6/5/2019 – Nana Dzagnidze is having a dream tournament in Kazan, as she now leads the Candidates Tournament on 3½/4 points — her victim in round four was Valentina Gunina. The other winner of the day was Kateryna Lagno, who defeated Mariya Muzychuk and is now in fourth place on a 50% score. Alexandra Kosteniuk drew Tan Zhongyi and Anna Muzychukk split the point with Aleksandra Goryachkina. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

6/4/2019 – The two grandmasters Niclas Huschenbeth (pictured) and Dmitrij Kollars were dominating the 90th German Championships which were part of the German Chess Congress 2019 in Magdeburg. Both players finished the tournament with 8/9 but Huschenbeth had the better tiebreak and became German Champion 2019. | Photos: German Chess Federation / Frank Hoppe

5/24/2019 – At the Polish national championships in Warsaw, the two Elo favourites only came in second place. The Open Championship was won by Kamil Dragun, who spent several years in the USA as a student at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Iweta Rajlich took the Women's Champion title, finishing a full point clear of Polish women's number one Monika Socko. | Photos: Marek Skrzypczak / mp2019.pzszach.pl

5/13/2019 – Last week saw the finale of the 2018/19 season of the 4NCL in Great Britain. Guildford 1 was dominant and won all bouts during the season. Second was the new team from the Isle of Man: chess.com Manx Liberty, a team that two years ago left the German Bundesliga ("Buexit"?). | Photos: 4NCL

5/12/2019 – The Kan Variation, also known as Paulsen Variation, is a popular line of the Sicilian. It is named after Ilya Kan, a Russian player who was born 110 years ago last week, on May 4, 1909. He lived most of his life in Moscow where he worked as a lawyer. Kan played in ten Soviet Championships and helped Botvinnik to prepare for his World Championship matches against Smyslov but outside of Russia he is still rather unknown.

5/10/2019 – In the penultimate round at the TePe Sigeman & Co tournament, Gawain Jones took the sole lead with a victory over Tiger Hillarp Persson, while Harikrishna could only draw. The final round was set for drama as Jones faced Harikrishna head-to-head. But the English GM played solidly with the white pieces and offered a draw on move 21, which Harikrishna accepted, securing first and second places respectively for the duo.

5/9/2019 – Netflix is ​​planning a mini-series about a chess player. "Queen's Gambit" takes place during the Cold War. An orphan, Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), grows up in difficult conditions and discovers her chess talent. She tries to get to the top while battling her own demons and the best Russian grandmasters. After a novel by Walter Tevis, the series still has no release date, but is expected in 2020.

5/1/2019 – On the last weekend of May an unusual tournament will be played in Scotland. Four top players, Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, Ding Liren, and a fourth player who is not yet known, will play a rapid tournament in the Lindores Abbey Distillery, once a famous monastery and perhaps the place where Scotch whisky had its origins. | Photo: Lindores Abbey Distillery

4/23/2019 – There's a whole lot of chess going on in Europe at the moment, but we shouldn't forget about the double round-robin tournament taking place to the Far East in Shenzehn, China. Pentala Harikrishna leads the field with 4½ points after his fourth consecutive win in today's sixth round. Anish Giri trails a half a point behind. IM Sagar Shah annotates Harikrishna's latest exploits. | Photos: cca.imsa.cn

4/23/2019 – Daniel Fridman won the Grenke Open 2019 thanks to having the best tiebreak score among eight players finishing with 7½/9. Three other German grandmasters shared the same score as did the 12-year-old Indian phenom D. Gukesh. Yuliya Shvayger was the top scoring woman. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

4/20/2019 – The Grenke Open began Thursday with over 900 participants in the A-Open. Today, some of the world's best players take centre stage at the Grenke Chess Classic. Round 1 features #1 Magnus Carlsen against #10 Vincent Keymer who's rated 336 points below the World Champion. Live games and commentary (from 13:00 UTC / 15:00 CEST / 9:00 AM EDT) with GM Peter Leko and GM Jan Gustafsson

4/18/2019 – Alina Kashlinskaya is the sole leader of the Women's European Championship after her victory over Pauline Guichard. Both had been leading the field after five rounds. Marie Sebag is in second. Wednesday was the tournament's one and only rest day. | Pictured: Alina Kashlinskaya and Marie Sebag | Photo: Kasia Selbes Photography / eiwcc2019.tsf.org.tr

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

4/15/2019 – Constantin Lupulescu beat Newcomer Alireza Firouzja in the 7th round of the Reykjavik Open with a very double-edged and topical variation in the French Defence and took a full point clear of the rest of the field with two rounds to play. Report on Round 7 plus live games and commentary of Round 8. | Photo: Fiona Steil-Antoni

4/13/2019 – Five out of nine rounds of the Reykjavik Open have been completed, and four players share the lead on 4½/5. Tied with the best tie-break score are Robert Hovhannisyan from Armenia and 15-year-old Alireza Firouzja from Iran, who in addition finished in clear first place at the Fischer Random side event. Also co-leading are Sergei Movsesian and Constantin Lupulescu. Seven players are a half point behind. | Photo: Fiona Steil-Antoni / Official site

4/10/2019 – The 33rd Reykjavik International started at the Harpa Concert Hall (pictured) in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik on Monday. The two sometime-2700s Gawain Jones and Nils Grandelius have both dropped half points, leaving two GMs, an IM, a class A and even a class B player (!) as the only perfect scores through three rounds. Highlights and live commentary of Round 4 (from 17:00 UTC / 19:00 CEST / 13:00 EDT) | Photo: Lennart Ootes / ReykjavikOpen.com

4/3/2019 – Last weekend the Austrian chess player Eva Moser died at the age of 36. She was the best female Austrian chess player of all time and in 2006 even won the open Austrian National Championship. In 2015 she stopped playing tournament chess, presumably due to her battle with Leukaemia. | Photos: ChessBase

3/22/2019 – In the second round of the US Championships, Wesley So showed flashes of brilliance against Timur Gareyev, giving a master class in the endgame with rook and knight against rook and knight. Just when everyone thought it was a draw, that's when the struggle really began. So now leads alongside Sam Sevian and Jeffrey Xiong. Carissa Yip and Jennifer Yu in the Women's Championship are now the only two players in either tournament to remain with a perfect score. | Photo: Justin Kellar