After three rounds Sam Shankland is the sole leader in the Masters tournament at the Prague Chess Festival. With 2.5/3 he is half a point ahead of Nijat Abasov and Radoslaw Wojtaszek, but in round 4 Shankland plays with Black against Wojtaszek and has to defend his lead. The round starts at 15:00 CEST (9:00 […]
Chess is not all about competitiveness, and Gibraltar has become a place that embodies the multi-faceted character of the royal game. Following this vein, FIDE recorded a series of well-produced videos with the participants of the Women’s Grand Prix that came to an end a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy getting to know a bit […]
Computer cheating in online chess is a real plague. Now an Indian billionaire and two Bollywood celebrities have even cheated when they had the chance to play against Vishy Anand at the online charity simul “Checkmate Covid”, an event to help the Indian Red Cross’ COVID-19 relief.
How many different games of chess are possible? Everyone knows it’s a very, very large number. It can be written down in seconds, using just a few digits, is unimaginably huge. Unimaginable? The great scientist Enrico Fermi recommended that we at least try to understand very large numbers, to estimate what they entail. Mathematics professor […]
Unlike other sports, chess allows for players to agree to a draw, be it explicitly or implicitly — for example, by entering a forced line that leads to a threefold repetition. Many workarounds have been proposed to prevent this from happening too often, but at the end of the day, it mostly has to do […]
There are sacs, and there are sacs. This turn of phrase that suggests not all are the same could not be more true of piece sacs in chess. Some are just flat out blitzkrieg tactics to gain material or reach for the jugular, but this one was a long-term attacking sac by Fat Fritz 2 […]
In the last round of the Superbet Chess Classic, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov safely drew Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with the black to secure tournament victory. Wesley So, Levon Aronian and Alexander Grischuk shared second place a full point behind the Azerbaijani. The second event of the tour, the Paris Rapid & Blitz Tournament, kicks off on Friday. | […]
In the winter of 1921/22, Ernst Grünfeld developed a revolutionary chess opening. Almost a hundred years later, the Viennese, who became a professional player out of necessity and joined the NSDAP because of his Jewish-sounding name, is the unlikely star of an exhibition in his hometown. Stefan Löffler visited it. | Photos, if not otherwise […]
On Sunday, the last four of the 19 rounds of the “Gelfand Challenge” were played. After 15 rounds Vincent Keymer from Germany had led the tournament but he only scored 1.5/4 on the final day. This was the chance for the 15-year old Indian Gukesh D., who had started the day two points behind Keymer, […]
The Grand Chess Tour (GCT) has confirmed the field for the Croatia Grand Chess Tour leg that will include four full tour participants and seven wildcards. With legendary World Champions Garry Kasparov and Vishy Anand as well as the World Championship title challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi from Russia the Croatia Grand Chess Tour promises to be […]