Wesley So, Awonder Liang and Jeffery Xiong scored victories with the white pieces in the opening round of the US Championship in Saint Louis, while defending champion Fabiano Caruana drew his game against Levon Aronian in just 17 moves. In the women’s tournament, four lower-rated players claimed victories, including Rachael Li, who benefited from a […]
Monthly Archives: October 2026
In recent years, Robert Ris has made a name for himself as a creator of opening courses. He also hosts a regular ChessBase show on opening trends, in which he examines the latest developments. Lukas Köpl has taken a closer look at Ris’s opening courses and offers an assessment.
The 2026 US Chess Championships are taking place on 9-21 October at the Saint Louis Chess Club. Each tournament is a 12-player single round-robin with a classical time control. Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and Levon Aronian are the highest-rated players in the open, while Carissa Yip, Alice Lee and Irina Krush (pictured) head the women’s […]
Fabiano Caruana has won the US Championship five times, including four consecutive titles from 2022 to 2025. His first victory came on his debut in 2016, shortly after returning to the US federation. At the 2026 edition in Saint Louis, Caruana can equal Samuel Reshevsky’s record of five consecutive titles and, with a sixth overall […]
Christian Gloeckler is the sole leader of the Fagernes International Autumn after seven rounds. The 14-year-old German IM defeated Lukas Dotzer on Thursday to reach 6/7, while Rinat Jumabayev beat top seed Elham Amar to move into clear second place on 5½ points. Gloeckler and Jumabayev have already met, as they drew their round-four encounter […]
How can I improve at chess, increase my Elo rating or become an International Master or Grandmaster? Or, more generally, how can I become an expert in any field? The YouTube channel Veritasium provides some answers. | Photo: Screenshot from the Veritasium video. Here, Veritasium quotes from the video Magnus Carlsen’s Mind-Blowing Memory, published by […]
This is not an advertisement! The ‘amateur move’ 3.Bc4 (without a subsequent d2-d4) against the Sicilian Defence, combined with a setup resembling the Italian Game, is becoming increasingly popular. Even top professionals are now using this system successfully, first in online blitz and now also in classical over-the-board games. At the Chess Olympiad, Michael Adams […]
The Chess Bundesliga, a.k.a. German League, kicks off its 2026/27 season this coming weekend. Last season’s champions SC Viernheim and OSG Baden-Baden are the favourites to win the title. SV Erkenschwick 1923 will be making their debut in the league, while the other two promoted teams from the second division – SF Bad Mergentheim and […]
Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has met newly elected FIDE President Timur Turlov to discuss the development of chess in the country and future cooperation with FIDE. Their talks covered chess in education, coach and arbiter training, youth development and the organisation of major events. Tokayev also highlighted Kazakhstan’s recent progress, including the women’s team’’s silver […]
Two Olympiads, thirteen wins, seven draws, no defeats, two individual gold medals and a team bronze – Frederik Svane’s Olympiad record is impressive. At the 2026 Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, he also set a low-key record: never before had a German player won two Olympiad gold medals for the best performance on his board. | […]