Bamberg 1968, Round 11: Miss Mar del Plata and a bank robbery

7/3/2020 – At the Bamberg jubilee tournament, the arrival of Boris Ivkov's wife Olga Kesic (pictured), Miss Mar del Plata 1955, and a bank robbery in nearby Nürnberg provided opportunities for conversation. The bank robbers in Nürnberg were soon caught but Ivkov lost his game. Lothar Schmid fared better.
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Round 3: finished
Chessable Masters by chess24-KO
Carlsen 2881, Ding 2836, Nepomniachtchi 2778, Giri 2731
finished
CRO-ch 2020
Round 3: finished
GM Clarion Congress Hotel 2020
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Daniel King's Power Play Show: Magnus Carlsen and the King's Indian

7/3/2020 – In this Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King takes a look at some tricky pawn endgames but the main focus of the show is on the remarkable King's Indian that Carlsen played against Ding Liren in the Chessable Masters. | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UK (18:00 CEST, 11:00 EST) on playchess.com. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. | Photo: Lennart Ootes, Archive

Jubilee Tournament Bamberg 1968, Round 12 - Live

7/3/2020 – To celebrate its 100th birthday the German Chess Club Bamberg organizes a big international jubilee tournament. After 11 of 15 rounds Paul Keres leads with 9.0/11 and has good chances to win the tournament as his closest rival, World Champion Tigran Petrosian, is sole second with "only" 7.5/11. In round 12 Keres has White against Unzicker and Petrosian has White against Bobotsov. Transmission of all rounds starts 18.00 local time (14:00 UTC, 10:00 EDT).

Create your Virtual Room on Playchess.com in seconds

7/3/2020 – It is possible to create your personal room on Playchess.com in just a couple of seconds. With your Virtual Room you are able to organise your own chess tournaments, have club events, give teaching courses and play simuls. In a short video we show you how easy it is to create the room.

Chessable Masters Final: Carlsen wins close first set

7/3/2020 – A thrilling first set of the Chessable Masters Final saw Magnus Carlsen clinching a crucial win by defeating Anish Giri in the second blitz game of tiebreaks. Giri played enterprising chess throughout, getting what at some point seemed to be an unlikely win in game 4 to tie the score and take the set to 5-minute games and a potential Armageddon. The Dutchman now needs to win on demand on Saturday to keep his chances alive. Full report to follow shortly. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

Checkmate in seven moves!

7/3/2020 – This is the second part of Stuart Rachels' constructed puzzles which include all four solutions from the first part. Checkmate in six moves! took off with over 50 analyses, ideas, approaches and solutions in the comment section so far. Jonathan Speelman for example made a live stream with all of his constructed solutions and was even able to "cook" one of the puzzles by half a move!

Queens as targets

7/3/2020 – White's 16.Ng5 in the diagram position threatens 17.Bd5+ and doesn't look too bad, but Black ... is Tal! Can you shine like the 8th World Champion?

Chessable Masters: Giri takes down Nepomniachtchi

7/3/2020 – Anish Giri defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi in three sets to reach the final of the Chessable Masters. Giri and Nepomniachtchi traded wins in the rapid phase of the third set, but the Dutchman was stronger in the blitz tiebreakers. The final, in which Giri will face world champion Magnus Carlsen, starts on Friday. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Bamberg 1968, round 10: Keres dominates, Petrosian is lucky

7/2/2020 – Paul Keres continues to dominate the Bamberg tournament. In round 10 he defeated Heikki Westerinen in the endgame, while World Champion Tigran Petrosian was lucky to get a draw against Lothar Schmid. With five rounds to go, Keres is now on 8.5 out of 10, 1.5 points ahead of Borislav Ivkov and Petrosian.

Running Leela/Fat Fritz on your notebook (2)

7/2/2020 – Neural network (NN) engines – Leela Chess Zero, Fat Fritz – have become superbly strong, and provide fascinating positional analysis. However, in order to unleash the full power of the NN algorithms, we must use some kind of GPU accelerator device. The problem is that a compact laptop often can’t sustain the running NN engines and will crash. Here is a super elegant solution to this problem– with full instructions for the installation.

Martinovic wins Croatian Championship

7/2/2020 – Sasa Martinovic is the new Croatian national champion. He won the championship - the first national championship since the coronavirus lockdown to be held as a "real" chess tournament - with 7.0/11, ahead of Zdenko Kozul, Robert Zelcic, Hrvoje Stevic and Ante Brkic who all finished on 6.5/11. | Photo: Tournament Website

Chessable Masters: Carlsen in the final, Nepomniachtchi bounces back

7/2/2020 – Magnus Carlsen beat Ding Liren twice with black on Wednesday to secure a spot in the final match of the Chessable Masters. Meanwhile, Ian Nepomniachtchi levelled the score in his matchup against Anish Giri thanks to a 2½:1½ win in the second set. Carlsen’s opponent in the final will be decided on Thursday. | Photo: Crystal Fuller

Game of the Week: Ding vs Nakamura

7/1/2020 – The quarterfinals of the Chessable Masters were very exciting, with Carlsen knocking out Caruana, Nepomniachtchi beating Artemiev and Giri eliminating Grischuk. Ding Liren won his match against Nakamura and in his "Game of the Week" show Merijn van Delft will study Ding Liren's phenomenal handling of White's side of the King's Indian. | Merijn's show is available at 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Lennart Ootes