After finishing school in May, 19-year-old Dutch FM Ali Bitalzadeh decided to be a professional player for a year. Two months later, at the Open Dutch Championship, he surprised everybody by winning clear, ahead of 6 GMs and 7 IMs, scoring his thi...
Not long ago I wrote that the young grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is quickly becoming a real threat to Etienne Bacrot's number one position in the French rankings. After winning the Paris Open, Maxime travelled to Hungary to catch first place...
What do you play with White? The solution will be published tomorrow. Yesterday's solution:
"A game of patzers," that's how Radjabov described his victory against Cheparinov, in the fifth round of the Sochi Grand Prix tournament. Besides that game there were six draws, and so Radjabov joined Cheparinov,in the standings, together with Gri...
The great 19th Century English chess player Howard Staunton (pictured) is probably best remembered today for giving his name to the basic standardised design of chess pieces - and less auspiciously for scrupulously avoiding a match with the great ...
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (pictured) is currently the second highest ranked French player at 2681 Elo, just 10 points behind Etienne Bacrot. There have been so many high-quality chess events taking place recently that Maxime's win at the 6th Gy...
What do you play with White? The solution will be published tomorrow. Yesterday's solution:
For the ninth consecutive time, and the eleventh in total, Vishy Anand has won the Rapid World Championship in Mainz: this year in the final he beat Magnus Carlsen 3-1. Morozevich won the match for third place 2.5-1.5 against Judit Polgar. Report ...
Some interesting games, two decisive results and one very dramatic game - that was the fourth round of the Sochi Grand Prix in a nutshell.Radjabov surprised Svidler by playing the Dragon, but in timetrouble the Azeri grandmaster erred. After stron...
Cheparinov Slips To Lose Sole Lead There were two decisive games in round 4 at the Sochi FIDE Grand Prix. Raise a cheer for Mohamad Al-Modiakhi who beat David Navara to get back to a level score. The other loser was Teimour Radjabov ...
Anand Comfortably Beats Carlsen The keenly anticipated final of the 'Rapid World Championship' in Mainz turned out to be a clear victory for the more experienced Vishy Anand (pictured) over his fast improving rival, Magnus Carlsen. The Indian ...
What do you play with White? The solution will be published tomorrow. Yesterday's solution:
Today, Aeroflot winner and Dortmund participant Ian Nepomniachtchi emerged as the winner of the 15th Ordix Open in Mainz, one of the strongest rapid events in the chess calendar.The young Russian (he turned 18 on July 14th) had started with the pe...
The Bulgarian Antoaneta Stefanova (pictured) has won the North Urals Cup in Krasnoturinsk. She won three games against Marie Sebag, Humpy Koneru and Natalija Pogonina and only lost one - to Pia Cramling. The event was the strongest all-wom...
Three months ago, it was also Cheparinov who was making the headlines at the first Grand Prix in Baku. There he started with 0 out of 4, but here in Sochi he's doing much better: with 2.5 points he's the sole leader after three rounds! First seede...
The showpiece event of the Chess Classic Mainz Festival, the Rapid World Championship between Vishy Anand (pictured), Alexander Morozevich, Magnus Carlsen and Judit Polgar reaches it's finale today. The results from the first 2 days of the group...
All the current chess events not enough for you? Then why not check out the Villarrobledo Chess Festival. This rapid Open tournament in Spain has a very strong field which includes Topalov (pictured), Ponomariov, Mamedyarov, Shirov, ...
Chess prodigies are so good and so young these days that having a 'Junior' World Chess Championship for them almost seems patronising, but the quality of the event justifies it's continued existence. Former illustrious World Junior Champions inc...
Kamsky Falters To Hand Cheparinov The Lead We've all done it. You're winning nicely against an opponent and then you blow it all away. Cheparinov (pictured) was the recipient of this good fortune in the 3rd round of the Grand Prix in...
What do you play with White? The solution will be published tomorrow. Yesterday's solution:
In this second report on the Mainz Chess Classic, we'll look at Chess960 one more time. Yesterday, Hikaru Nakamura, who had won the ICC qualifier to Mainz, finished first at the the FiNet Open - you know, that huge Fischerrandom rapid chess tourna...
It was a strange sight, at five minutes past three: only half of the players were sitting behind their boards. Fortunately everybody arrived in the end (last was Jakovenko, 12 minutes late) to create a good round, with wins by Aronian, Cheparinov ...
The recently released newest incarnation of the strongest chess engine in the world, Rybka 3, took the Chess960 Computer World Chess Championship title at Mainz by beating Shredder 11 in the final. Rybka is the brainchild of International Grandm...
Kamsky Joint Leader At Sochi Some exciting chess in the second round as the competition really got going. Gata Kamsky (pictured) clashed with Vassily Ivanchuk in a Sveshnikov Sicilian theoretical battle and came out on top against the Ukra...
