12/13/2021 – Ten players took part in the English Rapidplay Championship 2021, which was part of the London Chess Classic 2021. After nine rounds Gawain Jones (pictured) and Luke McShane shared first with 7.0/9, but Gawain Jones won the play-off with a clear 2-0 to become English Rapid Champion 2021. | Photo: London Chess Classic

4/22/2021 – While over-the-board chess is at best only gradually making its way back in most parts of the world, due to the still raging Covid-19 pandemic, chess life in New Zealand has normalised quite a bit in the past few months. This allowed New Zealanders to organise a tournament to celebrate the 100th birthday of the International Master and author Bob Wade, who was born on April 10, 1921, in Dunedin, in the South Island of New Zealand. British GM Gawain Jones (pictured) won the memorial. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archive)

12/21/2020 – The European Blitz Championship was played as an online tournament during the weekend. An 11-round Swiss open served as a qualification event, with 16 players moving on to the knockout phase. In the end, Gawain Jones took first place after beating Alexei Shirov in the final. Matthias Bluebaum defeated David Navara to get the bronze medal. | Photo: Alina l’Ami

12/3/2019 – From London IM Lawrence Trent is on the scene at both the Grand Chess Tour Finals and the London Chess Classic ancillary events, and brings you his take in this Weekly Show. | Puzzle time: In the diagram, it's Black to move! | Lawrence is on-demand this week beginning at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET / Noon EST) and free for a limited time, or forever on-demand with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.

11/3/2019 – We announce the winner of the autographed Fritz DVD, and Jon throws in two professional games feature Gawain Jones and David Howell to illustrate endgame concepts. | Send in your own games! Jon welcomes submissions from readers. If your games are selected for the Agony column, not only will you get free detailed commentary of your games by one of chess’s great authors and instructors, and former world no. 4 player, but you also win a free three-month ChessBase Premium Account!

5/5/2019 – After three rounds, two players co-lead the TePe Sigeman & Co Tournament in Sweden's third largest city, Malmö. Top seeds Gawain Jones and Pentala Harikrishna drew two and won one to position themselves ahead of the field on 2/3. Meanwhile, Nihal Sarin wasted a big chance to take down Ivan Saric in round one — still, the 14-year-old Indian became the youngest 2600+ rated player in the world (in the live ratings). SAGAR SHAH analysed two of Nihal's games. | Photo: Official site

4/17/2019 – After an eventful final round, eight players finished the Reykjavik Open tied with 7 points. Constantin Lupulescu had the best ranking on tiebreak and was declared the winner of the tournament ahead of Alireza Firouzja. Gawain Jones cracked the 2700 mark. | Photos: Fiona Steil-Antoni

3/15/2019 – The final round of the 2019 World Team Championships decided silver and bronze medallists in both categories, as the winners had already been decided a day earlier. In the Open, England defeated Sweden and took home silver, while China managed to get bronze after a topsy-turvy event overall. In the women's section, China finished with a perfect 18/18, while Russia tied with Georgia, getting both teams to the podium. | Photo: David Llada / Official site

3/7/2019 – Team United States dazzled in round two by defeating China despite not having taken any of their stars to Astana. They now share the lead on a perfect score with Russia and England, and are set to take on the latter in the next round. In the women's event, the American team is also over-performing, as they drew Ukraine and defeated higher-rated Hungary in the first two days of competition. Nonetheless, the favourites from Russia and China are leading with 4/4. | Photo: David Llada / Official site

2/8/2019 – The Gibraltar Masters was the first very strong open of 2019 and it might indicate which openings will be particularly popular in 2019. Thorsten Cmiel had a look which openings were "trendy" in Gibraltar and how the Grandmasters started the new year. Previously he examined the openings in the last major event of the year the World Blitz and Rapid. In focus in Part II is 1.e4, met by the Caro-Kann, Sicilian and French.

2/6/2019 – One more look back at the Gibraltar Chess Festival with one of the players, GM JAN WERLE, who takes a tour of the highlights from this year's tournament, including a selection of games from the winners — Vladislav Artemiev, Karthikeyan Murali and Tan Zhongyi — plus the best game prize-winner: Gawain Jones vs Alejandro Ramirez. You'll also find video from GM Simon Williams and IM Lawrence Trent and interviews with Vassily Ivanchuk, Levon Aronian and D. Gukesh — one of the young stars of the festival. | Photo: Niki Riga

1/24/2019 – Most of the favourites were successful in Tuesday's opening round. Hikaru Nakamura, however, was nicked for a draw with black against his opponent's London system. Yu Yangyi was the only other player among the top twenty in the field not to score a full point and his draw came with the white pieces. After two rounds Wesley So (pictured) is the top player with a perfect score. | Photo: John Saunders

12/17/2018 – After drawing the first seven games of the final match against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura pulled off a very nice win to secure first place at the London Classic — given this year's format, this meant Nakamura also won the overall Grand Chess Tour. Third place went to Fabiano Caruana, who obtained three victories on Monday to take down Levon Aronian. Meanwhile, Gawain Jones showed a more than convincing performance to beat Luke McShane and become the champion of the 2018 British Knockout Championship. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

12/17/2018 – The final matches of the Grand Chess Tour and the British Knockout Championship continued in London's Olympia Conference Centre on Sunday. The second classical games of the GCT resulted in two more draws, which leave the scores tied before the decisive rapid and blitz rounds. In the British KO Championship, meanwhile, Gawain Jones took a six-point lead over Luke McShane in the match for first place. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

12/16/2018 – The final match of the Grand Chess Tour kicked off on Saturday. Hikaru Nakamura held Maxime Vachier-Lagrave to a draw from the white side of a Grünfeld Defence, after the Frenchman won a pawn but could not convert it in the endgame. In the battle for third place, Levon Aronian achieved a slight edge against Fabiano Caruana but was not able to get the full point. The first classical round of the British Knockout Championship also ended with two draws. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

12/14/2018 – And then there were two. The semi-finals of the British Knockout Championship saw Gawain Jones and Luke McShane (pictured) defeat rating favourites — according to FIDE's classical list — David Howell and Michael Adams. Only two games were drawn out of the twelve played in rapid and blitz formats on Thursday. The players will have a rest day before returning to the fray on Saturday for the three-day matches that will decide the final standings — Adams and Howell will fight for third place. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / London Chess Classic

10/29/2018 – An exciting play-off went down to the wire and saw Radek Wojtaszek defeat Arkadij Naiditsch in Armageddon to take first place at the Chess.com Isle of Man International Tournament. They got to that stage after drawing their round nine game, while their chasers either drew or lost. In the meantime, three players won their games and joined the group that finished half a point behind the leaders — Alexander Grischuk, Vladimir Kramnik and Hikaru Nakamura. Wojtaszek's wife Alina Kashlinskaya won the top ladies' prize. | Photos: John Saunders / Official site

10/28/2018 – Six players are still within range of winning the Chess.com Isle of Man International Tournament on Sunday's final round. The favourites to take first, however, are Arkadij Naiditsch and Radek Wojtaszek, who are now sharing the lead after getting victories of very different nature on Saturday — Naiditsch will have White in their direct encounter of round nine. The other big winner of the day was Gawain Jones, who took down Levon Aronian and still has a chance of finishing first. | Photos: John Saunders / Official site

9/28/2018 – The Olympiad in Batumi witnessed its most exciting round as India took on USA. While this was the biggest encounter, the match turned into something pretty one-sided as Fabiano Caruana beat Vishy Anand and took home the match with the score of 2½:1½. The real action was witnessed in the match between Poland and Russia, as the Poles managed to beat the mighty Russian team. The two decisive wins were scored by Jacek Tomczak, who beat Kramnik, and Kamil Dragun, who got the better of Dmitry Jakovenko. A report filled with pictures, videos and GM analysis.

9/20/2018 – Having had the time of his life at the Faroes Open 2017, GM SRINATH NARAYANAN couldn’t resist an opportunity to go back to Europe’s best keep secret of Summer once more. He had no reasons to regret, as apart from the wild winds, warm people, fresh locations, he also won the Faroes Open for the second time. This year’s starting list was headed by GM Gawain Jones and was a strong tournament that had 17 titled players out of 36 players. The tournament included 7 GMs, and 5 IMs, making it a field made up of almost 50% titled players and 33% of them above the International Master title. | Photo: Jógvan Martin Joensen

8/6/2018 – 105th British Championship took place in Hull, England from July 28th to August 5th, and was narrowly won by top seed Michael Adams after a rapid and blitz tiebreak. Adams and Luke McShane were tied with 7 points from 9 games after the classical Open competition. It was Adams' sixth title, while McShane remains the strongest British player never to have won the national championship. Jovanka Houska had the best score among women with 5.0/9 for her eighth British title. | Photos: Arnold Lutton / BritishChessChampionships.co.uk

5/17/2018 – For the first part of this review, our columnist has selected a featured game from our magazine — Magnus Carlsen's notable win over Gawain Jones in Wijk aan Zee — offering both the background and the outcome from the point of opening theory. Prof. Nagesh Havanur combines analysis from Mikhail Golubev, Peter Heine Nielsen, and the players themselves, plus his own research in an engaging look at one of the most dramatic days at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament.

3/29/2018 – Overshadowed by the Candidates tournament held in Berlin, the European Championship was still the fascinating event it has always been, with a field that is absurdly rich in grandmasters and titled players. This hard-fought affair brought many famous names, but it all went down to the wire with Ivan Saric emerging the sole victor in a huge win over David Navara in the last round. | Photo: Sophie Nikoladze

3/5/2018 – Bunratty's 25th Anniversary is over, but it's still on the mind of ChessBase photographer Alina l'Ami, who sends this retrospective from her own (quite successful) visit to the Irish hamlet. Fun for all and all for fun! | Pictured: A sampling of the 362 players | Photos: Alina l'Ami