After more than six hours of play, it seemed that the round would end with all peaceful results, but a dramatic finish left Topalov at the top of the leaderboard. The start of the round was very promising as several of the games were very complicated. Both Caruana – Vachier-Lagrave and Svidler – Nakamura were [...]

Having a particular advantage is not always enough to win at chess. Sometimes you need to transform it into a different type of advantage in order to win. Here are some examples: Relinquishing material for a decisive penetration White has an outside passed pawn but that alone is not enough to win. But he can […]

Houdini catches up with Komodo

The Melbourne Chess Club is the oldest chess club in the Southern Hemisphere which celebrated its 150th birthday on the 4th of August. The Club celebrated with a small dinner of pizza’s and snacks before the lecture that was given by IM Guy West, a multiple club champion. He showed us games from three different [...]

It appears that even chess players are not fans of Mondays, as round 4 of the 2016 Sinquefield Cup saw five quiet draws. Levon Aronian and Fabiano Caruana drew very quickly, as the former was ill and did not feel up to the task. The game between Hikaru Nakamura and Veselin Topalov was the only [...]

Developing story

My son and I have been watching the Chess24 video commentary on the Sinquefield Cup and very entertaining it has been too. I don’t follow top level chess too closely but this may now change. Something that has interested me has been the recent relative fortunes of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Anish Giri. They are both […]

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Live games with analysis

Obiettivo Risarcimento Padova from Italy has completed the registration for 2016 European Chess Club Cup. The powerful lineup will surely vie for one of the top places in the Open section. Obiettivo Risarcimento Padova: Levon Aronian Maxime Vachier-Lagrave Boris Gelfand Peter Leko Etienne Bacrot Daniele Vocaturo Alberto David Danyyil Dvirnyy Cristiano Quaranta – captain The [...]

Day three of the 2016 Sinquefield Cup was very peaceful, but not without some fireworks. Much to everyone’s surprise, Topalov blundered a simple tactic right out of the opening, but his opponent, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, did not find the most precise continuation and only drew the game.Anish Giri got extremely adventurous against Ding Liren, but the [...]

The solution to last Monday’s problem is that White can get a big advantage by playing 1. Qb5! This is much better than 1. Qxb6 which also leads to an advantage. After 1. Qb5 the Black King is trapped in the centre, with all of White’s pieces attacking it. This week’s problem is about how […]

The 23rd International Chess Festival “Liepajas Rokade 2016″ was held from 4-7th August at the Hotel Fontaine Royal in Liepaja, Latvia. The Festival consisted of Open Rapid, Blitz, Team and Super Rapid tournaments. Eight players with the average elo 2633 competed in the round-robin Super Rapid tournament. Grandmasters Daniil Lintchevski and Arturs Neiksans shared the [...]

O Henri Grob γεννήθηκε το 1904 στην Αυστρία και πέθανε το 1974. Το μεγαλύτερο κομμάτι της ζωής του το έζησε στην Ελβετία, την οποία εκπροσώπησε σε 3 Σκακιστικές Ολυμπιάδες, το 1927 στο Λονδίνο, το 1935 στη Βαρσοβία και ως ο κορυφαίος...

The 9th Arad International Chess Festival is taking place from 6-12th August in Continental Hotel in Arad, Romania. The Festival consists of Railway Bank – Astra Open with 247 participants, U10 Open, U8 Open and a number of side events: FIDE rated Blitz tournament, Fischer Random tournament, bughouse and blitz pairs tournaments, tennis-table tournament. The [...]