The participants of the Masters and the Challengers at the Biel Chess Festival were invited to an excursion on the first rest day: a boat trip to picturesque La Neuveville. Saleh Salem and Hail Martyrosian enjoyed the ride by playing a game of blindfold chess, which featured a remarkable tactical finish. Arne Kähler is enjoying […]
Monthly Archives: July 2024
Here are some chess puzzles of a different kind. Some of you might find them very easy, some quite hard. They are at least most entertaining and should bring smiles to your face. Tell us which ones you could master. Next week we will give you the solutions – and show you a video of […]
Running from July 17 to July 24, the highly anticipated third event of the 2024 Champions Chess Tour will feature the world’s top chess players competing for a $300,000 prize pool and a coveted spot in the CCT Finals. Fans can count on the presence of last year’s Tour champion GM Magnus Carlsen, chess.com Classic […]
The 57th Biel Chess Festival kicked off the past weekend, this year extended with a Challengers Tournament. Chess960 and rapid chess were the first events. In the Masters, Armenian GM Haik Martirosyan was the top scorer in the rapid section, while German GM Alexander Donchenko prevailed in the Challengers. | Photo: Biel Chess Festival
The Maroczy structure – named after Hungarian star Geza Maroczy (pictured) – is one of the most popular setups against the Sicilian: White has pawns on e4 and c4 which guarantee a space advantage. Black, on the other hand, has a solid position and good counter-chances, often based on breaking through with …b5 or …d5. […]
The French Defence is one of the most popular openings – very solid against 1.e4, but also leaving room for counterplay and initiative. In a two-volume video course, former World Champion and star trainer Rustam Kasimdzhanov shows you the ins and outs of this hugely complex opening. Or are you looking for an active answer […]
Fabiano Caruana was simply unstoppable at the SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz Tournament in Croatia. The US star claimed his second consecutive victory in a Grand Chess Tour event with five rounds to spare, after entering the final day of action with a 4½-point lead and scoring 3½ points in the first four rounds played on […]
In our previous section on how playing chess may affect your life, we asked our readers to guess whether chess players could expect to live longer or shorter lives, on average, than the rest of the non-chess people surrounding them. Today in the final section of the series, Frederic Friedel and Christian Hesse present some […]
The 57th edition of the Biel Chess Festival is taking place on July 13-26 with its usual mix of elite tournaments, amateur events and attractive side activities. Remarkably, this edition will see two Triathlons taking place simultaneously: the Masters and the Challengers. Praggnanandhaa, Vincent Keymer and Le Quang Liem are the top seeds in the […]
Fabiano Caruana has a 4½-point lead over Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Wesley So going into the final 9 rounds of blitz at the SuperUnited Tournament in Zagreb. MVL was the top scorer on Saturday, as he obtained 6½/9 points after collecting 5 wins, 3 draws and 1 loss. | Photo: Lennart Ootes