A FIDE Arbiters’ Seminar is going to be organized from 15 to 18 March 2016 in Baku, Azerbaijan, by the Azerbaijan Chess Federation and under the auspices of FIDE. The Lecturer will be IA Faik Gasanov (AZE), FIDE Lecturer. The venue of the Seminar will be the Office of the Baku Chess Federation, in Baku. [...]

The FIDE Seminar for International Organizers was held on 5-7 February 2016 in Moscow, Russia. The seminar was co-organized during the festival Moscow Open 2016 by the Russian Chess Federation with the support of FIDE Events’ Commission (EVE). The Lecturer was IO Alexander Kostyev, President of the International School Chess Union. Participants: Andreev Viktor 54134870 [...]

A FIDE Arbiters’ Seminar is going to be organized from 2 to 4 May 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, by the US Chess Federation in cooperation with the Las Vegas Chess Center LLC and under the auspices of FIDE. The venue of the Seminar will be the Las Vegas Chess Center, 3160 S. Valley [...]

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to play the following game the other day. It’s short, clean, simple and, I think, instructive. Watch what happens when my opponent (he’s graded below me and I’ve won both our previous encounters) gets behind in development and doesn’t find time to castle. I had the white pieces […]

The 2016 International Chess Open Graz 2016 took from February 12-19, at Hotel Novapark in Graz, Austria. The event was separated into four different tournaments. The winner of the a 9-round Swiss Open A is Chinese GM Li Chao, who scored 8/9 points to take the first prize in the amount of 1,500 EUR. Hungarian GM Tamas [...]

The SPICE Match between IM Benjamin Gledura and GM Ashwin Jayaram is taking place on February 19-23, at the Webster University. The event is a 6-round match organized by Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence (SPICE). Official website/ Standings and statistics

The 3rd International Rapid Chess Tournament Memory of “Nebesna sotnya” is taking place on 21st February 2016, in Lutsk, Ukraine. The event is organized by the Volyn Region Chess Federation, in collaboration with the Ukrainian Chess Federation in an 11-round Swiss format with the time control 20′ + 5″. Top seed is GM Vladimir Onischuk (2739). Official [...]

Την Δευτέρα 29 Φεβρουαρίου 2016 και ώρα 18:00 μ.μ. ξεκινάει το τουρνουά Κάππα-66, με εθνική και διεθνή αξιολόγηση έλο. Θα είναι ανοιχτό τουρνουά με ελβετικό σύστημα επτά γύρων και παράβολο 20 ευρώ για ενήλικες και 10 ευρώ για...

If I had a dollar for every time I heard a chess player say, “I almost checkmated my opponent,” I’d be writing this from a beach house in Hawaii rather than while sitting in a ratty armchair with a pit bull chewing on my left shoe. I once heard a young player at a junior […]

The 3rd International Blitz Chess Tournament Memory of “Nebesna sotnya” took place on 19th February 2016, in Lutsk, Ukraine. The event was organized by the Volyn Region Chess Federation, in collaboration with the Ukrainian Chess Federation in a 22-round Swiss format with the time control 3′ + 2″. The tournament winner is GM Vladimir Onischuk from [...]

If you haven’t heard of Bunratty, you have been missing out. This fun Irish weekender takes place in a small town (I’m not sure you could even call it that) alongside the N18 the main road between Limerick & Galway. There’s the Bunratty Castle, a couple of souvenir stores and Durty Nelly’s the local pub. […]

“Magnus”, a feature documentary on Norwegian world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, has been snatched up by multiple buyers in Berlin, one of several strong sellers from Scandinavian sales outfit TrustNordisk.

Our dear friend Sevan Muradian passed away on 18th February 2016 at the age of 41. As a well known International Arbiter and International Organizer, Sevan was the driving force of chess development and promotion in the greater Chicago area. He was the founder of the Chess IQ Academy and Chess Center in Chicago, USA, [...]

Although I’m not a big fan of blitz for those who want to improve because the clock is so much more important than the moves. On the other hand Grandmaster blitz tournaments can be entertaining and instructive. The recent Zurich Chess Challenge adopted a superior incremental time limit of 4 minutes plus 2 seconds per […]

As Magnus Carlsen is set to visit Hamburg and play a simul on 70 boards, Ulrich Stock of “Die Zeit” took the opportunity to interview the World Champion. On the question what keeps his chess drive going, Carlsen answered “My motivation is to learn. I feel there are still so many things in chess that [...]