The 2nd ECU Congress and the Annual ECU General Assembly will be held in Creta Maris Beach Resort, Creta, Greece from 1st-5th November 2017, concurrently with the European Team Championships. The official venue will be Creta Maris Convention Centre. Schedule: Wednesday 1 November: Arrival of Delegates/Congress Participants Thursday 2 November: Commissions’ Meetings Friday 3 November: [...]

Piece activity is a positional aspect of major importance in a game. Hugh Patterson has written a very nice article about it back in 2014. You can review it HERE Our chess app also covers it extensively in level 5, lessons 10-14 by looking at how the activity of each piece influences the outcome of the […]

Alexander Grischuk is always entertaining speaker in the press meetings. As he became co-leader in the Geneva Grand Prix, Grischuk was interviewed by WGM Anna Burtasova. After explaining why it is good to be tempo down in the reversed Dragon Sicilian, and why do Russians swim in Wijk aan Zee in the middle of winter, [...]

In the fifth round of Geneva Grand Prix Alexander Grischuk scored a win against Pavel Eljanov and caught up with Teimour Radjabov on the top of the crosstable. Grischuk made a good use of black pieces, “The point is that being tempo down is actually to my advantage”, he joked as he explained the subtle [...]

Kramnik is showing his best chess

Live games with analysis

Η όμορφη παραλία του Αρμενιστή - The beautiful beach of Armenistis(* Non-greek speaking visitors, please scroll forward)182 σκακιστές και σκακίστριες από 14 χώρες τιμούν με την παρουσία τους τα 40 χρόνια των Σκακιστικών Εκδηλώσεων «Ίκαρος». Το Ανοιχτό Διεθνές...

Live games with analysis

Here’s a game of mine from the Llandudno Major last week in which I won in a Queen’s Gambit Declined Exchange Variation. After 17…Bxc5 18.bxc5 I got pressure against Black’s weak pawn on b7, but it was difficult to win the position when Black defended the pawn. What I had to do was open a […]

Something I remember from nearly thirty years ago. My friend and colleague Ray Cannon is going through the solution to a tactics puzzle on the demo board. I’m watching at the back of the room together with some parents. One of the dads asks me: “Why is he doing this? They’re never going to reach […]

Τα γραφικά Θέρμα - The picturesque village of Therma(* Non-greek speaking visitors, please scroll forward)Καθώς το 40ο Διεθνές Όπεν "Ίκαρος" 2017 ξεκινά την Κυριακή 9/7 (και αναμένεται ισχυρότερο και πολυπληθέστερο από κάθε άλλη φορά), όσοι βρίσκονται ήδη στην...

While chess has been called both an art and a science, I can’t help but wonder if it’s losing its claim as an art. I was born into a generation who didn’t have cellphones, personal computers, tablets let alone the internet. To a typical teenager, this seems akin to having been born into the dark […]

As always with correspondence chess tournaments it is hard to predict the winner, as some players have more games still in progress than others. One thing I do know for certain is that in the British Championship 2016-18 it will not be me! I finished all my games with 6.5 / 14 (+1 =11 -2). […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Grandmaster Sergey Karjakin in Novo-Ogarevo. The Russian leader congratulated Karjakin on sports achievements, and also thanked him for the development of chess. “I want to thank you for what you are doing to develop chess,” Putin said. Transcript of the part of the conversation: Putin: Sergey Alexandrovich, [...]

Έχει αποσυρθεί εδώ και δώδεκα χρόνια από την αγωνιστική δράση και αφοσιώθηκε σε άλλες δραστηριότητες που πρέπει να ομολογήσουμε πως δεν ήταν και οι πιο πετυχημένες για την υστεροφημία του. Σχετικά πρόσφατα ενώ...