The Final Stage of the 81st Brazilian Individual Men’s Chess Championship 2015 is taking place from 17th to 25th January 2015 in Joao Pessoa, the easternmost city in the Americas and the capital of the state of Paraíba in Brazil. The event is a 12-player round-robin tournament with an average Elo rating 2356 and tempo [...]

Chess movies and documentaries can be annoying for the connoisseur, not least because the spirit of the game can be changed to suit a kitsch Hollywood story line. But this one looks interesting, exploring the World of chess for the blind. A review can be found here, and this is the official trailer: Nigel Davies

While the Informant used to be the most predictable publication in chess, the good folks in Serbia have been experimenting with its format over the past few years, and notwithstanding the occasional misstep the trend has been a favorable one. The heart of the publication, as always, is a big chunk of recent games annotated without words but with lots of symbols, and the traditional sections with...

The Alinskyite approach to politics is one I find reprehensible, but as the DGT people absolutely refuse to change their stupid system for recording results, no matter how many erroneous game scores get published, maybe it's time for a campaign of sustained attention and ridicule in the hopes of getting them to make a change. I haven't ranted on this for a while, so this might be new for some of...

Jerusalem continues the preparation for the 2015 European Individual Championship. The top European competition, open to all members of European Federations, will be staged in hotel Ramada on February 23rd – March 8th 2015 by the municipality of Jerusalem and the Israeli Chess Federation under the auspices of the ECU. The participants list continues collecting 2700+ GMs. [...]

The 18th edition of Neujahrs Open was organized by Chess Club “SV Chemie Guben 1990 e.V.” on 2-6th January 2015 in Guben, a town on the Lusatian Neisse river in the state of Brandenburg, Germany. The event was a 9-round Swiss open tournament with tempo of play 120 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 seconds increment starting from [...]

Ολοκληρώθηκε την Κυριακή ο Α γύρος για ΠΟΑ και Β Τοπική. Τα αποτελέσματα αναλυτικά:

Με νίκη συνέχισε η ομάδα μας στη 2η αγωνιστική και πήρε κεφάλι στον πίνακα της βαθμολογίας (πατήστε εδώ). Τα αναλυτικά αποτελέσματα (πρώτοι αναφέρονται οι σκακιστές και οι σκακίστριές μας, με μπλε όσοι έπαιζαν με τα...

The Singapore Chess Federation, under the auspices of the ASEAN Chess Confederation (ACC) and the Asian Chess Federation (ACF), have the honour of inviting all Asian national chess federations to participate in the 16th ASEAN + AGE-Group Chess Championships 2015 to be organised in Singapore from 8th June (arrival) to 17th June (departure) 2015. The [...]

A FIDE Arbiters’ Seminar is going to be organized from 16 to 18 June 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, by the US Chess Federation and under the auspices of FIDE. The venue of the Seminar will be the Riviera Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada, 89109 USA. The Lecturer will be IA Carol [...]

Surprising leader in Armenia

Chess players are sometimes asked by people who don’t know the game how many moves they look ahead. Of course, there is no answer to the question. But you really do have to look at least one move ahead. The first move in your analysis is the most important move. Don’t miss something on move […]

Dear Friends, ICCF is proud to announce the start of the new and revised CHAMPIONS LEAGUE. Sponsored by Chessdom There are some significant changes regarding structure and reflection time. STRUCTURE: ONLY the former A group will still be called CHAMPIONS LEAGUE. It will consist of the teams placed 1st to 7th in Champions League 5. [...]

The 2015 Vladimir Dvorkovich Memorial, Stage of Russian Chess Cup Men 2014, is going to be held from 14th to 27th January, 2015, at the Congress Hotel, in Taganrog, Russia. The event is a 9-round Swiss tournament with first prize in the amount of 300.000 RUB. Top seed is GM Alexander Riazantsev (2684). Official website / Play free online [...]

Back to the Ruy Lopez next week unless anything else happens. Today there’s something different I have to share with you. I returned from Richmond Junior Club last Saturday to see the sad news that one of my oldest chess friends and most regular opponents, Chris Clegg, had died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age […]