9/17/2020 – With 7.0/9 Nikita Vitiugov and Steven Zierk shared first at the strong Pacific Northwest Chess Center Artist Point tournament, a 9-round Swiss online tournament with an almost classical time-control of 60 minutes for the whole game and a 5-second increment per move. Awonder Liang reports and takes a close look at interesting games. | Photos: Xuhao He

1/20/2020 – Fabiano Caruana caught up with Alireza Firouzja atop the standings table of the Tata Steel Masters after beating Vishy Anand from a clearly lost position. In the meantime, Magnus Carlsen, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Vladislav Kovalev grabbed their first wins of the event. In the Challengers, Nils Grandelius and David Anton joined the four-player chasing pack that stands a half point behind sole leader Pavel Eljanov. Do not miss the thorough analyses provided by GMs DANIEL FERNANDEZ and YANNICK PELLETIER. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

10/19/2019 – Three players are sharing the lead at the FIDE chess.com Grand Swiss, as David Anton joined Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian after beating Alexander Grischuk. Much like the leading pack, the group of chasers grew in size on Friday. Ten players are at a half point distance from the leaders, with some big names joining after round eight — Vishy Anand, Sergey Karjakin, Hikaru Nakamura and Boris Gelfand. Also among the chasers is Vladislav Kovalev, who upset Radoslaw Wojtaszek on board nine. IM LAWRENCE TRENT recapped the highlights of the day. | Photo: John Saunders

4/3/2019 – April ratings came out like clockwork on Sunday night. Our own internal PlayerBase update — not so much. Apologies for the delay in our monthly tour through the Elo lists. Of special interest on the April list: 28 players from the Top 100 exhibited rating swings of +/- 10 Elo points or more — a rare occurrence. Pictured: Ju Wenjun, David Anton Guijarro, Jan Krejci, winners at the Prague Challengers. | Photo: Macauley Peterson

2/16/2019 – The Cosmos Hotel, located in north-central Moscow, will host the 17th edition of the Aeroflot Open. Group A currently counts 39 registered players rated 2600 or above, with 19-year-old Wei Yi as the top seed. The event is a great chance for players that are vying to get a place in the elite to prove themselves against formidable opposition. Nine rounds will be played starting Monday, with no rest days in between. | Photo: Amruta Mokal (archive)

1/28/2019 – Magnus Carlsen won his seventh Tata Steel Chess title after holding a draw against Anish Giri despite all of the latter's attempts to keep the game going. Peace was signed after 30 moves as Anish contented himself with the second place. There was a three-way tie for third between Ian Nepomniachtchi, Ding Liren and Vishy Anand, who all scored 7½/13. In the Challengers, Vladislav Kovalev took the title with a staggering 1½ point margin after beating Stefan Kuipers in the final round. GM MIKHAIL GOLUBEV provided expert analyses of the most exciting games. | Photos: Alina l'Ami / Official site

1/26/2019 – Vladislav Kovalev has won three in a row and takes a half point lead into Sunday's final round. Maksim Chigaev and Andrey Esipenko remain undefeated and a half point back. But Kovalev has the easiest pairing in Round 13 — White against the bottom seed Stefan Kuipers — while the young Russians both have Black against tougher opponents. We take a closer look at the past week in the Challengers. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

1/26/2019 – A completely unexpected resignation from Sam Shankland allowed Anish Giri to catch up with Magnus Carlsen in the standings. A half point behind, the only chaser is Ian Nepomniachtchi, who grabbed an important win over Vladimir Fedoseev. In other news, Vladimir Kramnik got his first victory this year, while Vladislav Kovalev won the only decisive game of the Challengers and joined Maksim Chigaev at the top of the standings. Full report by ALEX YERMOLINKSY. | Photos: Alina l'Ami / Official site

1/15/2019 – The drawing streak of Magnus Carlsen continues as the World Champion tied his fourth round match-up against Vladimir Kramnik at the Tata Steel Masters. Meanwhile, Anish Giri and Vidit won their games to join Vishy Anand and Ding Liren in the chasing pack half a point behind sole leader Ian Nepomniachtchi. In the Challengers, Vladislav Kovalev beat Lucas van Foreest to seize his spot in the leading group. The action of the day was analysed by GM DANNY KING. | Photos: Alina l'Ami / Official site

7/23/2018 – The 2018 Sparkassen Chess Meeting finished on Sunday. Ian Nepomniachtchi took clear first place after beating Georg Meier with a dazzling attack. Vladislav Kovalev could have finished in clear second place had he been able to defeat Vladimir Kramnik in a winning but difficult endgame — the former world champion defended until a draw was agreed on move 104. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

7/22/2018 – Dortmund Round 7 is at 13:15 CEST (7:15 AM EDT) Saturday with a sole leader in Ian Nepomniachtchi. Trailing by a half point with two rounds to play are Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Vladislav Kovalev, Georg Meier and Anish Giri each with 3½ out of 6. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

7/22/2018 – With one round to go, no less than four players are half a point behind sole leader Ian Nepomniachtchi at the Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund. Giri and Meier beat Kramnik and Nisipeanu, respectively, to join Kovalev and Duda on 3½/6. LAWRENCE TRENT analysed both decisive games and the final stage of Duda-Nepomniachtchi, where the young Polish star missed his chance to defeat the leader. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

7/21/2018 – The fifth round of the Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund had only one decisive result, but it was a big one: Ian Nepomniachtchi took down Vladimir Kramnik in the only match-up that faced two of the previous co-leaders. Nepo is now in front on 3½/5, half a point ahead of Vladislav Kovalev and Jan-Krzysztof Duda. The final two rounds of the tournament will be played this weekend. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

7/19/2018 – Jan-Krzysztof Duda had a great start at the Sparkassen ChessMeeting in Dortmund, but fell victim to Vladimir Kramnik in the fourth round. Anish Giri also got a full point on Wednesday, as he beat Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu. These results left four players tied in first place. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

7/18/2018 – All four games in Dortmund's third round could have easily finished with decisive results. Ian Nepomniacthchi and Vladislav Kovalev obtained their first victories, while Jan-Krzysztof Duda beat his compatriot Radek Wojtaszek to stay at the top of the standings. Vladimir Kramnik pushed for a win once again, but was stopped by Georg Meier's solid defence. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

7/16/2018 – Seven out of eight games finished drawn in the first two rounds of the Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund. The only player who managed to win was Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who beat Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu in Sunday's round and now is the sole leader of the tournament. Despite the big number of draws, we saw a lot of fighting spirit and some very long battles. | Photo: Macauley Peterson

7/15/2018 – At the Sparkassen Chess-Meeting in Dortmund the four games of the first round ended drawn. However, if you think about symmetrical structures and a lot of early exchanges, you are completely wrong, because all boards were struggling hard for the full point. The only player with significant chances to win probably was the birthday boy Ian Nepomniachtchi (against Giri), but the position was pretty tricky. There was also a draw between Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Vladislav Kovalev that went almost the full seven hours possible. The ceremonial first move was made by the mayor of Dortmund, Birgit Jörder. | Photo: sparkassen-chess-meeting.de

7/13/2018 – Starting Saturday, Vladimir Kramnik and Anish Giri top the field of players providing a nice mix of old and new this year. Since 1984, the tournament has been made possible by the commitment of the Dortmund Sparkasse regional bank. | Pictured (L to R): Gerd Kolbe, Klaus Steenweg, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Vladislav Kovalev, Georg Meier, Andreas Jagodzinsky, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Stefan Koth, Vladimir Kramnik, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, Anish Giri, | Photos: Macauley Peterson

5/28/2018 – The Karpov Poikovsky tournament went off to a flying start on Sunday as a decisive game was witnessed on every board: Vidit Gujrathi won in Karpovian style in his very first appearance in Poikovsky; Emil Sutovsky ground down Vladislav Kovalev in an 80 move marathon; Ian Nepomniachtchi and Dmitry Jakovenko won after winning a pawn a piece out of the opening; while Anton Korobov crushed Fedoseev's dubious opening. Here's an illustrated report with analysis. | Pictured: Anatoly Karpov | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

3/1/2018 – In the final round of the Aeroflot Open, Belarusian GM Vladislav Kovalev secured a comfortable draw against GM Gabriel Sargissian to clinch the title prize. With his full point lead over the rest of the field, it was no surprise that Kovalev settled for peace just 15 moves into the game. Decisive games were seen on boards four and five where SP Sethuraman and Dmitry Gordievsky defeated Victor Bologan and Amin Tabatabaei respectively. Both were tied for second with a score of 6½ / 9 but Sethuraman, due to a better tiebreak, took the higher spot on the leaderboard. | Pictured: Top three finishers in Group A: (L to R) SP Sethuraman, Vladislav Kovalev & Dmitry Gordievsky | Photo: Niklesh Jain

2/28/2018 – In the penultimate round of the Aeroflot Open, Vladislav Kovalev put himself in sole lead after defeating his co-leader, IM Amin Tabatabaei. With this win, the Belarusian GM has made himself a clear favourite to win the event with a full point lead over his nearest rival. But a league of 9 players will be rooting for his opponent in the final round and if Kovalev loses his final game, as many as five players could catch up with him for shared first. Round 8 report.

2/27/2018 – Amin Tabatabaei might have had a bad start to the tournament but ever since his first round loss to IM Eesha Karavade, the teenaged International Master from Iran has been on the rise. Scoring four wins in a row, he is now jointly leading the event with besides having scored a GM norm with two rounds to spare. With just two rounds to go, this young IM is definitely someone to watch out for. | Photo: Niklesh Jain

2/26/2018 – The sixth round of the Aeroflot Open was tactics galore. While Vladimir Fedoseev went for broke to rip open his opponent's king in his game against IM Amin Tabatabaei, Krishnan Sasikiran caught Aryan Tari's king in a mating net after the latter gave up a piece for three pawns. Besides, the tournament saw yet another leader dethroned as Kovaleyev defeated Artemiev on the top board to take the sole lead himself. An illustrated report.