Fabiano Caruana took the early lead in the Grand Chess Tour final by beating Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu in the first classical game, capitalising on a single tactical error to collect six points. In the third-place match, Vincent Keymer and Wesley So split the points after a complicated London System ended in a draw. Both matches continue […]
Monthly Archives: August 2026
At its meeting on Monday, the FIDE Council rejected the Russian Chess Federation’s application for its teams to take part in the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian teams have been barred from international sporting events. Russia, however, has continued to push for this decision to be relaxed.
Dear chess friends! This week’s Summer Special offers you a real powerhouse: The Fritz 21 and the Fritz Powerbook 2026 are available this week (until August 30, 2026) for €99.90 – save around €60!!
Fabiano Caruana and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu booked their places in the deciding match of the Grand Chess Tour Finals after prevailing in Monday’s rapid and blitz section of the semifinals in Saint Louis. Praggnanandhaa clinched his match against Vincent Keymer with three games to spare, while Caruana completed an 18-12 win over Wesley So. The finalists […]
Looking for an interesting over-the-board chess tournament to play, attend, or simply watch? There are plenty being staged all over the world, and we bring you an overviews of the most interesting of them – focused mainly on the period after the Chess Olympiad, with events from early October through the beginning of November. We […]
GM Dominik Horvath successfully defended his title at the 2026 Austrian National Championship. With 6½ points, he edged out IM Laurenz Borrmann on tiebreaks, who also scored 6½ points and achieved a grandmaster norm. In the Oberbank Challenger Open, young German IM Ruben Gideon Köllner triumphed with 7½ points. Olga Badelka was the top performer […]
Drama in the second game of the semifinals at the Grand Chess Tour Finals: Vincent Keymer had black against Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, and after a relatively quiet opening the position became increasingly complicated as both players ran short of time. Keymer reached a winning position, but in an almost hopeless situation Praggnanandhaa managed to capture the […]
In 1997, World Champion Garry Kasparov was defeated 3½–2½ by Deep Blue, an IBM supercomputer in New York. The loss in their second encounter marked the first time a machine beat a world champion in a standard tournament play. It was an historic moment that reshaped global perceptions of artificial intelligence. Almost three decades later, […]
Indian grandmasters Vidit Gujrathi and Divya Deshmukh have been named among the 17 recipients of the Arjuna Award for 2025, India’s second-highest sporting honour. The National Sports Awards were announced on 18 August 2026 by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Divya’s selection follows her victory at the 2025 FIDE Women’s World Cup, while […]
In the first classical games of the semifinals at the GCT Finals, Vincent Keymer faced Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. Keymer gave up the exchange in the middlegame, after which enough pieces were traded off to leave him with an inferior position. In the end, he managed to save a draw. Fabiano Caruana was also on the defensive […]