What, you may well ask, is the ‘Two Plus Club’? Is this some country club for lonelyhearts, or something of that ilk? Nothing like that. By winning the Candidates tournament for the second straight time, and thus qualifying himself for a second shot at the World title, Ian Nepomniachtchi has joined a very exclusive group […]
Monthly Archives: July 2022
Levon Aronian beat Wei Yi in the finals of the FTX Road to Miami online tournament. By reaching the finals, both Aronian and Wei gained a ticket to the upcoming FTX Crypto Cup in Miami, where the players will meet in-person but will play their games online from individual computers.
In recent months, our columnist Jon Speelman had a couple of run-ins with technology, which have necessitated speaking to help lines, and in both cases he initially asked the wrong questions. A perfect excuse to reflect on those times when there are no forcing moves to make in a chess game — when asking ourselves […]
The “Sparkassen Chess Trophy” started in Dortmund on Saturday. The traditional chess festival still operates in parallel as the “49th International Dortmund Chess Days”. The Deutschland Grand Prix, which starts on Sunday, is the top tournament, but a total of half a dozen tournaments are held as part of the festival. The 1st round of […]
In the ’90s, Igor Naumkin left his native Moscow, as did many other Soviet players, in order to seek playing opportunities at the many tournaments in Europe. Their grandmaster titles would help to get invitations and participation at various opens on the continent and secure a livelihood. Igor passed on July 13, a month before […]
With a win over former sole leader Le Quang Liem, Dommaraju Gukesh took the lead in the Grandmaster Triathlon at the Biel Chess Festival — and at 16 years, 1 month and 17 days he became the third-youngest player in history to cross the magic threshold of 2700 Elo points! | Photos: Biel Chess Festival
In the previous article composer Steffen Slumstrup Nielsen showed us how he strips ideas he has seen in tournament games to construct a proper endgame study. Today he shows us the alternate strategy: massaging the position and the brilliant idea to make it into full-fledged study that at first sight barely resembles the original game. […]
This is the 2nd episode in the series of Olympiad stories with Saravanan. In this episode, we discuss the Madras Tiger Vishy Anand and some of his memorable games at the Olympiad. In discussing the games, Saravanan and Sagar also go into the history of how Vishy developed as a chess player. Saravanan saw the […]
Rating favourites prevailed in the quarterfinals of the FTX Road to Miami online tournament. Levon Aronian and Jan-Krzysztof Duda secured victory ‘in regulation’, after four rapid games, while Richard Rapport and Wei Yi only won in the blitz tiebreakers. In semis, Wei is paired up against Rapport, while Duda is set to face Aronian.
Sam Sevian won the preliminary stage of the FTX Road to Miami online tournament. The US grandmaster collected 32 points in the 15 rounds which took place from Sunday to Wednesday. Arjun Erigaisi and Jan-Krzysztof finished in second and third place respectively, while top grandmasters Anish Giri and Levon Aronian made the cut after a […]