One of the leading Russian newspapers, "Izvestia," has published an interview with the president of the Russian Chess Federation and captain of the Russian Olympic team, Andrey Filatov. This interview got my attention when Filatov claimed tha...
With the upcoming 2018 world chess championship between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana just days away starting Nov. 9, Chess.com wanted to know: What is the most exciting title match in history? Below is a countdown of the top 10 a...
The regular readers of my column know that I hate political correctness. In my old article I explained it is probably the biggest threat to Western civilization. Very soon people will stop expressing their true beliefs out of fear that the...
Chess openings have been analyzed for centuries and yet even today it is still not easy to identify the best and worst first moves. According to Fischer, 1.e4 is "best by test." From the other side, when the famous theoretician GM Ernst Gruenfel...
Chess is a rich game, dating back over a millennia. On Chess.com alone, over 2,000,000,000 games have been played! Which games are the very best ever played? No one can answer that conclusively, but we are going to give you Chess.com's opinion. ...
GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave against GM Leinier Dominguez Perez: The "man with three names" meets yet another man with three names. But only 2800s get hyphens, it seems. The two sesquipedalian chess players are the next two to face off in the openi...
With two of the opening matches of the 2018 Chess.com Speed Chess Championship now in the books, fans are still waiting for the first competitive match. GM Levon Aronian and Hikaru Nakamura were simply too strong for GMs Fabiano Caruana and Hou ...
What better way to begin the Speed Chess Championship main bracket this year than with one of the biggest names in chess today? Fabiano Caruana, the top chess player in the United States, will challenge Magnus Carlsen this fall fo...
A well-known saying states that all is fair in love and war. Our beloved game is actually both love and war. While it is pretty obvious that chess is a war on 64 squares, what about love? Well, check the Twitter hashtag #WhyILoveChess and...
Reminder: Deadline for entries is 11:59 p.m. Pacific time July 23. The biggest event in online chess is back for 2018, and the field of 16 grandmasters is set for the 2018 Speed Chess Championship. While the best players in the world battle it...
Speed Chess Championship season is in full swing now as the open qualifier starts Tuesday, July 10 at 12 p.m. Pacific time (3 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. UTC). The winner of the qualifier tournament will join 15 of the world's top chess playe...
The coming world championship match is going to be Magnus Carlsen's biggest challenge since he won his crown. As I mentioned in my recent article, it is the first time he will defend his title against a younger challenger, the 25-year-old Americ...
"We work 25 hours a day." "But there's only 24 hours in a day!" "We just wake up an hour earlier." —Eternal Call, a Soviet TV series (1973-83) Our society's obsession with time knows few bounds. It is the golden age of at...
The English Opening starting with 1.c4 is a modern way to handle the opening phase of the game. This opening is a "flank" opening since it starts with a side pawn rather than the central 1.e4 or 1.d4 moves. Many players from chess history and toda...
Find out who won the major chess tournaments in 2018. Click here for the upcoming Chess Tournament Calendar. Completed 2018 Chess Tournaments: MAY 2018 May 24: Bundesliga Playoff (Baden-Baden, Germany) Despite bringing top guns Fab...
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov's result in the last Candidates' tournament has cemented his position as one of the world's very best players. In a year-old article, we already discussed what makes his chess so sparkling and powerful. Today I would like t...
In the end of October 2000, I played a traditional chess tournament: Cap d'Agde. It was a memorable event for me. First, it is not every day you mingle with such legends as Anatoly Karpov. Also, the way we entered the stage was quite remarkable....
Do you want to be a part of chess history? Well, we all can't win seven in a row at the Sinquefield Cup, like Fabiano Caruana. Or have the highest chess rating of all time, like Magnus Carlsen. But if you want to be a part of something truly h...
The bald eagle is the official bird of the United States, and this weekend, the Eagles are flying home. By virtue of becoming the Eastern Divisional playoff champions, the Armenia Eagles are soaring to San Francisco for the PRO Chess League's semi...
They already span the Mississippi River, and now they're trying to have their championship success cross over into this season. Unlike some of the other teams that qualified for the PRO Chess League's semifinals and finals, many of the Saint Lou...
The tournament of the year is over and we have a deserved winner. The quality of Fabiano Caruana's games was higher than anyone else's in the Candidates' Tournament and he kept his cool throughout the whole competition. Now we all are waiting fo...
Headed to the PRO Chess League's in-person semi-finals and finals in San Francisco April 7-8? You've probably read over the schedule of official events, but that may still leave you worried about how to tailgate before the event and where to host ...
What is the strongest chess country in the world? There are many ways to measure the strongest chess nations. By sheer volume, Russia dominates, with 2,559 titled players, including a remarkable 243 grandmasters. In fact, Russia has more grand...
Magnus Carlsen is the current world champion, and many say he is the best of all time. He certainly looks to be at the peak of his chess powers right now. Eventually, though, someone has to take the world title from him. But who will be the one ...
