The 1st Metropolitan International is running from August 17th to August 21, 2011 in Los Angeles, California, USA. 86 players compete in the 9-round Swiss open which is valid for FIDE title norms. Top seeded are reigning British champion GM Michael Adams (ENG), GM Loek van Wely (NED) of Netherlands and winner of the Chicago Open GM Timur Gareev.

Στο αφιέρωμα της νέας Ελληνικής τηλεόρασης «Σαν σήμερα.» παρουσιάζονται διάφορα ιστορικά γεγονότα μεταξύ των οποίον γίνετε αναφορά και στον Κουβανό Παγκόσμιο Πρωταθλητή Χοσέ Ραούλ Καπαμπλάνκα!Ευχαριστώ τον κ...

[Apologies to John Lennon.] Can I tell you how much I'm not looking forward to doing a new install and moving all the content over? MySQL or not, it's going to be a nightmare. This is what I see every time I log in here: "You've written 2,112 entries with 94,334 comments." Only a few hundred of those comments are from the recent spam deluge, when Movable Type's filters finally lost the battle...

The French Chess Championship takes place 14th-27th August 2011. There was a last minute withdrawal of Vladislav Tkachiev, presumably now busy with his whychess website, but still a bit odd it was so late. There is a delay to the broadcast of the moves on the internet to help prevent the players cheating. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Andrei Istratescu started with 4/6.

The 13th Sants Open has an interesting field with Jan Smeets as the top seed and there is also a rare outing for Matthew Sadler. World Junior Champion Dariusz Swiercz also competes.

Michael Adams, Loek van Wely etc play in the first Metropolitan FIDE Invitational. Ankit Gupta and the Metropolitan Chess Club in Los Angeles have organised many rated events this year but this is by far and away the strongest. Sadly no games available so far but they are looking to fix some problems and files should be available late Friday and live coverage over the weekend on Monroi. There are...

The 26th Universiade or World University Games takes place in Shenzhen, China. This is a large multi-sport event. The chess section has rapid sections for men and women, a team prize consisting of an aggregation of scores from these events is also awarded. Li Chao has already won the men's gold medal with a start of 7.5/8 a point and a half clear of the field going into Sunday's final round...

The 26th Universiade or World University Games took place in Shenzhen, China. This was a large multi-sport event. The chess section had swiss sections for men and women, a team prize consisting of an aggregation of scores from these events is also awarded. Li Chao won the men's gold medal with 8.5/9 2 points clear of the field going into Sunday's final round. Games are available in a viewer but...

Viktor Korchnoi won one of a number of events commemorating the centenary of the birth of Mikhail Botvinnik who was born August 17th 1911. This rapid event which took place alongside the Vladimir Open in Suzdal saw players who had competed against Botvinnik play and Yuri Averbakh, the oldest GM in the world act as arbiter. Korchnoi finished a point clear of Evgeni Vasiukov. Anand, Carlsen...

Viktor Korchnoi won one of a number of events commemorating the centenary of the birth of Mikhail Botvinnik who was born August 17th 1911. This rapid event which took place alongside the Vladimir Open in Suzdal saw players who had competed against Botvinnik play and Yuri Averbakh, the oldest GM in the world act as arbiter. Korchnoi finished a point clear of Evgeni Vasiukov. Anand, Carlsen...

A couple of posts ago, I linked to the Wikipedia page for former world chess champion Mikhail Botvinnik (1911-1995); I'd also commend this article on the ChessBase news page as well, published a couple of days ago on the 100th anniversary of his birth. Botvinnik was a great player, but his broader contributions to the game make him an even greater figure in our game. He was the first really deep...

Alexander Morozevich's return to form continued with a 2nd place in the Russian Championship and a final round win against the already crowned champion Svidler. Malcolm Pein takes a look at this game.

Alexander Morozevich's return to form continued with a 2nd place in the Russian Championship and a final round win against the already crowned champion Svidler. Malcolm Pein takes a look at this game.

After six of eleven rounds, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Andrei Istratescu lead with 4 points apiece, half a point ahead of three other players and a full point ahead of a group that includes Sebastien Feller. (Three points more than he deserves.) More here.

(That's a senior event memorializing Mikhail Botvinnik, not an event for Mikhail Botvinnik, Senior.) Viktor the terrible - Viktor Korchnoi - is at it again. True, it was "only" a senior event, but still: he's the oldest player there and he keeps winning. His score of 7/9 (TPR: 2637) put him a full point ahead of Evgeni Vasiukov (perhaps best known as the victim of Tal's hippopotamus-in-the-marsh...