3/6/2023 – Bobby Fischer is certainly the most famous of the Pisces chess players. But other top players include Bent Larsen, Veselin Topalov, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Teimour Radjabov, Hou Yifan, Anna Muzychuk and David Bronstein. Those who are Pisces can sometimes be as brilliant as Albert Einstein. With the Pisces-born, the circle of the twelve signs of the zodiac has come full circle, making this our final instalment.| Photo: Pixabay

2/5/2021 – Veterans Alexei Shirov and Veselin Topalov are sharing the lead at the Salamanca Masters, taking place this week as an over-the-board rapid tournament. David Antón and Eduardo Iturrizaga are trailing the leaders a half point behind and are yet to face the Bulgarian. Only round 5 will be played on Friday, while the tournament will come to an end on Saturday. | Photos: Official site

2/4/2021 – Four men and four women are playing at the Masters Tournament in Salamanca. Bulgarians Veselin Topalov and Nurgyul Salimova had a perfect start on day 1, as they scored back-to-back victories to take the lead in the standings table. | Photos: Official site

11/6/2020 – After twenty years as the world’s highest-rated player, Garry Kasparov decided to quit chess and go into politics in March 2005. His last event was the now legendary Linares Tournament. Kasparov had a one-point lead over Veselin Topalov going into their direct encounter in the last round — Topalov won that game, but Kasparov nonetheless won the tournament, as he had a better tiebreak score (more wins with black). | Photos: Nadja Wittmann

10/1/2020 – The 2700chess.com webpage has been keeping track of top players’ ratings on a daily basis for quite a while now. Besides presenting the highest rated players in classical, rapid and blitz, both in the open and the women’s categories, they have included a list of the highest live ratings ever achieved. Let us recap the top ten of this list, and look at the games which gave each of the players their highest-ever live rating.

4/17/2020 – The fourth edition of the M-Tel Masters Tournament in Sofia saw Vassily Ivanchuk getting sole first place with a stunning 8 out of 10 score. The Ukrainian genius finished 1½ points ahead of Veselin Topalov, who had won all three previous editions. Ivanchuk kicked off the tournament with five straight wins and, after scoring one more victory in the second half, ended the event with a 2977 Tournament Performance Rating. | Photos: Europe Echecs

2/5/2020 – Tonight, IM Merijn van Delft looks back on an eventful Gibraltar tournament, and a game by veteran Bulgarian GM Veselin Topalov, who is always good for a show. The live show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). Merijn is live this week starting at 19:00 UTC (20:00 CET / 4 PM EST).

1/30/2020 – Live games and commentary with GM David Howell and Fiona Steil-Antoni from 10:00 UTC (11:00 CET, 5:00 EST). The penultimate round produced a quintet of leaders. Now-familiar names like Esipenko, Wang, Maghsoodloo and Paravyan, joined by Mustafa Yilmaz top the standings with 7.0/9. After Round 10, the top four finishers with 7½ were Esipenko, Wang, Yuffa and Paravyan, who contested a four-way playoff. Paravyan and Wang reached the final match, and in a stunning upset Paravyan wins the Gibraltar Masters by defeating Want 1½ to ½. | Pictured: Live webcast

1/25/2020 – The Gibraltar Chess Festival is one of the strongest open tournaments in the world but only after three rounds did we see the GMs begin to separate from the pack, five of whom maintained a perfect score. After four rounds the five dropped to one: Ivan Cheparinov. The festival also has an interesting program of side events. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, currently number eight in the world, gave a masterclass (pictured) after round two, which you can relive at your leisure. | Photo: Niki Riga

1/21/2020 – The 18th Gibraltar International Chess Festival starts today at the Caleta Hotel on the east side of the Rock of Gibraltar. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov tops the starting ranking list, joined by fellow "2700 club" members Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Wang Hao, Veselin Topalov, David Navara, Le Quang Liem and Kirill Alekseenko. Anatoly Karpov opened the festival with a simultaneous exhibition. Live games and commentary with GM David Howell and Fiona Steil-Antoni from 14:00 UTC (15:00 CET, 9:00 EST). | Pictured: Mayor of Gibraltar John Gonçalves, made the first move on the top board at the start of the 2020 Gibraltar Masters with top seed GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov from Azerbaijan. Currently No.8 in the world he played his first round game against 12-year-old Candidate Master Raahil Mullick from India. Photo: Niki Riga

12/13/2019 – Wesley So is the only player that has so far advanced to round two of the Jerusalem Grand Prix, as he knocked out Yu Yangyi with a 26-move victory in their rematch classical encounter. Despite the abundance of draws, day two of action in Israel was quite entertaining, as no fewer than five of the seven remaining games featured hard-fought struggles. | Photo: Niki Riga

12/12/2019 – The fourth and final stage of the 2019 FIDE Grand Prix kicked off in Jerusalem. The first classical games of all eight single-elimination matches finished peacefully. The Israeli city sees the race to the Candidates coming to an end, with two spots still in contention at the series — theoretically, Alexander Grischuk can still be eliminated, although he is a clear favourite to get one of the two tickets. | Photo: Niki Riga

11/7/2019 – All eight rematch games of round one finished drawn at the Grand Prix in Hamburg. Thus, opening day winners Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Veselin Topalov and Peter Svidler secured a spot at the quarter-finals. Hikaru Nakamura, who was eliminated by Topalov, finished his Grand Prix run this year, as this was his third and last appearance in the series. Four match-ups will be decided in rapid, blitz and potentially Armageddon tiebreakers. | Photo: Nadja Wittmann

11/6/2019 – Four players kicked off the third leg of the FIDE Grand Prix Series with a win at the Theater Kehrwieder in Hamburg. The results of the day particularly favoured Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, as he beat Wei Yi with the white pieces, while Ian Nepomniachtchi — another big contender to get one of the two Candidates spots at stake — lost against Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Peter Svidler and Veselin Topalov also won their inaugural encounters. | Photo: Nadja Wittmann

9/9/2019 – GM Romain Edouard, Editor-in-Chief of Thinkers Publishing, recently came out with a book of his own, a memoir on his years working as a second for Veselin Topalov, years in which the Bulgarian former FIDE World Champion was at the peak of his powers. He shares some perspective in this brief interview. | Photo: Vladimír Jagr

9/6/2019 – Hikaru Nakamura made a strong comeback in his match against Levon Aronian to score 6-2 and clinch his match with a margin of 14½:11½ in a remarkable comeback after a disastrous first day. Caruana and So completed the formalities in their matches against Kasparov and Topalov respectively to win with wide margins, while Peter Svidler too prevailed against Dominguez with a 4½:3½ margin. IM VENKATACHALAM SARAVANAN reports all action from Saint Louis. | Photo: Austin Fuller / Saint Louis Chess Club

9/5/2019 – Public appearances by Garry Kasparov are often notable, even more so at chess events and especially if the ex-world champion is coaxed into playing chess himself. At the "Champions Showdown" from the Saint Louis Chess Club, Kasparov faced Fabiano Caruana in a 'Fischer Random' match from Monday to Thursday. Although the final score is clearly one-sided in favour of Caruana, the world champion showed he still has what it takes to play against an active player of the elite. In the other match-ups Wesley So and Peter Svidler got comfortable wins over Veselin Topalov and Leinier Dominguez, while Hikaru Nakamura bounced back from a lousy start to finally beat Levon Aronian. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

9/5/2019 – The third day of the Champions Showdown Chess 9LX almost continued on the same lines of the previous two days. Fabiano Caruana has already defeated Garry Kasparov in their match with a day to go, with a score of 14½:3½, while Wesley So too has almost crossed the threshold against Veselin Topalov at 13:5. Leinier Dominguez showed a fightback against Peter Svidler to narrow the trailing margin to 7:11. Kudos to Hikaru Nakamura who narrowed Aronian's lead to a point before the last day of 8 blitz games. Aronian leads 9½:8½. IM VENKATACHALAM SARAVANAN reports. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club

9/4/2019 – The Champions Showdown 9LX continued on the same lines as the first day, with Garry Kasparov and Hikaru Nakamura suffering more heartbreaks and continuing to trail their opponents with scores of 3:9 and 4:8 respectively. Peter Svidler and Wessley So gained further ground on their opponents. IM VENKATACHALAM SARAVAN reports all action from the venue. Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club

7/17/2019 – The training game focus this week is the FIDE Grand Prix in Riga and the quarter-final match between Veselin Topalov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. The live show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows. Merijn is on-demand this week starting at 18:00 UTC (20:00 CEST / 2 PM EDT).

7/16/2019 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave has already secured his spot in the semi-finals of the FIDE Grand Prix in Riga, as Veselin Topalov shocked everyone by offering a draw after merely twelve moves in a must-win situation. The rest of the match-ups are still tied and will be decided on tiebreaks — while Wesley So, Sergey Karjakin, Yu Yangyi and Alexander Grischuk played it safe, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Jan-Krzyztof Duda got into a real fight in Tuesday's round. | Photo: Niki Riga / World Chess

7/15/2019 – On the first round of tiebreaks at the FIDE Grand Prix in Riga, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Alexander Grischuk, Wesley So and Veselin Topalov needed merely two rapid games to move on to the quarter-finals. Meanwhile, Sergey Karjakin and Yu Yangyi played seven games each, as they only managed to knock out Anish Giri and Levon Aronian in Armageddon. | Photo: Niki Riga / World Chess

5/15/2019 – Ideas and strategies in Grandmaster games can be quite instructive. IM Merijn van Delft presents games like these every Wednesday. On this week's show: Topalov vs Amin from the Grand Chess Tour rapid/blitz tournament in Abidjan. The live show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows. Merijn is live at 18:00 UTC (20:00 CEST / 2 PM EDT).

5/9/2019 – Three rounds of Rapid were played on Wednesday at the Pullman Hotel in Abidjan to kick off the first leg of the 2019 Grand Chess Tour. World Champion Magnus Carlsen and Chinese prodigy Wei Yi are leading the ten-player field after getting two wins and a draw during the first day of action. GCT defending champion Hikaru Nakamura is the closest chaser and the only player to avoid a defeat against Carlsen. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour