The eighth week of the PRO Chess League Summer Series could not have gone better for GM Sandro Mareco and the Sao Paulo Capybaras. The Brazilian side scored the third six-point week of the Summer Series (Saint Louis and Pittsburgh were first and second, respectively), which was just enough to take a one-point lead over the Moscow Wizards heading into the final week of the group.
The Mumbai Movers dropped in the standings after a one-point showing on Saturday....
Day eight of the FIDE Grand Prix in Riga, Latvia was an exciting affair that gave us two finalists without needing any tiebreaks. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov kept his cool and defended calmly to draw and oust Wesley So while Maxime Vachier-Lagrave punished Alexander Grischuk's over-ambitious play and won a fine game with the black pieces.
For the first time in this Grand Prix, we won't be needing a tiebreak to determine who goes through. This means that both the...
The 14th world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik reflects on his remarkable career, telling David Cox about his championship battles with Garry Kasparov, Peter Leko, Veselin Topalov and Vishy Anand, and why Kramnik finally ran out of motivation for the game.
After more than two decades at the top, Vladimir Kramnik shocked the chess world earlier this year by announcing his retirement at the age of 43. A prodigy, and former student of Mikhail Botvinnik’s chess school, Kramnik went on to...
Qh4 REFUTED - I watched the video and did not see any problems. Gerhard
Here I present to you a strategical game in a Benko Gambit Declined played in July 2019. The early decline novelty my opponent played threw me off early, and perhaps resulted in a time disadvantage, but later he drops his c pawn giving me a clear edge with the black pieces. A Benko up a pawn? That's like cash money! I'll take it! $$$
Unfortunately, there is compensation for my opponent in the form of the c4 square available to his knight and he makes use of it. ...
PRO Chess League Summer Series action resumes on Saturday as the Armenia Eagles, Moscow Wizards, Mumbai Movers and the Sao Paulo Capybaras each look to take a step closer to the Summer Series Championship this August.
As fans pick which teams to play for in the second week of Group C (July 20, 7 a.m. PDT), these will be the two key questions they have for each matchup:
1. Is "the curse of five" real? The Mumbai Movers opened group play with five points, but both the...
There is a well-known chess joke (or maybe not even a joke!) that it is much more difficult to sacrifice a pawn than a queen.
Indeed, in most queen sacrifices you get huge dividends right away, since it is difficult to imagine a player sacrificing his queen just to get (for example) a good square for his knight. Therefore, it is relatively easy to predict the outcome of many queen sacrifices, like the next one:
From the other side, most pawn sacrifices are done for positional gains and so it...
Jeffery Xiong qualified for the final of the Chess.com Junior Speed Chess Championship on Thursday as he beat Parham Maghsoodloo 14.5-10.5 in their semifinal match. Xiong will face either Wei Yi or Alireza Firouzja for the title.
The first semifinal was a very close match in both the 5+1 and 3+1 segments. Xiong ran away in the bullet, after a disconnection had disrupted Maghsoodloo's mindset. The Iranian GM was the slight favorite beforehand, but eventually had to acknowledge...
This month we are pleased to meet Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, known as MVL, the French number 1 and member of world top 5.
Chess.com France will follow closely his quest for the world title that will require being qualified for the next Candidates tournament. Thus, the next Grand Prix will be crucial. That's why we will watch it carefully on our channel. Jurmala Grand Prix (a seaside resort near Riga in Latvia) will take place from July 12 to 25, and our pair Vlad Tkachiev and Kevin Bordi will comment...
