The first day of matches in the champions bracket of PogChamps 3 presented by GRIP6 was an exciting one, with two of the strongest players in the tournament advancing to the semifinals. xQc vs. Sardoche Benjyfishy vs. Daniel Negreanu xQc...
The queen may be the strongest piece in chess, but it sometimes feels like few women besides the fictional Beth Harmon seem to play the game. In the United States, for example, only about one-seventh of the members of the national chess federation...
The seventh day of PogChamps 3 presented by GRIP6 brought us four different matches. Pokimane, xQc, and Logic impressed with their improvement, surprising the audience once more. Pokimane vs. Rubius Daniel Negreanu vs. xQc Rainn Wilson vs. L...
The fifth day of PogChamps 3 presented by GRIP6 brought us another set of thrilling matches. The underdogs were determined to not make their opponents' lives easy, but eventually the higher-rated players prevailed. Michelle Khare vs. Logic Mr...
The fourth day of PogChamps 3 was nothing short of amazing. The unfortunate power outage in Texas caused the much anticipated xQc-Pokimane match to be postponed, but the other two matches more than made up for it. Watching the Rubius-Negreanu ga...
The second day of PogChamps 3 presented by GRIP6 was jam-packed with excitement and wild games. All three matches were full of surprises and unbelievable situations—trust me, you have to see it to believe it. After watching yesterday's bro...
Written by Olya Kaye Playing chess simultaneously against 15 people was no easy feat. I admit, I was nervous. It was the fall of 2009 and I had not played much chess since 2001. My skills were rusty, but I was 25 and daring. You only live once...
The recent Tata Steel tournament was a huge success. The organizers did an outstanding job creating a mixed field of players who are known for sharp, "take no prisoners" kind of chess. Yet, in my opinion, the main reason for the success of this to...
There was an era, a time now frozen in memory, when it seemed like every single time I opened a chess magazine, there was GM Leonid Stein winning a tournament, or he was the subject of a column in a chess newspaper. From the late 1960s to the...
In the introduction to his famous book "Grandmaster Preparation," GM Lev Polugaevsky tells a story that happened on December 17, 1969, when he and ex-world champion GM Mikhail Botvinnik were walking on the streets of Belgrade. Mikhail Botvinnik ...
It's difficult to get a large group of chess players to agree on anything, and time controls are probably not the exception. Could the chess community come together, though, to select the best online time control from a short list of choices?...
In this article, you can find the archive of official rules for all Chess.com events with prize money. Use the table of contents below to jump to a specific event. All prize money events are also subject to the Chess.com Competitive Events Policy ...
The three most important methods of improving your chess skills are games, analysis, and puzzles. Chess.com adds about 1000 new puzzles every day and has recently passed the 200k puzzle threshold. The puzzles are satisfying because they tend to ha...
Stalemate is the biggest miracle in chess—there, I said it. You might disagree and give me dozens of different examples of chess magic and you might be correct too. We all have different definitions of beauty and magic. Yes, when you see o...
Hey, chess lovers! At last, 2020 is behind us and we can look hopefully forward to a new and better year in '21. But before we do that, let's take one last look back and focus on some of the good things that happened around the site in December 20...
Chess.com is excited to announce the winners of the 2020 Chess.com Awards. These awards are an opportunity for the Chess.com community to recognize and celebrate some of the great games, players, creators, moves, and more from 2020. The awards a...
You might know Thomas Brodie-Sangster from "Game of Thrones." However, since you're reading this here on Chess.com, you probably know him from the game of kings—and well, the game of queens! Brodie-Sangster is the brilliant Brit who brought ...
Beth Harmon, the main character of "The Queen's Gambit," not only inspired millions of viewers to pick up the game of chess. Many fans like her not just for her winning moves on the chessboard, but also for her wardrobe. The huge effect that "Th...
In the past few years, I wrote a biography of the seventh world champion, Vasily Smyslov. The first volume, focused on the beginning of his chess career, is now available. I have analyzed hundreds of Smyslov’s games and tracked every step ...
Thanks to the critically acclaimed and insanely popular Netflix series, The Queen's Gambit, based upon Walter Tevis' 1983 book of the same title, Beth Harmon has become a household name. In interviews Tevis talked about his own troubled childhoo...
Ho, ho, ho! 'Tis the season to play chess! Santa's in town, and he's ready to play! Whether you've been naughty or nice, there are five brand new holiday bots that you can challenge here on Chess.com. Play them before they have to go back to the N...
The first Capablanca book that I read was "My Chess Career." In the very first pages, I could see that it was completely different from any chess book that I read before. It was almost like an advertisement where every single sentence was screamin...
There's no doubt about it: "The Queen's Gambit" is a huge hit. With incredible performances by the actors, beautiful sets, and a well-constructed plot, it's no wonder the miniseries is so successful. With 68 million households watching the show in...
For an average beginner, the road to a rating in the range of 1400-1600 is pretty straightforward. Learn as many tactical patterns as possible, get yourself familiar with some basic opening principles, and you are there! Notice, I said that the ro...
