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 – Hikaru Nakamura (pictured) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave are considered two of the best rapid chess and blitz chess players in the world. In rapid Nakamura is rated number two and Vachier-Lagrave number six, while in blitz, 'MVL' is now number one — surpassing Magnus Carlsen — and Nakamura is number three. They will meet in the London Chess Classic finals after defeating Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian respectively. Here's how day 3 unfolded. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

12/12/2018 – Those who fear the "draw death" of classical chess gained a bit more ammunition today after both semifinal games ended drawn. In light of the 12 draws in the World Championship, four more in London so far is a bit disappointing. The game between Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana ended quickly and without even a hint of fireworks. Levon Aronian (pictured) surprised Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the opening and got an advantage, but could not exploit it. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

12/11/2018 – The 10th London Chess Classic is underway with the semifinal played at the headquarters of Google's DeepMind. Demis Hassibis (pictured in the background) joined tournament director Malcolm Pein and a schoolgirl — learning chess under the Chess in Schools and Communities umbrella — on stage at the start of the first classical game. Yesterday, at the London Pro-Biz Cup, chess-loving business people or celebrities joined grandmasters taking turns in a tandem chess team tournament. Garry Kasparov was among the professionals, but it was the team of Roiko Vujatovic and David Howell that won. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

12/11/2018 – There was not much of a breather for Fabiano Caruana after his defeat in the tiebreak at the World Championship. He is back in London joining Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave as the four players qualified for the London Chess Classic, the final leg of the 2018 Grand Chess Tour, from December 11th to 17th. Can Caruana regain his mojo in rapid chess against Nakamura? Meanwhile, the top four players in England fight for the British Knockout Championship in a parallel semifinal and final.

11/16/2018 – The strongest chess event on Indian soil was held from November 9th to the 14th, 2018 with three days of rapid chess and two days of blitz. Hikaru Nakamura had already won the rapid section with a dominating performance. In the blitz event, the American GM was racing ahead on the first day with 6½/9. It seemed as if Nakamura would take home both the titles, but Vishy Anand had other plans. The 48-year-old former World Champion showed his class as he notched up one win after another. By scoring 7½/9 on day two he tied with Nakamura for the top spot. We then had a blitz playoff in which Anand triumphed and won the Tata Steel Chess India Blitz 2018. IM SAGAR SHAH and AMRUTA MOKAL provide pictures, videos, game analysis from Kolkata.

11/14/2018 – The Tata Steel Chess India 2018 Rapid came to an end on November 11th with American GM Hikaru Nakamura taking home the first prize with 6.0/9. Nakamura played the event as per the demands of the situation — calm on first and third days and three victories on day two! It was excellent news for Indian fans that Harikrishna managed to fight back with two wins against Levon Aronian and Vidit Gujrathi in last two rounds to finish second. Levon Aronian had to settle for the third spot. IM SAGAR SHAH brings you six things that happened on the last day of the rapid and reflections on the first super tournament held in his native India! Of course, one mustn't forget the small sensation — Vishy Anand was beaten by his former second Surya Sekhar Ganguly in the final round.

11/13/2018 – Tuesdays at 18:00 CEST (5:00 pm UK time, Noon EDT) Lawrence Trent brings you the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments. Lawrence is on-demand this week and free for ChessBase Basic account holders for a limited time! (Why not register for FREE in 30 seconds if you don't already have an account?) This week Lawrence covers the recently concluded rapid tournament as part of Tata Steel Chess India.

11/8/2018 – Such a strong open with such a unique final result (husband and wife winning, with the main prize decided on Armageddon) deserves a second look. Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Alina Kashlinskaya won the event, but there were so many side-stories that it is hard to cover all of it in daily reports. ALINA l'AMI brings us a behind-the-scenes look into one of the most exciting tournaments of the year. Luckily, a laptop mishap only delayed but did not prevent her from filing her (semi-traditional) photo retrospective. | Photos: Alina l'Ami

10/26/2018 – Nobody seems to be able to rise above the field at the Chess.com Isle of Man International Tournament. In round six, all the co-leaders either drew or lost, providing a chance for some big guns to reach the top — specifically, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura and Radek Wojtaszek took advantage of the situation. So now the lead is shared by six players, with no less than eleven hungry chasers half a point behind — Kramnik and Anand included. | Photos: John Saunders / Official site

10/25/2018 – All kinds of games were seen in the fifth round of the Chess.com Isle of Man International Tournament — short draws, theoretical battles, upsets, a checkmate with two knights against a queen, and so on. Jeffery Xiong and Abhijeet Gupta beat Richard Rapport and Vidit Gujrathi, respectively, to join Wang Hao and Arkadij Naiditsch in the lead with 4½/5. Meanwhile, Hikaru Nakamura and Sergey Karjakin won impressive games to up their tallies to four points. | Photos: John Saunders

10/4/2018 – Being the sole leader at the Olympiad is not an easy task. USA was the sole leader with 15.0/16 going into the ninth round. They were the clear favourites facing the Polish team. But the inspired Poles played out of their skins and beat the US with three draws and the decisive result being Piorun beating Nakamura. In the women's section China has taken the sole lead by beating Kazakhstan 3-1. We have round 9 report from Batumi by Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal with GM analysis by Surya Sekhar Ganguly.

10/3/2018 – It was perhaps the most hard-fought round of the tournament. Nine out of the first ten matches ended decisively in the open section. We now have a sole leader — USA in the open section. The US team managed to beat Azerbaijan in a thrilling match. In the women's section, Ukraine managed to beat overnight leaders Armenia to take the top spot. They are joined by the Chinese girls. With three rounds to go this Olympiad is excitingly placed with the biggest match today being USA taking on Poland in the open section. Report from Batumi by Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal.

9/25/2018 – It's a historic moment for Indian chess. The country will be hosting its first super tournament this November — the Tata Steel Rapid and Blitz. Bigwigs like Aronian, Nakamura, Karjakin, So and Mamedyarov will be seen crossing swords with Anand, Harikrishna, Vidit and others. Prodigies, Nihal Sarin and R Praggnanandhaa will also be seen matching their wits with some of the absolute best in the world. Here's all you need to know about the event.

9/25/2018 – The first round of the Batumi Olympiad 2018 saw no upsets in the form of match score, but there were individual upsets where a Moroccan player was able to beat 2700+ Chinese GM Li Chao. Vassily Ivanchuk could not win his game and Sophie Milliet lost to a 1900 opponent. We bring you all the pictures from the venue as well as videos that give you the flavour of the environment. The tournament is just warming up with ten more rounds to go, but there is already so much going on! That's what Olympiads are all about, too many things happening at the same time!

9/15/2018 – There was almost no intrigue regarding the final results, but the 2018 Champions Showdown was filled with curious highlights and enterprising chess. The main attraction was Garry Kasparov's presence — the 13th World Champion lost his match against Topalov, but finished on a high thanks to a pair of wins in the last rounds. In the other matchups, Nakamura, So, Vachier-Lagrave and Aronian emerged victorious. In terms of entertainment value, the Saint Louis Chess Club hit the mark! | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

9/13/2018 – After two days of Chess960 in St. Louis, Wesley So established the largest lead in his match against Anish Giri. Perhaps that why So says he prefers the variant over "normal chess". Or is it the other way around — preference breeds success? Garry Kasparov, on the other hand, is well behind in his match against Veselin Topalov. Elsewhere the rating favourites all lead, with the exception of Hikaru Nakamura vs Peter Svidler, which is tied at 6 points apiece. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club/ Lennart Ootes, Austin Fuller

9/1/2018 – September is here, and as the month kicks off we check in with the FIDE rating lists to see how a busy (northern) summer season has shaken thinks up Elo-wise. Magnus Carlsen's top spot in both classical and blitz was briefly threatened, but he remains the king of all formats. | Photo: Grand Chess Tour / Lennart Ootes

8/28/2018 – The sixth edition of the Sinquefield Cup had an unprecedented finish. Levon Aronian defeated Alexander Grischuk in a memorable game, while Magnus Carlsen got a 97-move victory over Hikaru Nakamura. Therefore, Aronian, Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana tied for first — in points and in all tiebreak criteria! The rules stipulated that a drawing of lots would decide which two players would go to the playoff — Carlsen objected, as he thought it to be 'ridiculous'. Finally, the players and organisers decided all three would be declared co-winners! V. SARAVANAN reports. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

8/27/2018 – Everything looked set for a day full of fireworks when the eighth round of the Sinquefield Cup had just begun — Grischuk opened with 1.f4, Karjakin and Nakamura went into what seemed to be a sharp Catalan and Carlsen surely was in the mood to avenge his Biel loss against Mamedyarov. The players did try to fight, but the final result was, once again, five drawn games. Curiously, with one round to go, all the GCT "regular" players still have chances to qualify to the final stage in London. V. SARAVANAN reports. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

8/26/2018 – The much-awaited encounter between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana took place on Saturday in Saint Louis. The World Champion faced Caruana's Petroff and obtained a decisive kingside attack, but was not able to round off the game to a win. The rest of the games also finished with draws, so the World Championship challenger remains the sole leader with two rounds to go. V. SARAVANAN tells us all about the big clash. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

8/25/2018 – For the first time in this year's Sinquefield Cup, a sole leader tops the standings — Fabiano Caruana took advantage of Sergey Karjakin's bad form to get his second win of the tournament. Alexander Grischuk could have easily joined him in the lead, as he missed a big chance to defeat Magnus Carlsen, while Levon Aronian and Hikaru Nakamura exchanged errors to draw the longest game of the day. DANIEL FERNANDEZ analysed all the games from the round and V. SARAVANAN sent his impressions from Saint Louis. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

8/23/2018 – In this year's Sinquefield Cup it is completely banned to sign agreed draws. After three rounds with one decisive result per day, the fifth day of play finished with all the games drawn. That does not mean we did not see fighting chess — Magnus Carlsen could not promote a far-advanced passed pawn against Wesley So, while Hikaru Nakamura and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov ended up frustrated after drawing a rollercoaster game where both had chances. V. SARAVANAN reports from Saint Louis. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Spectrum Studios