The “26th Ferdowsi Cup” International Chess Festival will be held in “Mashhad, Iran” from March 2-9. The festival consists of three open tournaments: Tournament A For players with a FIDE rating higher than 2000. Tournament B For players with a FIDE rating lower than 2001. Tournament C For players under 14 years old. The total [...]

16th international Chess Festival will be held from 3 to 4 March in Nancy. On Saturday 3 of March 2018 : BLITZ- 11 games 4 min. + 2 sec/move. On Sunday 4 of March 2018 : RAPID- 9 games 15 min. + 3 sec/move. More then 200 players are expected. The top seeded are GM [...]

This was a game I played in the Yorkshire intercity league, The Woodhouse Cup. I was Black in the London System and managed to gain the bishop pair and a better pawn structure on move 4. This gave me an advantage which I soon lost. A common feature in these Q pawn positions is the […]

The 16th International Chess Festival Aeroflot Chess Open 2018 was held in Moscow from 19 to 28 February. In the A tournament 92 players took part. The winner is GM Vladislav Kovalev with 7 points out of 9 who also qualifies for Dortmund supertournament. He was leading during the whole tournament and with draw in [...]

Eight rounds of the International chess festival Aeroflot Open 2018 have been played in Moscow. In the main tournament, Vladislav Kovalev (Belarus) defeated Amin Tabatabaei (Iran) to take the sole lead with 6.5 points once again. Vladislav Artemiev, Igor Lysyj, Dmitry Gordievsky (all from Russia), Tigran L. Petrosian, Gabriel Sargissian (both from Armenia), Victor Bologan [...]

The 2018 Spring Chess Classic is a 10-player round-robin tournament taking place from 6-14 March in the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, USA. Players receive 90 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes to the end of the game, with a 30-second increment starting from move one. No draw offers are [...]

The Brazil Open – Poços de Caldas is a 6-round Swiss tournament taking place from 2-4 March 2018. Players receive 90 minutes for the entire game, plus a 30-second increment starting from move one. 110 players are expected to take part. The top seeded players are GM Sevag Krikor Mekhitarian, GM Amorim Evandro Barbosa, IM [...]

The 33rd GAMMA Reykjavik Open is a 9-round Swiss tournament taking place from 6-14 March 2018. The event gathers together around 250 players, including 2700 players Eljanov and Rapport. The top prize is €5,000. The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves then 30 minutes to the end of the game, with a 30-second [...]

The 3rd Annual George Washington Open was held from February 23-25, 2018, at the Westin Tysons Corner, 7801 Leesburg Pike (VA-7), Falls Church, Virginia. The event featured five sections: Major, Under 2100, Under 1800, Under 1500 and Under 1200. The Major section had 44 participants. Grandmaster Alexander Shabalov took a clear first place with 4,5/5 [...]

The “Accentus Young Masters 2018” will take place in the historic building “Hotel Schloss” in Bad Ragaz from February 27th to March 8th. In this nine-round invitation tournament, four young Swiss players will meet six strong competitors from five nations. The tournament is supported by the Swiss Chess Federation (SSB) in collaboration with the club [...]

ISF, the International School Sport Federation, has organized the Gymnasiade since 1974 and in 2016 added chess to the list of sports included. Morocco organizes the 17th Gymnasiade, the first to take place on the African continent. The chess discipline includes two tournaments, one for boys and one for girls. In each case players must [...]

The backward pawn is a pawn whose peers on the adjacent files have moved forward. This means that the pawn can not longer be defended by pawns, so if the opponent attacks it it must be defended by pieces. One more important point about the backward pawn is that if it can be advanced safely […]

The CXC Brazil Open was a 6-round Swiss tournament which took place from 23-25 February 2018 in Curibita. 108 players took part in the tournament. The winner is GM Everaldo Matsuura with 5,5 points out of 6. In the last round he made a draw against FM Luciano Souza Adwilhans, which was enough for him [...]

32nd International chess open Pierre & Vacances was held from 19 to 25 February in Cannes. The open will was divided in 3 sections. In the A tournament they were 82 players. The winner is GM Rui Gao with 7 points out of 9 and better tie-break from the second GM Jinshi Bai. There were [...]

The Paraguayan Women’s Championship was a 7-round Swiss tournament which took place from 23-26 February 2018 in Luque. Two players were clearly above the others, WIM Jennifer Rodriguez Perez and WFM Gabriela Vargas. The made draw between each other and won all their games. So the Championship had to be decided by a blitz match [...]