In chess calculation, width is more important than depth. Virtually every decent player can calculate a forced line till the very end. However, only few can sense all the flavours of the position, find all the hidden ideas. To see the exceptions where everybody else only sees the rules. To find something unusual while all […]
Monthly Archives: February 2023
In order to understand openings properly, the middlegame should actually be studied first. Because all plans in the middlegame link directly to the ideas from the opening. Almost everything is hung up on pawn structures. Therefore, IM Herman Grooten takes the club chess player by the hand to take a closer look at common middlegame […]
On Sunday, it was Ukranian day at the WR Chess Masters in Düsseldorf. Six young Ukrainians, who attended the fourth round of the super tournament at the invitation of organizer Vadim Rosenstein, enjoyed the opportunity to meet the participants of the WR Chess Masters. All six come from refugee families who arrived in the Rhineland […]
Uruguay has once again hosted a strong chess tournament, as the sixth edition of the Marcel Duchamp Cup 2023 took place on February 3-11 in Montevideo. After nine intense rounds of competition, GM Alexandr Fier emerged as the champion with an impressive 7½/9 score. The victory cements Fier’s place as one of the top players […]
Levon Aronian continues to lead the standings at the WR Chess Masters, as all five games ended drawn in Sunday’s fourth round. A few of the encounters featured double-edged openings, but accurate defensive responses prevented any of them from finishing decisively. Monday is a rest day in Düsseldorf. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
It was in May 2016 that I launched this column, initially as an Agony Column in which readers could showcase their triumphs and disasters, and today I’m returning to the roots with a couple of my own games. Of course, I care very much when I’m playing, but ‘agony’ and ‘ecstasy’ are too strong for […]
Levon Aronian is now the sole leader at the WR Chess Masters in Düsseldorf. The Armenian ace, representing the United States since 2021, defeated Nodirbek Abdusattorov from the white side of a Sicilian Dragon in a rather lopsided game. Meanwhile, in the one game of the day featuring two youngsters, Praggnanandhaa defeated Vincent Keymer, also […]
Last Monday, Alexandra Kosteniuk (pictured) won the second stage of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix, a 12-player single round-robin that took place in Munich, Germany. GM Karsten Müller followed the games closely, and sent us a selection of thought-provoking endgames. Find here six instructive positions, annotated by our in-house expert. | Photo: Mark Livshitz / […]
Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Dommaraju Gukesh joined Wesley So and Levon Aronian in the lead of the WR Chess Masters after beating Andrey Esipenko and Praggnanandhaa in the super-tournament’s second round. Abdusattorov’s victory featured a demolishing attack, while Gukesh saw Pragg blundering the game away in a double-edged position. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
Wesley So, Levon Aronian and Andrey Esipenko kicked off the WR Chess Masters with wins, as they defeated Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Praggnanandhaa and Vincent Keymer respectively. Out of the three, So was the first one to leave the playing hall with a full point to his name. Aronian and Esipenko needed to work harder to convert […]