World’s top five players, Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Alexander Grichuk, Viswanathan Anand and Fabiano Caruana, will participate in the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships that are set to take place on 15-21 June in Dubai, UAE. Further, ten players from the top 14 will compete in Dubai. Only Vladimir Kramnik, Veselin Topalov, former World [...]

Ολοκληρώθηκε και ο Γ' γύρος του Ατομικού Πρωταθλήματος Ανδρών Γυναικών

The fourth Stage of the strongest computer competition TCEC is in progress and Stockfish maintains a 1,5 point lead. The standings have been more or less the same for a long time. First place – occupied by Stockfish, second – by Komodo, Houdini – always third and Critter – last. Houdini, though, made a surprise [...]

The International Chess Festival Ridha Belkadhi Memorial 2014 took place from 2nd to 10th May, 2014 at Monastir Center Hotel in Tunisian city of Monastir. The event is organized by Tunisian Chess Federation in collaboration with the “Le Carre Royal” club and managed by the Tournament Director Mr. Miladi Chahereddine.  The festival consisted of three [...]

The third edition of Llucmajor Open is scheduled to take place from 11th to 18th May, 2014 at Club Nautico S’arenal, part of Balearic Island Palma de Mallorca, Spain. The event is a 9 round Swiss Open with a time control 90 minutes per player plus 30 seconds increment per move starting from move 1 [...]

Lublin Chess Club, in collaboration with Lublin City and Polish Chess Federation, organizes the 6th edition of Lublin Union Memorial, Poland-Ukraine match, that will take place from 6th to 11th May, 2014, at the Crown Tribunal (3rd floor), in Lublin, Poland. The Rapid event is a Scheveningen System in 4 rounds with a time control [...]

Last week there were two new boys at my Wednesday after-school chess club. Now this really shouldn’t happen. The parents should get the message that the club is for children who know how to play chess, not for children who want to learn. Complete beginners in a club of this nature need individual attention, and […]

Fans of computer chess and those curious to see which engines they "must" buy (because it would be crazy for an amateur to have an engine with a paltry 3120 rating when there's one with a 3157 rating instead) will want to check out the TCEC (Thoresen Chess Engines Competition) here. At present it's at the semi-final stage, with four engines going at it in a 16 cycle round-robin. Almost halfway...

Round 2 of the U.S. Championship saw six draws in six games, so the $64,000 Fischer Prize for a perfect score is already off the table...or rather, has been moved to a different table a sponsor Rex Sinquefield has moved the offer to the U.S. Women's Championship. Irina Krush is 2-0 after defeating the Ashritha Eswaran rather easily. (Eswaran badly mishandled the black side of a Hedgehog - it...

Magnus Carlsen, with his manager (and IM) Espen Agdestein, recounting his performance at the Vugar Gashimov Memorial: HT: Ian Lamb

(πίνακας: πρωινό στη Μαλεκόν, τον παραλιακό δρόμο της Αβάνας) Ποίημα του Έλληνα GM Βασίλη Κοτρωνιά, το οποίο εμπνεύστηκε από τον πιο πάνω πίνακα, άγνωστου ζωγράφου και θέλησε να το μοιραστεί με τους επισκέπτες του skakistiko...

Live games with analysis

The first 5 rounds of France TOP-12 Team competition for women is taking place from 9th to 11th May, 2014 at Hotel Mercure, in Mulhouse, France. Games will be live daily with triple engine analysis on Chessdom.com and Chessdom Arena playing zone Official website List of teams with participants: Chess Club d’Annemasse – MATNADZE Ana [...]

Vishy Anand got a great boost from his first win against Levon Aronian in the Candidates Tournament. ,,A good result gives you wings”, says Anand in New In Chess magazine. ,,One lucky break and you feel very positive about the remaining games, and one result like this tournament and you feel very positive about life. [...]

I got two interesting calls this week regarding private chess instruction. In the first case, a woman called to ask if I would be willing to teach her son how to play chess. The second call was from an adult who had never played the game before. I asked the woman first, if her son […]