New in our shop: The Koltanowski Phoenix Attack. In this strategy guide for Colle players, David Rudel proposes a new idea, meeting 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.e3 e6 4.Nbd2 c5 5.c3 Nc6 6.Bd3 Bd6 7.O-O O-O with 8.dxc5 Bxc5 9.b4! Putting the fire back into a classic chess opening. The future of the c3-Colle!

New in our shop: Play the Benko Gambit. In this book, Nicolai V. Pedersen presents a complete repertoire for Black. He examines the critical main lines, the tricky sidelines and also explains how to meet the various options White has of avoiding the Benko. One of Black’s most dynamic openings!

In the late 1980s and early 90s I got to spend some time with David Bronstein. I might write some more about this at a later date, for now here’s a wonderful description of one of his games by Yasser Seirawan. Of course it would be nice to have some moves as well so here [...]

Polgar, Caruana, Gashimov, Ivanchuk, Radjabov, Morozevich… είναι μερικοί από αυτούς που έχουν περάσει στον επόμενο γύρο. Οι συμμετέχοντες εξακολουθούν να είναι πάρα πολλοί. Κανείς δεν μπορεί να είναι σίγουρος για το ποιος θα κερδίσει τελικά το...

Which is today for most of us. It's a double round-robin rapid event in Moscow Friday and Saturday featuring just four players, but when the quartet comprises Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik, it's enough! An interesting feature is that the players will sometimes come out when it isn't their move and offer commentary to the audience on the game they're...

13 matches go to a tie-break on Friday including 4 of the 6 top seeds: Karjakin, Mamedyarov, Ponomariov and Grischuk. Vallejo, Bacrot and Felgaer all recovered from game one losses to take their matches in to play-offs. Judit Polgar beat Sergei Movsesian and Gata Kamsky beat Rustam Kasimdzhanov. Morozevich beat Fier 2-0 and Vladimir Potkin who is looking in great form eliminated Alexei Shirov by...

13 matches go to a tie-break on Friday including 4 of the 6 top seeds: Karjakin, Mamedyarov, Ponomariov and Grischuk. Vallejo, Bacrot and Felgaer all recovered from game one losses to take their matches in to play-offs. Judit Polgar beat Sergei Movsesian and Gata Kamsky beat Rustam Kasimdzhanov. Morozevich beat Fier 2-0 and Vladimir Potkin who is looking in great form eliminated Alexei Shirov by...

Ο Σκακιστικός Όμιλος Νέας Φιλαδέλφειας διοργανώνει το τέταρτο Φθινοπωρινό ανοικτό σκακιστικό τουρνουά του Σ.Ο.Ν.Φ. . Θα διεξαχθεί με ελβετικό σύστημα 7 γύρων, σύμφωνα με τους όρους της προκήρυξης, τον Κανονισμό της ΕΣΟ...

Today was an especially good day for Etienne Bacrot, Francisco Vallejo Pons, and Ruben Felgaer as they each bounced back from losses on day 1 of the second round (to Anton Filippov, Lazaro Bruzon Batista, and Yaroslav Zherebukh respectively) 2 to win today and force tiebreaks. For Vallejo it must have been especially sweet, given his spectacular collapse in the first game. (Ironically, in this...

On the second day of the World Cup’s second round, Zoltan Almasi and Alexei Shirov were eliminated by Mircea-Emilian Parligras and Vladimir Potkin respectively. Sam Shankland, who knocked out Peter Leko, lost 0.5-1.5 to Abhijeet Gupta. Ivanchuk, Gashimov, Radjabov, Kamsky, Jakovenko, Vitiugov, Navara, Dominguez, Le, Jobava, Caruana Morozevich, Tomashevsky, Efimenko, Sutovsky and Polgar...

On the new FIDE ratings list of September 1st, 2011 Alexander Morozevich made a huge jump. Winning 43 points, the Russian grandmaster climbed from place 48 to 17. In the top 10 Kamnik and Karjakin switched places, Grischuk and Kamsky are back in while Nakamura and Mamedyarov are out. Winning 2 modest rating points in [...]

Malcolm Pein looks at Robson against Bacrot final game and Jobava - Guliyev from the first round of the FIDE World Cup.

WHO: Galkin,Alexander(2598) – Kramnik,Vladimir(2781) Kramnik surely needs no introduction, known for his magnificent positional play, he reigned as World Champion from 2000-2007. Currently running at number 4 in the live ratings. Galkin – Born 1979, Won the 1999 World Junior championship. Not much is known about his life but I am lead to believe he’s more [...]

Malcolm Pein looks at Robson against Bacrot final game and Jobava - Guliyev from the first round of the FIDE World Cup.

The Botvinnik Memorial in Moscow is a 5 day event commemorating the centenary of former World Chess Champion Mikhail Botvinnik's birth. Taking place 1st-5th September. At the heart on 2nd-3rd September is a two day rapid double rounder with the top 4 in the world, Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik. A women's event is alongside. There are additional simuls and...