The 44th Annual Continental Open will be held from August 7-10, 2014, at the Host Hotel at Cedar Lake, 366 Main St (Rt 20 West), Sturbridge, Massachusetts (I-84 Exit 3, near I-90). The event has 7 sections: Open, Under 2100, Under 1900, Under 1700, Under 1500, Under 1300 and Under 1000. All sections have either [...]

The 13th Annual Manhattan Open is taking place from July 25-27, 2014, at the Wyndham New Yorker Hotel, 481 Eighth Ave at 34th St. across from Penn Station, New York, NY. The event has 5 sections: Open, Under 2300, Under 2000, Under 1700 and Under 1400. All sections have either 3-day (July 25-27) or 2-day [...]

The 16th Obert Internacional Sant Martí took place from 13th to 21st July at the Centre Civic Sant Marti: c/ Selva de Mar, Barcelona, Spain. The tournament format was 9-round Swiss with the prize fund of 7000 EUR. There were two competitions: Group A, for players with FCE, FEDA, FIDE elo bigger than 2000 and [...]

I had no intention of writing this article as of two weeks ago until I was faced with an interesting situation at one of my week long chess camps. A parent emailed me regarding enrolling her child in the camp. The only information she provided about her child was that he was eight years old, […]

The 47th Biel Chess Festival “In Memoriam Hans Suri” took place on 12-25th July, 2014, in Biel/Bienne, a town in Switzerland. The strong event was a double round-robin tournament with the participation of: last-year winner Maxime Vachier-Lagrave FRA 2766, Anish Giri NED 2750, Radoslaw Wojtaszek POL 2733, Pentala Harikrishna IND 2726, Alexander Motylev 2698 and Yifan Hou CHN 2629...

Georgian Chess Federation and European Chess Union are organizing the 2014 European Youth Chess Championships, which will take place in Batumi (Black See), Georgia between October the 18th (arrival) and October the 29th (departure). The Championships will be held in 5***** Batumi hotel “Sheraton Batumi” (built in 2010). In case of need second 5***** playing [...]

The International Chess Festival Baku Open 2014, dedicated to the Independence Day of Republic of Azerbaijan, will take place from 21st September to 1st October at the AF Hotel near Caspian Sea. The Festival is organized by the Azerbaijan Youth & Sport Ministry and Azerbaijan Chess Federation. The total prize fund is 50,000 USD and [...]

Biel ended as one would have expected for most of the event; Maxime Vachier-Lagrave recovered from yesterday's "hiccup" against Anish Giri and took clear first after drawing - hanging on, really - against Radoslaw Wojtaszek. "MVL" had the white pieces and played a very safe opening line, but after the odd 25.f4 he was worse and had to pull it together to avoid a complete collapse in the event. He...

The game below is from the second round of my most recent event that I played in Colorado Springs. This game was a comedy of errors. I lost the first round and I think that my opponent did too, but I am not sure of that. Roger appears to be about ten years older than […]

The ACP Golden Classic international chess tournament took place in Bergamo, a city in Lombardy, Italy, on 12-20th July 2014. The tournament was organized by Asd Caissa Italia and Società Scacchistica Bergamo, under the patronage and sponsorship of the Municipality of Bergamo and other commercial, industrial and non-for profit partners. The event was a part of the Association [...]

The International Chess Tournament Minsk Open 2014 took place on 15-24th July 2014 in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. The event was a 9-round Swiss Open with 117 participants, including 10 Grandmasters and 8 International Masters. The total prize fund was around 7150 EUR in local currency. GM Aleksej Aleksandrov emerged sole winner after concluding [...]

After a week off in the beautiful island of Ikaria in Greece. Gawain is back at work in Denmark. He’s currently playing in the Politiken Cup (also known as the Copenhagen Chess Festival but not in Copenahgen) and is joint 2nd= with 4.5/5. Our Aussie friends are also playing in the tournament, GM Dave Smerdon, FM […]

Two more games have been played in the Gelfand-Svidler match held in the 2nd Gideon Japhet Memorial Open Chess Tournament. Gelfand won the 5th game in his favorite Gruenfeld Defence, but Svidler bounced back in the next round. The Russian Grandmaster managed to maintain the lead and the current score is 3.5:2.5 in his favor. [...]

Στο πλαίσιο του 37ου Διεθνούς  Σκακιστικού Τουρνουά «Ίκαρος», Άγιος Κήρυκος, Ικαρία 12-20 Ιουλίου 2014, διεξήχθη και διαγωνισμός λύσης με εύκολα προβλήματα.Εδώ μπορείτε να δείτετα...

A bronze monument dedicated to memory of Grandmaster Vugar Gashimov was unveiled today in Baku. Gashimov would have turned 28 on this day. Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports Ismail Ismailov and Gashimov family attended the ceremony. The monument is creation of Azerbaijani sculptor Azad Aliyev. Photo by ExtraTime.az