Just because you're playing in the 2026 Candidates Tournament doesn't mean you can't rank your opponents ahead of time. Seven grandmasters, including four of the candidates, recently gave their takes about the field and the tournament which begins...
As the first quarter of 2026 enters its final weeks, some of the biggest tournaments in both online and over-the-board chess are happening, with the Chess.com Open starting March 14 and the Candidates Tournament, to determine the next world champi...
In the world of chess, a prodigy is more than just a talented kid. A chess prodigy defies their age and, while still in grade school, often topples seasoned, adult grandmasters. The four GMs Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Alireza Firouzja, and...
GMs Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Alireza Firouzja, and Denis Lazavik made the semifinals of the Speed Chess Championship, and the time has come. Whether you're reading this before or after the big February 6-8 weekend festivities, you can see ...
Four players will compete in the Speed Chess Championship Finals on February 7 and 8, 2026, in London, England. GM Magnus Carlsen will aim to defend his title against five-time SCC Champion Hikaru Nakamura, last year's finalist GM Alireza Firouzja...
They say that chess is the game of kings, an honorable pastime for people who want to lose themselves in thought. Bullet chess, however, played at a pace of one minute per side for the whole game, is anything but honorable. Bullet isn't a game of ...
It's time to remember the most remarkable chess games of 2025. Some memorable classical events gave us magnificent games, such as the traditional Tata Steel Chess tournament, the FIDE Grand Swiss, and the FIDE World Cup, to name three of the ...
GM Magnus Carlsen may have given up the world championship years ago, but he is still the best player in the world. He proved it in several ways in 2025, not the least of which was a bank account that continued to swell. A quarter-million here, an...
We live in unprecedented times when AI and the Digital Revolution are reshaping how we live. Recently, Elon Musk even suggested that, in 15 to 20 years, work will be optional and money irrelevant. It is difficult to argue with on...
FIDE recently announced that GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu has accrued enough points to win the 2025 FIDE circuit and earn a spot in the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament, the final step of the world championship qualification cycle. With Praggnanand...
The third season of the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League is set to start on December 14. Chess titans like World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju, GMs Hikaru Nakamura, Alireza Firouzja, and Hou Yifan are just some of the stars playing in the event, whic...
As another year approaches its close, the activity at Chess.com is only ramping up. We are bringing back the Chess.com Global Championship and introduced a new tournament, all while continuing to put out product updates, computer opponents, and co...
GM Ivan Sokolov's accomplishments as a player include reaching the 2700 "super grandmaster" club and a peak world ranking in the top 15. With all that, his coaching accomplishments may be even more impressive. His students have included GMs Alirez...
GM Daniel Naroditsky had several roles at Chess.com during his tragically short life—he would have turned 30 years old as we publish this article on November 9, 2025—but his first role was as an article author. One of Naroditsky's many...
With less than two months left in the year, the Speed Chess Championship well underway, several recent collaborations and partnerships inside the Chess.com community, upcoming Chessable sales, and more, let's get right into this month's Chess.com ...
A major source of excitement in the Speed Chess Championship stems from the inherently chaotic and unpredictable nature of blitz and bullet chess. But that doesn't mean we can't take a look at how these matches might go. These predictions are base...
As we enter August, it's been another big month for Chess.com, and for chess itself as the game reaches new audiences. The esports world unofficially welcomed chess to its ranks with the inaugural Esports World Cup tournament. Chess has also sprea...
GM Mykhaylo Oleksiyenko is a grandmaster, mathematics PhD, Chessable author... and August 2025 Chess.com Coach of the Month! Mykhaylo has counted GMs Bassem Amin, Ahmed Adly, and Alexander Ipatov among his students, not to mention the countless pl...
"There is luck in chess. My opponent was lucky that he was playing against an idiot." - Jim Loy Last week, many of us watched the exciting Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Las Vegas tournament. The gambling capital of the world might seem li...
As the second half of 2025 begins, there is a lot going on at Chess.com, as always. But what is new is chess at the Esports World Cup, where $1,500,000 will be up for grabs starting on July 29. This past month also saw exciting events, a new half-...
GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu's dramatic come-from-behind win at the UzChess Cup was his third major tournament victory of the year, along with prior wins at Tata Steel and the Superbet Chess Classic. This win expanded his already strong lead in th...
Recently, WGM Maria Manakova posted an interesting position on her Facebook page. She wrote: "A fun puzzle for third or forth category players." According to the old Soviet chess classification, it refers to people with a US Chess rating somewhere...
Welcome to Prodigy Watch! This page shows the young stars whose current ratings stack up best against the top players of all time at their same age. This is a permanent landing page, where the most recent Prodigy Watch update will always...
In the past four-plus weeks, GM Magnus Carlsen won not one but two major tournaments, and also concluded the strongest Titled Tuesday run of the past five months—although we were sure to see him in the Speed Chess Championship either way. Bu...
Former world champion GM Magnus Carlsen recently lamented that it's "kind of sad to see how far you have to go to get a game, that you cannot really play the best lines anymore." Chess engines have demonstrated that all mainstream openings, and ev...
