The Team Chess Championship Croatian Cup 2014 took place from 14th to 18th May, 2014 at Bluesun Hotels & Resorts in the town of Bol on Island Brac, Croatia. The event was organized by the Croatian Chess Federation in collaboration with Bluesun Hotels & Resorts in 6 rounds with time control 90 minutes for 40 [...]

Νέα, αποτελέσματα και κληρώσεις για τις δύο διοργανώσεις της ΕΣΣΠ που βρίσκονται σε εξέλιξη….

The Bulgarian Individual Chess Championships for men and women were held simultaneously from 10th to 18th May, 2014 in the city of Kozloduy. Both GM Kiril Georgiev and WGM Iva Videnova successfully defended their last year’s titles. This is the 5th title of GM Georgiev from national championships, he also won the trophy in 1984, [...]

Όπως είχε ανακοινωθεί (από τον ιστοχώρο της Παγκόσμιας Συνομοσπονδίας για Σκακιστική Σύνθεση, World Federation for Chess Compositions, WFCC), έγινε ο 10ος Ευρωπαϊκός Διαγωνισμός Λύσης (European Chess Solving Contest, ECSC) στο Igalo Μαυροβουνίου 16-18 Μαΐου...

NB: I wrote this on the 8th of May but Gawain hasn’t yet proofread it.. so now I am attempting to So last week, my team captain Paul Townsend sent me an email saying he did some calculations and thought that I was on for a WGM norm. Ga & I was walking back from […]

Whilst working on a recent book translation, I was struck by the extraordinary quality of some of the game examples by Alexander Khalifman.  The former FIDE knockout champion is a slightly odd mixture. Various personal demons have meant that his career has not developed as well as it might have done, and he has a […]

I’ve written quite a lot recently about how many young children have a complete misconception about the nature of chess. Here’s a graphic example. Our under 11 team took part in the national inter-area finals in Northampton last Saturday. One of our reserves is a very keen player who always enjoys challenging me to a […]

The last couple of rounds have been extremely eventful at the U.S. Championships, and have seen reversals of the reversals! When we left off last time, Varuzhan Akobian had won three in a row to take a half-point lead over Gata Kamsky and a full point lead over early leader Alex Lenderman and several others. In round 8 Akobian won again, Kamsky drew and Lenderman bounced back nicely by beating...

The 33rd edition of Zalakaros Chess Festival is scheduled to be held from 23rd to 31st May, 2014 in the Hungarian city of Zalakaros, famous for its thermal bath. The Hungarian Chess Federation organizes the traditional event in collaboration with Zalakaros City and Sport Association of Zalakaros under the patronage of Mr Ferenc Novak, Mayor [...]

Σκακιστική σκηνή από επεισόδιο του “Big Bang Theory”, της γνωστής τηλεοπτικής σειράς καταστάσεων. Έκανε πρεμιέρα στην Αμερική στις 24 Σεπτεμβρίου 2007 και ολοκλήρωσε την πρώτη της σεζόν με 17 επεισόδια, ενώ τώρα διανύει...

When analyzing a lost game to try and find where we went wrong, we generally find a single move that starts the downward spiral that led to our loss. We study this position and determine a solution to our problem or, in this case, a better move than we made. In diagnostic medicine, you’d call […]

This game is from Round 1 of my most recent Over the Board (OTB) chess tournament played in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This game illustrates a number of points that I want to make. First, I am not ready to play chess before noon! Second, this is one of too many games in which I outplayed my […]

The 4th edition of China Women Master Tournament took place from 5th to 13th May, 2014 in Xishan, China. The format of the event was a 10-player round robin. The only untitled player in the tournament – 17-year-old Lei Tangjie shared first place with the top seed WGM Ju Wenjun with 6.5/9 points each, leaving [...]

The show, for the moment, has been stolen. After the bloodiest day yet – eight fought-out decisions across 11 games and another nail-biting escape with a draw by reigning women’s champion Irina Krush – both U.S. Championship races have new frontrunners as the tournaments turn down the home stretch. Article by Brian Jerauld Varuzhan Akobian [...]

It's early days yet for FIDE's rapid and blitz ratings, but it's so far, so good for U.S. #1 and world #7 (in classical chess) Hikaru Nakamura, who tops both of the new top 100 lists. World Champion Magnus Carlsen, incidentally, is #4 on both lists, but with the rapid and blitz world championships coming next month expect him to give an extra effort to "fix" the situation. The full lists...