I don’t study; I create. Viktor Korchnoi Here I am not going to discuss the technical terms which you can find easily elsewhere. Instead let’s just dive into a position: Question: How should Black recapture the on f6? Option A: Bxf6 Option B: gxf6 In the game Vishy recaptured the pawn with the g pawn […]

Winner of the Moscow Open Men’s Cup of Russia 20-year old Dmitry Gordievsky is speaking of his success with the tournament official website correspondent Alina Bivol. - Hello, Dima. For the second year in a row you’re sharing the first place in the Moscow Open. What’s the secret of your success? - I’ve been participating [...]

After a few days of much needed time at home, we flew on Saturday morning to Munich to play for our team, Munich 1836 (you can follow their tweets here). When we landed back in Doncaster from Amsterdam/Wijk Gawain needed a few days of R&R after such a long tournament. It’s impressive how your body […]

“Help your pieces so they can help you” Paul Morphy This past week one of my level 2 students played the following game over the internet as part of his weekly assignment. He was supposed to practice the Bishop’s Opening if facing 1… e5 and he did do his best. The game does not look […]

The streets in the Paris suburb of Asnières-sur-Seine will have the names of former World Champions Anatoly Karpov and Vladimir Kramnik. The city council adopted the proposal of Mayor Manuel Aeschlimann, a long time chess fan. “Russian players have always been among the best players in the world, consistently achieving brilliant victories in international tournaments [...]

Dmitry Gordievsky (Moscow) and Oksana Gritsayeva (Feodosia) became the winners of the XIII International RSSU Cup, 2017 Moscow Open, which was held in Moscow from January 26 to February 6, 2017. Gordievsky shared the first place with Vladislav Artemiev (Kazan), as both grandmasters scored 7.5 points. Higher tie-breaks were better for the chess player from [...]

At the end of January I played in my first Open tournament at the Nottingham Rapidplay. It went well and I scored 2.5/6 but it wasn’t easy to play against stronger opponents than usual because they make fewer mistakes. Here’s my game against the strongest opponent I played, Shabir Okhai, who now has a 197 […]

World Vice-Champion, RSSU graduator Sergey Karjakin took part in the Award Ceremony of the winners and medalists of the Scool Champions’ and Student tournaments, held within the frames of the XIII International RSSU Chess Cup, 2017 Moscow Open. The Moscow Chess Federation first Vice-President Nikita Kim and the RSSU Rector Natalya Pochinok took part in [...]

Back in the mid 1970s there were a couple of elderly (by my standards at the time) social players at Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club: Henry Coke and the appropriately named Philip Pratt. They played each other every week, rarely if ever taking part in club matches. Henry sat there in silence while Philip prattled […]

The European Individual Chess Championship 2017 will take place in Minsk, Belarus, from 29th May to 11th June 2017, in the Sports Palace, which will be the official venue of the Championship. The event is organized by the National Olympic Committee of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Sports and Tourism of the Republic [...]

It’s been said that chess is 99% tactics. While this isn’t completely true when it comes to more experienced players, it’s often true when it comes to the games of junior players! More experienced players, both young and old, know how to shut down potential tactical plays attempted by their opponents. If a more experienced […]

Lviv will host round robin title tournaments for GM, IM, WGM, WIM norms from 21-26th March at the NTON Hotel in Lviv, Ukraine. Grandmaster Tournament (GM-group), average rating 2401-2475 (former category 7-9 FIDE) GM, IM, WGM, WIM norms possible 10-12 players – round robin 9-11 rounds, or 6-7 players – double robin 10-12 rounds International [...]

"Moscow is the best place for chess players from all over the world, including me. Usually strong players participate in Russian tournaments, here we can gain some experience. Besides, I always spend great time in Moscow, we have many friends here."

The FIDE Events Commission will hold an Internet based FIDE Seminar for International Organizers from 20-23rd March. 1. Participation: Up to 30 participants (by priority) from all Continents. Deadline for registrations is Tuesday 14th March 2017. 2. Schedule: • Monday, 20th March 17:00 to 21:00 Seminar (Part 1) Standard Time Zone: GMT/UTC + 02:00 hour [...]

Hikaru Nakamura won the Tradewise Gibraltar Masters for a third consecutive year after defeating David Antón Guijarro (Spain) in a tense two-game speed playoff. In the regular part of the tournament Antón Guijarro, Nakamura and Yu Yangyi shared the first place with 8,0/10 points each in the field of 255 players. Ju Wenjun from China [...]