On 15 and 16 August 2015 a FIDE Arbiters’ Seminar was organized in Minsk, Belarus, by the Commission for Women’s Chess, in cooperation with the Belarus Chess Federation and under the auspices of FIDE. The Lecturer was IA Andrzej Filipowicz (POL), Secretary of the FIDE Technical Commission and FIDE Lecturer, and Assistant Lecturer was IA [...]

The 89th Spanish Individual Chess Championship is taking place from August 23-31, 2015, in Linares, Spain. The event is a 9-round Swiss tournament with the participation of the strongest Spanish players. Top seeds are GM Francisco Vallejo Pons (2686), GM David Anton Guijarro (2635) and GM Ivan Salgado Lopez (2615). Tournament website/ Standings and statistics [...]

A FIDE Arbiters’ Seminar is going to be organized from 11 to 13 September 2015 in Panama City, Panama, by the FIDE Commission for Women’s Chess, in cooperation with the Panama Chess Federation and under the auspices of FIDE. The Lecturer will be IA Barbara Lopez Chavez (CUB), FIDE Lecturer and Assistant Lecturer will be [...]

From 16 to 20 August 2015 a FIDE Arbiters’ Seminar was organized in Kuwait City, Kuwait, by the Kuwait Chess Federation, in cooperation with Abdulla Al-Salem Centre for Leadership Training and under the auspices of FIDE. The lecturer was IA Mahdi Abdulrahim (UAE), Councilor of the FIDE Arbiters’ Commission and FIDE Lecturer and Assistant Lecturer [...]

The 22nd Abu Dhabi Masters Tournament is taking place from August 23-31, in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The event is a 9-round Swiss FIDE tournament, open for players rated 2000 Elo or above. 147 players from 35 different countries, including 57 Grandmasters, will take part in the competition. Top seed is GM David Howell of England [...]

In the second round of the London Chess Fortnight 5-day open I had black against a promising young player called Colin Crouch. Colin, of course, later became an International Master, and was sadly lost to us a few months ago. I’ll skim through most of the game quickly. There’s one interesting position coming up which […]

Due to some recent controversy on the matter I have been considering writing to Professor Verghese about his Alzheimer’s study. Although ‘board games’ were cited as being associated with a lower risk of dementia, would this happen to include chess? There was a certain lack of clarity on the matter, so I guess he might […]

The 76th Armenian Individual Championship is taking place from August 21st to September 3rd, 2015, in the Armenian capital Yerevan. The event is a 14-player round-robin tournament with tempo of play 90′/ 40 + 30′ + 30″. Top seed is GM Hovik Hayrapetyan (2467). Tournament website/ Standings and statistics

The 2015 Serbian Women Team Chess Championship is taking place from August 20-30, in Novi Sad, Serbia. The event is a round-robin team competition, consisting of 12 teams. Top seed is Jelica Pep (Goracici) with members: GM Natalija Zhukova (2482), WIM Marija Rakic (2354), WGM Svetlana Prudnikova (2313), Adela Velikic (2302), WIM Jovana Eric (2156), WGM Mirjana [...]

The 2015 Serbian Team Chess Championship is taking place from August 20-30, at Hotel Sumarice, in Kragujevac, Serbia. The event is a team competition, consisting of 12 teams. Top seed is Novosadski SK DDOR with members: GM Aleksey Dreev (2638), GM Robert Markus (2621), GM Bojan Vuckovic (2564), GM Dusan Popovic (2531), GM Aleksandar Kovacevic (2496), [...]

Πρόκειται για ένα ξεχωριστό τουρνουά σκακιού, πολύ ιδιαίτερο, το τουρνουά του Μπλόκου. Ξεκίνησε τη δεκαετία του 70 με πρωτοβουλία του Νίκου Ορνιθόπουλου, διεξάγεται κάθε χρόνο με ελεύθερη συμμετοχή, ολοκληρώνεται σε...

A 173-mover between Fruit and Cheng4 can go in endgame theory books

As self improving chess players, we seek out educational tools to help us improve our game. Back when I first started playing, you had one choice if you wanted to get better at chess on your own, books. You’d go to the library or purchase a copy of the book you wanted, study it and […]

The Mongolian Chess Federation (MCF) organizes the World U-16 Youth Chess Olympiad from August 19-29, 2015, in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. A total of 159 players from Australia, Belarus, Canada, China, France, Hungary, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, South Korea, Macau, Mogolia, Palau, Russia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Turkey, United States, and Uzbekistan are participating in the 10 rounds [...]

The 90th French Men Championship and 2015 French Women Championship took place from August 9-20, 2015, in Saint-Quentin, France. The events were played in a 12-player round-robin format and most of the strongest French players participated. GM Christian Bauer and GM Tigran Gharamian tied for the first place at 7,5 points each and a direct playoff match [...]