Vladimir Kramnik won in style today in Bilbao in the first round, beating the current world #1 Magnus Carlsen. Kramnik (pictured) had a nagging advantage throughout the game, and a small slip from Carlsen was punished in great positional style. I...
Perhaps the most significant story in the run-up to this year’s Olympiad was the Azerbaijan team’s decision to leave out Vugar Gashimov. They paid the price at the chess board (finishing 12th), but there were also more problems between the te...
The Grand Slam Final, a.k.a. the Bilbao Final Masters starts today, as previewed here. The draw has been made, and the order of play is: Sat 9 Oct Round 1 Kramnik v Carlsen Shirov v Anand Sun 10 Oct Round 2 Carlsen v Anand Kramnik v Shirov Mon ...
The second stage of the 2010 Grand Slam Masters Final was officially opened this afternoon in Bilbao, Spain. The opening ceremony took place outside, in beautiful weather and with the world famous Guggenheim museum in the background. The drawing o...
The 2010/11 season of the German chess league, the Schachbundesliga, starts this weekend. The Schachbundesliga is one of the strongest chess leagues, with foreign grandmasters from all around the world competing for 16 teams. The dominant force ...
Tomorrow the new Schachbundesliga season takes off with three encounters of the 7th round and the regular first two rounds on Saturday and Sunday at the venues Baden-Baden, Bremen, Wattenscheid and Aue. The Bundesliga also presents a novelty: all ...
The legendary Latvian grandmaster, contemporary of Mikhail Tal and three times World Senior Champion Janis Klovans passed away on Tuesday. Klovans, nicknamed "Iron John" in Latvia, had turned 75 in April this year. UPDATE: a larger comment by Alex...
It seems that Shirov refuted the Caro-Kann line 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 Ne7 6.0–0 Bg6 7.Nbd2 Nf5 brilliantly against Jobava, but how exactly? And did you know that the 9.g4 Dragon is currently quite popular again? Read it all in Ch...
The Grand Slam Final will take place from 9-15 October in Bilbao, Spain. The qualification process for the Grand Slam Final has become rather distorted this year, with Magnus Carlsen winning three of the four qualification events (Corus, Nanjing ...
Saturday October 2nd at the Max Euwe Centrum in Amsterdam the first copies of Harold van der Heijden's Endgame Study Database IV were officially presented to Yochanan Afek and Jan Timman. With 76,132 studies it is the world's largest collection of...
New: Chess Blueprints: Planning in the Middlegame. This book by professional chess teacher and author Nikolay Yakovlev is a rich collection of strategic tips and psychological advice to help you conduct the attack, thwart your opponent’s aggres...
Now that the 39th Chess Oympiad is over, many of you might be suffering from a chess overdose. But we bet that even more chess fans are thinking right now: what's next? It's time to look forward again, as many big chess events are scheduled for th...
Ukraine took the gold medal in the 39th Chess Olympiad with a final round 2-2 draw with Israel, where all games were drawn. Russia also only managed a draw with Spain, despite Kramnik beating Shirov on top board. A loss by Svidler to Ivan Salgado...
Ukraine won the gold medals at the Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk after four draws with Israel in the last round. Russia took silver after a 2-2 against Israel, who edged out Hungary on tiebreak to win bronze. Final report that includes the news that...
The Internet Chess Club (ICC) has begun offering brand-new instructional videos to the general public. The videos cover mainly opening play and we're told videos can be bought for as low as $0.99 cents each. Seems very reasonable.According to sour...
Winning their tenth match 4-0 against Bulgaria, the Russian women team have secured their first Olympic gold medal with a round to spare. In the open section Ukraine still leads by a point before the last round, which will be played on Sunday. Ge...
The winners of the 2010 Women's Olympiad are Russia, who have claimed the gold medal with a round to spare. The clinched the title in style with a 4-0 thrashing of Bulgaria. The Russian team consisted of sisters Tatiana and Nadezdha Kosintseva, ...
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has invited Anatoly Karpov to become FIDE Vice President and accepted his opponent's suggestion to increase the number of games in World Championship matches. Silvio Danailov not only got elected ECU President, but FIDE Vice Pre...
New in stock a unique book: The KGB Plays Chess . This book opens up the most secret pages of the history of chess for the first time. Boris Gulko, Viktor Kortchnoi and former KGB Lt. Col. Vladimir Popov tell their moving story of the Soviet s...
Despite Vassily Ivanchuk's first loss in Khanty-Mansiysk, against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Ukraine beat Azerbaijan to remain the sole leader at the Olympiad. Russia and France follow with a point less and two rounds to go. After another win the Russ...
We return to Magnus Carlsen's modelling career once more, as the time has come that his photos are actually reaching us. In shops, in magazines and... at bus stops. Have you spotted them already?On July 7th we reported that next to his chess activ...
All good things come to an end, and Vassily Ivanchuk's hot streak at the Olympiad was finally ended decisively by a Shak attack! Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan beat Chucky, but wins by Eljanov and Efimenko ensured a team victory for Ukraine. ...
Ukraine remains the sole leader at the Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk after drawing the top match with Russia 2-2. Sergey Karjakin won against his former compatriot Pavel Eljanov, while Zahar Efimenko scored a point for Ukraine, against Vladimir Mala...
What are the pros and cons of Nakamura's 9...Ne8 against Kramnik's 9.Nd2 in that fascinating King's Indian at the Olympiad? Is Short's handling of the Max Lange Attack something you should add to your repertoire? In ChessVibes Openings #91 you can...
