7/26/2024 – Hector Guifarro had a troubled childhood. At the age of 19, he "made a bad choice" which landed him in prison. Chess was his way out. This is his story. Guifarro remarked: "Prison is where I found the game of chess. It kept me out of trouble. It built my confidence and made me believe in myself". | Photo: Stev Bonhage

7/26/2024 – The final day of action at the Biel Chess Festival saw Rinat Jumabayev emerging victorious in the Masters Open (MTO). Jumabayev tied for first with former leader Leon Luke Mendonca, Ayush Sharma and Mukhiddin Madaminov, and outscored all three on tiebreak criteria. In the Masters Triathlon, meanwhile, Praggnanandhaa climbed to third place by beating Abhimanyu Mishra. | Photos: Biel Chess Festival

7/26/2024 – Two program packages that are designed to make you stronger, to seriously improve your results in games and tournaments. Fritz 19 lets you practice practise and analyse, the Opening Encyclopedia tells you exactly what you should play in order to succeed. You can simply load variations into Fritz 19 and try playing them against the program – at your level of play. The perfect practical opening training! Instead of €239.80 for both programs, this week you can get the package for just €179.90.

7/25/2024 – Magnus Carlsen, investor Jan Henric Buettner and VC Left Lane Capital launched a new company to establish a tournament series that aims to revolutionise the world of chess. The event series will showcase the world's best chess players in a new format which aims to be attractive for media, spectators and consumers. The participants will be nine super GMs hand-picked by Magnus Carlsen, who has committed himself to playing Freestyle Chess exclusively at the Grand Slam series.

7/25/2024 – The strongest junior and senior chess players in the United States have returned to Saint Louis. On July 16-26, the top 10 players across three divisions - juniors, girls, and seniors - are competing for more than $135,000 in prizes. | Follow all the games live with expert commentary, starting at 20.00 CEST (14.00 ET, 23.30 IST)

7/25/2024 – In his new Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft studies a game by Max Warmerdam, who has now won three tournaments in a row! | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

7/25/2024 – Last week we showed you some chess puzzles of a different kind – some were quite easy, some pretty hard. They were at least most entertaining, bringing smiles to our faces. Today we show you the solutions, and video of a strong chess player solving the problems in real time.

7/25/2024 – The 57th edition of the Biel Chess Festival is taking place on July 13-26 with its usual mix of elite tournaments, amateur events and attractive side activities. Remarkably, this edition will see two Triathlons taking place simultaneously: the Masters and the Challengers. Praggnanandhaa, Vincent Keymer and Le Quang Liem are the top seeds in the main event. | Follow the games live starting at 14.00 CEST (8.00 ET, 17.30 IST)

7/25/2024 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won the third event in this year's Champions Chess Tour, the CrunchLabs Masters, after beating Alireza Firouzja in the Armageddon decider of the Division I Grand Final. MVL thus secured a spot in the tour's Finals, set to take place over-the-board at the end of the year. The deciding match saw the contenders playing a number of technical battles, with four games ending in draws to set up a sudden-death tiebreaker.

7/25/2024 – The strongest junior and senior chess players in the United States have returned to Saint Louis. On July 16-26, the top 10 players across three divisions - juniors, girls, and seniors - are competing for more than $135,000 in prizes. Find here all games, standings and the daily recap produced by the Saint Louis Chess Club. | Pictured: Vladimir Akoprian, who won the Seniors Championship with a round to spare. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

7/25/2024 – Le Quang Liem once again showed that the Triathlon format suits him perfectly, as he defeated Praggnanandhaa R on Wednesday to claim his third consecutive tournament victory in the Biel Masters - with a round to spare! In the Challengers, which was won by Saleh Salem on Tuesday, Alexander Donchenko defeated Vaishali R to secure second place. | Photos: Biel Chess Festival

7/24/2024 – On July 20, 2024, for the 100th anniversary of its founding, FIDE planned a monumental event. It is a quest to set the Guinness World Record for the most chess games played in 24 hours, asking players all over the world to help achieve this goal. They are asked to play at least one 5-min game on one of the platforms or applications joining the World Records Attempt, between July 20, 2024 00:00:00 CEST and July 21, 2024 00:00:00 CEST. Here are the results in a FIDE press release.