Fabiano. London. Classical match. Then rapid.
Sound familiar?
No, it's not a continuation of the world championship, it's the new format of the 2018 London Chess Classic, which will take place December 11-17. This 10th edition will be split up between DeepMind's Google headquarters and the traditional venue of London Olympia.
Fabiano Caruana will travel back across the Atlantic and be joined by three other qualifiers—Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave—in...
December's Titled Tuesday was a thoroughly star-studded holiday blast. With 353 players, it was our third-largest Titled Tuesday ever. The field was so packed with talent and skill that it could easily be mistaken for a prestige open or swiss.
Here are just a few of the stars who played:
Super-GMs: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura, Wesley So, Vladimir Fedoseev
Most recent world junior champions: Jeffery Xiong, Aryan Tari, Parham Maghsoodloo
Prodigies: Alireza Firouzja, Awonder Liang,...
Magnus Carlsen bought himself another two years to work on his admittedly ailing classical game with a devastating, nearly cruel demolition of the undisputed challenger and co-king of slow chess, Fabiano Caruana, winning 3-0 in the rapid tiebreak. Both players were gracious afterwards, full of praise for each other, with only a little parting jab from Magnus to the eminent critics who excoriated him for his passive handling of an advantage in game 12, and his decision to seek victory by playoff.
Carlsen...
Move order is important in any opening, but it's especially crucial in the Philidor, where one false move can mean doom. GM Ben Finegold continues his lesson on this opening system in what he calls "the most important video" in the series.
The tournament took place in my city of Skopje from 6-9 December and I was eagerly waiting for it. I did some preparation for it and was curious to see how things will work out.
In short, they didn’t. I was forced to leave the tournament (the second day of the rapid) due to a bad stomach bug.
However, I won’t dwell here on my health issues. I think there were other, more serious ones, that were at play and led to me having an unimaginably horrible tournament.
Looking at the statistics,...
In news reminiscent of the initial AlphaZero shockwave last December, the artificial intelligence company DeepMind released astounding results from an updated version of the machine-learning chess project today.
The results leave no question, once again, that AlphaZero plays some of the strongest chess in the world.
The updated AlphaZero crushed Stockfish 8 in a new 1,000-game match, scoring +155 -6 =839. (See below for three sample games from this match with analysis by Stockfish 10 and video...
The world championship match is over and now it is a part of chess history. Just like any big chess event, it has provided a lot of food for thought.
For many chess fans the main takeaway from the match is that something should be changed so we don't have world championship matches where all games are drawn. While I am not particularly happy with 12 straight draws in the classical part of the match, I prefer to concentrate on the games. The readers of my column know that I consider Magnus Carlsen...
After a month dominated by the world championship, many chess stories remained on the periphery. This edition of "In Other News" tries to bring them back into the light.
Skydiving chess
Rex Sinquefield stars on HBO
Caruana, the guy next door?
The fallacy of the Fischer comparison
Chess in Equatorial Guinea
Take a look below at the crazy world of GM Timur Gareev and his new stunt. Also, now that London is over, perhaps Fabiano Caruana would like to decompress by walking your dog?
Skydiving...
The 2018 Chess.com Speed Chess Championship will feature 16 of the world's best chess players in an innovative eSports bracket tournament and a guaranteed prize pool of $55,000.
Congratulations to Hikaru Nakamura, the 2018 Speed Chess Champion.
You can find important information on the event below.
Broadcast and streaming
Bracket
Matchups and pairings
Fantasy prediction contest
SmarterChess predictions
Schedule
Results
Event prizes
Detailed format
List of players
Rules
Promotional...
