legendary GM Yasser Seirawan gives his unique perspective on game one of the world chess championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana. What would you have played in the crucial moments? GM Seirawan places you in the players' shoes!
Paul Keres is a fascinating player with a fascinating history. Winner of the star-studded 1938 AVRO tournament, he was a presumed challenger to Alexander Alekhine when WW II intervened. After the war, his native Estonia had been subsumed by the Soviet Union under the oppressive Stalinist regime.
It has been widely understood that Keres was under tremendous pressure not to trouble the Soviet favorite Mikhail Botvinnik in his search for the world championship. Whether that meant throwing games or...
Hikaru Nakamura won the rapid part of the inaugural Tata Steel Chess India tournament in Kolkata. The American grandmaster scored 1.5 on the final day, which was just enough to stay ahead of Levon Aronian who scored only 1/3.
Nakamura drew his first three games on day one, which was slightly below par for his standard. He did have a long travel getting to Kolkata though! "I was just jet-lagged, tired. That doesn't mean I didn't play reasonable games, but I didn't really create much chances."
But...
Fabiano Caruana and Magnus Carlsen repeated the Sicilian Rossolimo Variation in game three of the 2018 world chess championship, but the game ended in a draw again. Once again, Black was the aggressor, but once again, it wasn't converted into a victory.
Despite the whisper of a chance in the endgame for Carlsen, this was the most peaceful game so far, with no one having a material edge. The game lasted 49 moves and the score is now 1.5-1.5 after three games.
Fabiano Caruana...
A few hours before the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, the two best chess players in the world also agreed to peace at the 2018 world chess championship. After round one's seven-hour battle, today the draw between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana came in about half that time.
There were some important similarities, however. Black was again the aggressor, and again enjoyed the surplus pawn in a rook ending. However, the challenger didn't press the position nearly as much as he was forced to...
It's the biggest chess event of the year as World Champion Magnus Carlsen will try to defend his title against the American challenger Fabiano Caruana.
The 2018 world chess championship will run November 9-28, and you can follow it all on Chess.com.
Game four will start Tuesday, November 13 at 7 a.m. Pacific time (10 a.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. London/GMT. Your local time: ).
Caruana will play Black and Carlsen will play White in game four. The match is scheduled for 12 games plus tiebreaks...
