Today's round-four clash at the 2018 world chess championship between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana ended in the shortest draw of the bunch, at less than three hours. The match is tied 2.0-2.0 after Carlsen's English Opening went nowhere, but the intrigue actually began around 6 a.m. local time.
Magnus Carlsen's suit change didn't change the result today. | Photo: Mike Klein/Chess.com.
Likely before either player arose (Carlsen famously wakes quite late, often not even in the a.m. hours),...
After winning the rapid, Hikaru Nakamura has good chances to take the first prize at the blitz part of the Tata Steel Chess India tournament in Kolkata. The American grandmaster scored 6.5/9 and is half a point ahead of Wesley So.
Monday was a rest day in the tournament, but the players did pay a brief visit to the tournament hall. A one-hour Q&A was organized for the many chess fans that are visiting each day, followed by an autograph session. Although it's only the first time that this...
Fabiano Caruana and Magnus Carlsen also drew the fourth game of their 2018 world chess championship. This time they played an English Four Knights, in which Carlsen's advantage was mostly symbolic.
The game lasted 34 moves and the score is now 2-2 after four games.
The world championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana is underway in London. Here’s all the information:
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Magnus Carlsen innovates with the white pieces as he tests Fabiano Caruana out in the English Opening. Will this subtler approach deliver success where sharper opening play failed? Don't miss GM Alex Yermolinsky's analysis of game four at the 2018 World Chess Championship!
Here is a look at the main line of the Symmetrical English: Anti-Benoni! This variation comes from the moves 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3!? and I will provide not only the main moves that are seen in this line but also the ideas and plans that justify them.
This line is a way for white to avoid the Benko Gambit by transposing into a line from the Symmetrical English, so if you are a Benoni or Benko Gambit player knowing this line is a must because you will see it. I see it often myself.
Instead...
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...
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 five will start Thursday, November 13 at 7 a.m. Pacific time (10 a.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. London/GMT. Your local time: ).
Caruana will play White and Carlsen will play Black in game five. The match is scheduled for 12 games plus tiebreaks...
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. While the...
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...
