Sensational news today in the chess world as the current #1 ranked player Magnus Carlsen withdrew from the upcoming World Chess Championship cycle in a letter to FIDE. Carlsen had previously withdrawn from the FIDE Grand Prix series which determi...
By declining to play in the 2011 Candidates matches, Magnus Carlsen has decided to step out of the current World Championship cycle. In a letter to FIDE Carlsen expresses his dissatisfaction with the current cycle, like "reigning champion pri...
After 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 the move 7...Nc6 has recently been a popular way to avoid truck loads of Najdorf theory - it was used several times by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. However, last week at the World Youth Championship in Greece several black players f...
Mamedyarov-Nakamura, Karjakin-Gelfand, Shirov-Wang Hao, Aronian-Kramnik and Grischuk-Eljanov - these are the pairings for the first round of the Tal Memorial which starts tomorrow. This was the result of the drawing of lots that took place during ...
The Tal Memorial takes place in Moscow from 5-14 November. Ten players compete in a single round-robin event headed by top seed Lev Aronian, the new world #3. Following straight on from this powerful competition is the World Blitz Championship f...
Should chess journalists be committed to supporting chess bodies like FIDE, their national federations or the European Chess Union? Of course not! Should these bodies support chess players and journalists when they're in serious trouble? You b...
If you appreciate the beauty of chess above all else, and enjoy figuring out devilishly difficult puzzles, then solving chess problems could be for you! The World Chess Solving Championship is one of FIDE's less well known championship events. T...
Just out: New In Chess 2010/7 – with 114 pages of chess delight .Let us wet your appetite with a couple of highlights: - bought votes (and broken promises) at the FIDE congress - genius Ivanchuk leads Ukraine to gold - Maurice Ashley on Magnus Ca...
We already covered the Crown Group of the Unive tournament in Hoogeveen, and promised to write about the Open group in a separate report. Here it is, written by participant IM Robert Ris. "In the top of the rankings an Italian invasion of five you...
This week the official website of Magnus Carlsen was launched. From now on you can find information about the top chess player and fashion model on MagnusCarlsen.com. For the moment it's still pretty basic but we expect more content will be added ...
Now FIDE will surely get complaints that even a two-month rating list is not frequent enough. On the 1 November list World Champion Viswanathan Anand is first and Magnus Carlsen second, because the Pearl Spring tournament wasn't rated yet. Levon A...
To quote Yogi Berra, it was deja vu all over again in the final of the Cap d'Agde rapidplay tournament. Just like last year's event, the finalists were the crowd-pleasing combination of Vassily Ivanchuk and Hikaru Nakamura. However, this time it...
When FIDE recently moved from quarterly rating lists to an increased frequency of every two months it presumably hoped that this would help the ratings stay more current. Unfortunately for them, the calendar of elite chess events, such as it exis...
This year's rapid tournament in Cap d'Agde was won by Vassily Ivanchuk, who beat Hikaru Nakamura in the final 1.5-0.5 yesterday. In doing so the Ukrainian grandmaster took revenge for his loss in the final last year against the same opponent.Photo...
The young French talent Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (pictured) has won the 14th Unive tournament in Hoogeveen the Netherlands. It was an excellent result for Maxime, who won the four player double-round robin event with an undefeated score of 4.5/6 ah...
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won the Crown Group of the Univé Chess Tournament. The French grandmaster finished on 4.5/6 on Saturday, undefeated and a full point ahead of Alexei Shirov. Like last year Anish Giri scored fifty per cent while 2009 winner S...
Magnus Carlsen had already claimed first place in the 2010 Nanjing Pearl Springs Masters, but the minor places were still up for grabs in the final round. The crucial game was between Anand and Bacrot, both level on 5/9 so that the winner would t...
In the last round of the Pearl Spring tournament in Nanjing Viswanathan Anand outplayed Etienne Bacrot in a Nimzo-Indian to clinch second place. Wang Yue started strongly and got a winning position against Veselin Topalov, but then the Chinese ble...
Back from oblivion! The Full English Breakfast is the chess podcast with IM Lawrence Trent and GM Stephen Gordon, and produced by Macauley Peterson, formerly from ICC Chess.FM, but now independent. Each show the trio wax 'philosophical' on...
Magnus Carlsen won the 3rd Pearl Spring tournament in Nanjing with a round to spare. In a slightly worse ending his opponent Veselin Topalov blundered today, and with draws in both Bacrot-Wang Yue and Gashimov-Anand, the Norwegian increased his le...
The Kid is back! After a brief spell of disappointing performances in the Olympiad and Bilbao, Magnus Carlsen has won the Nanjing Pearl Springs Masters 2010 with a round to spare. Carlsen brushed aside Topalov in round nine, first gaining the upp...
In the first round of the Unive tournament in Hoogeveen, Shirov totally crushed the normally rock solid Tiviakov in his favorite 3...Qd6 Scandinavian. The fireworks would fit perfectly into the next volume of Shirov's own games collection, but you...
In round 8 of the Pearl Spring tournament in Nanjing all three games ended in draws before the first time control. Carlsen kept his full point lead in the standings; Anand and Bacrot share second place.General info The third Kanion Cup Nanjing Pea...
At half-time Alexei Shirov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave share the lead in the Crown Group of the Univé Chess Tournament in Hoogeveen, The Netherlands. Both scored 2 points and are followed by Anish Giri, who drew all his games. Last year's winner Se...
