For the ChessBase founders it is not easy to determine the exact date when their company was born, but in the end they decided that it was on May 19th, 1986. In other words: exactly 25 years ago. We congratulate the Hamburg based company with reaching this wonderful milestone. Today, for a period of 24 [...]

Boris Gelfand and Alexander Grischuk start their match in just a few hours. It's a best-of-six game match this time around (not counting the rapid and blitz tiebreaks, if necessary), and I hope that whatever the result, Grischuk either loses or wins a game before the tiebreaks this time around. It strikes me as slightly absurd that he could win the entire Candidates event without winning a single...

For the sake of completeness I've included them here, with brief notes.

In St. Louis, both matches' games ended in draws. Ponomariov seemed to equalize without any real trouble with Black in a Berlin sideline, while Robson-Finegold was a Philidor that ended in a perpetual check after 29 moves. Thus Ponomariov and Robson lead their respective matches with 1.5-.5 scores. In Havana, Andreikin-Le Quang Liem and Dominguez-Ivanchuk were drawn, while Navara ground down poor...

Candidates Matches 2011 live games with computer analysis. The final games will be analysed by the new version of the Stockfish 2.1 engine, with estimated ELO of 3150.

The Asian Youth currently held at Subic Bay has just passed the halfway mark of 5 rounds with 4 more rounds to go. India looks to be the dominating force with 17 of their players in top 10 positions in the 6 age group categories. Vietnam and Iran have 9 players in the top 10 and host country Philippines have 7 players in the top 10.

The Capablanca Memorial takes place 10th-24th May 2011. Ivanchuk, Dominguez, Navara, Bruzon, Le and Andreikin play.

The 3rd International Grandmasters' Tournament the Lublin Union Memorial is taking place on 15-21st May in Lublin, Poland. Eight Grandmasters play in the round-robin tournament with the average elo of 2680.

Ruslan Ponomariov in spite of fighting off jet-lag handed out a bit of a beating to Hikaru Nakamura in a King's Indian Defence in game 1 of 6 of their Classical Chess Match. Nakamura could not have been more critical of his own play and promised that he really couldn't play any worse in the remaining games of the match. Ray Robson beat Ben Finegold in the second match. Video interviews available...

Αύριο στις 2 το μεσημέρι ώρα Ελλάδας αρχίζει η πρώτη από τις έξι παρτίδες κανονικού χρόνου που θα παιχτούν στο τελικό ματς διεκδικητών. Ο αειθαλής Boris Gelfand και ο Sasha Grischuk θα αγωνιστούν με έπαθλο την ευκαιρία να παίξουν...

Ruslan Ponomariov in spite of fighting off jet-lag handed out a bit of a beating to Hikaru Nakamura in a King's Indian Defence in game 1 of 6 of their Classical Chess Match. Nakamura could not have been more critical of his own play and promised that he really couldn't play any worse in the remaining games of the match. Ray Robson beat Ben Finegold in the second match. Video interviews available...

The European Individual Women's Championships took place 6th-18th May 2011 in Tbilisi. Viktorija Cmilyte took clear first with 9/11 half a point clear of Antoaneta Stefanova on 8.5. Elina Danielian edged out Svetlana Matveeva for bronze on tie-break after both finished on 8/11. and Bela Khotenashvili have started with 3/3.

In addition to the Candidates and the St. Louis matches, there's a third ongoing event of general interest in the chess world, and that's the 46th Capablanca Memorial in Havana, Cuba. Here are the current standings after 6 of 10 rounds in this double round-robin event: 1-2. Le Quang Liem, Andreikin 4 3. Navara 3.5 4. Ivanchuk 3 5. Dominguez 2 6. Bruzon 1.5 Games, more info and further links here.

The St. Louis Chess Club is sponsoring a pair of concurrent matches featuring their resident stars Hikaru Nakamura and Ben Finegold taking on outstanding opponents. In Nakamura's case, it's 2002 FIDE Champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine, while Finegold is facing 16-year-old American GM Ray Robson, who was a late substitute for Viktor Korchnoi. I was there for the first game (and even...

The 15th Unive Open takes place 14th-22nd October 2011. The main Crown Group (16th Oct 6 Rounds) stars Vladimir Kramnik, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Judit Polgar and Anish Giri. There is a 9 round open alongside.