Two weeks after his success at the U.S. Championship, Sam Shankland won another tournament: the Capablanca Memorial in Havana, Cuba. With a score of 7.5/10 and a 2829 performance rating the American grandmaster entered the world's top 30.
The first edition of the Capablanca Memorial took place in 1962. One of the founders was Che Guevara, the director of the National Bank and Minister of Industries, and a big chess fan.
The fourth edition, in 1965, is famous for the participation of Bobby...
Ju Wenjun is the new women's world champion. She drew with reigning champion Tan Zhongyi in the final game of the women's world championship in Chongqing today to set the final score at 5.5-4.5.
It was a tense final game in a tense match. Tan needed to win with the black pieces, and chose a setup you might think was never played before in a world championship before: the Hippopotamus!
But in his annotations, Dejan Bojkov reminded us that Boris Spassky used a similar setup...
There was an anniversary a few days ago that was completely missed by the chess world.
I am not talking about any chess player's birthday since they generally are covered by many chess publications (believe it or not, I even saw a note about Karl Marx's 200-year anniversary on many chess-related websites!). Instead we can celebrate a five-year anniversary that has seriously affected the modern chess elite.
On April 21, 2013, in the first round of Alekhine Memorial, GM Levon Aronian played GM Ding...
We often think the most amazing chess moves come in the middlegame, with brilliant sacrifices and king hunts. But just as much beauty can be found in the endgame, where the subtle brilliance of these moves will astonish you.
After two tense draws in games eight and nine, Tan Zhongyi will need to win the final match game on Friday to secure a playoff at the women's world championship. Ju Wenjun missed near wins in both games.
After five decisive games in a row, the two Chinese women slowed down a bit, at least result-wise. Two more draws followed, but both were fights and especially game nine was quite tense.
That was a day after Ju missed a huge chance.
The start of game eight in the Sun...
On May 4, FIDE transferred its money to two fiduciary accounts after the Swiss bank UBS had closed its account at the start of the month. This was revealed by FIDE's treasurer on Sunday.
It took the World Chess Federation two weeks, but finally the national chess federations and everyone else have been informed about the whereabouts of FIDE's money. And still, questions remain.
It all started in February, when FIDE treasurer Adrian Siegel shared with the world that FIDE's bank, UBS in Switzerland,...
Adolf Anderssen (born 1818) was born in the German Empire (Breslau, which is now Wroclaw, Poland). He learned how to play chess at the age of nine, and learned much of his chess understanding by going over all the games of the legendary Labourdonnais vs. McDonnell match. I’ll add that the book De la Bourbonnais versus McDonnell, written in 1834 by Cary Utterberg (published by McFarland, hardcover, 404 pages, 2005) is fantastic.
A professor of mathematics, he was known as a very kind man...
If you've been online the past two days you've probably seen the great debate about what you hear in the now-famous audio clip: "Yanny vs. Laurel."
While the audio debate may never be settled, it didn't stop Serious News Organizations from calling in expert linguists and making high-tech tools so you can hear both names.
Here at Chess.com we have a better way to settle the controversy: on the chessboard.
We've organized a game of vote chess for supporters of Yanny vs supporters of Laurel.
First...
