Hans Renette, in his biography of Henry Bird which I reviewed last week, reports that, on about 1 June 1874, three weeks before Staunton’s death, Staunton, Bird and Ignaz Kolisch discussed the Sicilian Defence over dinner. “Ignaz who?”, you might ask if you’re not familiar with 19th century chess history. There’s another relatively new (2015) […]

Το Σάββατο 3 Ιουνίου 2017 και ώρα 17:30 μ.μ. διοργανώνεται το ράπιντ τουρνουά «ROYAL CHESS 2», με διεθνή αξιολόγηση έλο. Θα είναι ανοιχτό τουρνουά με ελβετικό σύστημα επτά γύρων σε δύο γκρουπ και έκτακτη συνδρομή 10,00€. Θα δοθούν...

In the first two articles in this series, we talked about pawns and minor pieces, specifically, what to do with them at the start of the game. The opening, the first ten to fifteen moves, is the foundation you build the rest of your game upon. Build that foundation right and you’ll set yourself up […]

The FIDE World Youth U14, U16 & U18 Chess Championships 2017 (open and girls) will be held in Montevideo, Uruguay, from 16th of September (arrival) until 26th of September (departure) 2017. The Championships will be organized and held under the auspices of the Uruguayan Chess Federation (FUA), the Confederation of Chess for Americas (CCA) and [...]

The Russian chemical holding “PhosAgro” is pleased with the cooperation with the Russian Chess Federation (RCF), the company’s CEO Andrey Guryev stated for TASS. The company provides annual sponsorship to RCF in the amount of 30 million rubles (approx 480,000 EUR). PhosAgro is not directly supporting FIDE, but they have sponsored the last two world [...]

Elista FIDE Office circulated that no Iranian registered players or arbiters can take part in any FIDE rated tournament until further notice. Following the decision of the FIDE Presidential Board, the Iranian Chess Federation’s membership of FIDE has been suspended until full payment has been received by FIDE regarding the Women’s World Championship held in [...]

If chess has analogies with any physical sport it would probably be tennis. Serving can be likened to playing White and the return of serve is like playing Black. Serve and volley players are similar to those with sharp openings who rush out at their opponents whereas others prefer to win games from the baseline. […]

Argentinian Grandmasters Sandro Mareco and Leandro Krysa have qualified for the 2017 FIDE World Cup that will start from 2nd September in Tbilisi, Georgia. The FIDE Zonal 2.5 Championship 2017 was held from 30th April to 8th May in Villa Martelli, Vicente López, Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The event was organized by Chess Martelli, [...]

The 47th International Chess Tournament “Bosna 2017″ is scheduled to take place from 13-19th May at the Hotel Saraj in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The tournament is sponsored by Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canton Sarajevo, Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ministry of Civils Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, City of Sarajevo and [...]

I feel like this is a subject I can write about. If you don’t know much about my chess abilities then I’ll start with the history of my chess career. I grew up in NZ and my dad Temu played chess and still does. He’s about 1700 on a good day! I learnt relatively late […]

This was ‘only’ a blitz game but it was interesting to see how far Garry Kasparov prepared. His 10.Ba3 is rare and Wesley So’s answer, 10…c5, is a whole lot rarer. Even so Kasparov played 11.g3 very quickly, and it had a distinct look of having been prepared. It’s interesting that even blitz games feature […]

World Championship challenger Sergey Karjakin has signed his seventh sponsorship contract, becoming the ambassador of the brand BC “Fonbet”. Manager Kyrillos Zangalis announced on facebook that another three large corporations are in negotiations with Karjakin team. Zangalis added that nobody could have imagined such success in 2011 when he first talked with Karjakin about the [...]

The 2017 Croatian Cup is taking place from 10-14 May, in Mali Losinj, Croatia. The event is a 6-round Swiss team championship and a total of 25 teams will be competing. Top teams are SK Zagreb (Zagreb), SK Liburnija (Rijeka) and GSK Solin-Cemex (Solin). Official website

In practice it has been shown that a bishop is usually stronger than the knight because of its mobility, but there are always some exceptions. Do remember that in such endgames position of the kings and pawn structure matters a lot. Here are some general pieces of advice with instructive examples: The pawns are both […]

The 26th Annual Chicago Open will be held over Memorial Day weekend from May 25-29, 2017, at the Westin Chicago North Shore Hotel, 601 North Milwaukee Ave, Wheeling, Illinois. The event has 8 sections: Open, Under 2300, Under 2100, Under 1900, Under 1700, Under 1500, Under 1300 and Under 1000. The Open Section is a [...]