5/5/2024 – Leon Luke Mendonca was the surprise winner of the Tata Steel Challenger tournament in Wijk aan Zee. He started with 3 out of 6 points, and was lost in the lower part of the table, until he recovered with 6.5 points out of his last 7 games, to reach first place! The Indian Grandmaster and ChessBase Host, Arne Kaehler, started a video series in 2023, on how a typical day in a life of a professional chess player looks like. In the third episode, Leon talks about his own approach to learning tactics, and gives us some examples to solve! | Photo: Lennart Ootes/Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2024

5/5/2024 – The main event of the Sardinia Chess Festival, a 9-round Swiss open featuring 11 players rated 2600 or above, took place from April 27 to May 4 on the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. An eventful final round saw former co-leaders Alan Pichot and Yair Parkhov both losing their games. The outcomes of the games on the top boards resulted in four players tied atop the standings with 7/9 points each. Daniel Dardha, who beat Pichot in the final round, had the best tiebreak score and thus claimed the title. | Photos: Davide Locatelli

5/4/2024 – Kicking off the 2024 Grand Chess Tour will be the Superbet Rapid & Blitz Poland, the first of three speed chess events, which is set to take place on May 8-12 in Warsaw. The event starts with 9 rounds of rapid action, followed by 18 rounds of blitz. Included in the field are world number one Magnus Carlsen and the next challenger for the world crown, Dommaraju Gukesh. | Photo: Grand Chess Tour / Lennart Ootes

5/4/2024 – It has been two weeks since Dommaraju Gukesh became the youngest-ever World Chess Championship challenger after obtaining outright victory at the Candidates Tournament. The player who was closest to catching Gukesh in the final round was Fabiano Caruana, who missed clear winning chances in his round-14 game against Ian Nepomniachtchi. In the latest episode of the C-Squared Podcast, Caruana reflects on his performance and the development of the tournament in general. Unmissable. | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza

5/4/2024 – In 1988, at the Chess Olympiad, a young Greek IM won two notable games. Both games weren’t in line with modern and long opening fashion analysis. Old and tricky openings were applied by the black players, which can be rather annoying. What can we learn from them? If you study the ideas and then try to apply healthy set-ups, you are already in the right track.

5/4/2024 – On May 5th, the subscribers of Kasparov Chess Foundation Academy will gather for an exclusive interview with Veselin Topalov. He was born in 1975, etched his name into the annals of chess history with his remarkable achievements from 2005 to 2014. Renowned for his dynamic style of play, Topalov emerged as one of the most formidable players on the world stage. Listen to his interview this Sunday.

5/2/2024 – Peter Svidler defeated Anton Korobov to climb to shared first place at the TePe Sigeman & Co. Tournament in Malmö. Svidler, the defending champion, is now sharing the lead with Arjun Erigaisi, who drew Vincent Keymer with the white pieces. The co-leaders will face each other in Thursday’s sixth round. | Photo: tepesigemanchess.com

5/2/2024 – "We held the magazine to await the outcome of the Candidates," writes the Executive Editor of CHESS Magazine, London. 17-year-old Dommaraju Gukesh became the youngest world title challenger in the history of the game, and will take on Ding Liren later this year in the first ever all-Asian match for the world title. Malcolm has analysed a couple of games from the Candidates.

5/1/2024 – To play openings like a grandmaster - that's probably what most ambitious amateurs want. The first and not so easy step is to choose openings for your own repertoire. Would you like to do this with a world-class grandmaster? Of course you would! In the new two-part video course "A Supergrandmaster's Guide to Openings with Anish Giri", Anish Giri introduces (almost) all openings in an instructive way, categorises their relevance and tells fascinating stories from the world of elite chess.

5/1/2024 – Ju Wenjun took down Vincent Keymer with the black pieces in round 4 of the TePe Sigeman & Co. Tournament. Keymer, who was sharing the lead after three rounds, now stands a half point behind co-leaders Arjun Erigaisi and Anton Korobov. One more game ended decisively in Malmö, with Nodirbek Abdusattorov getting the better of Nils Grandelius. | Photo: Mikael Svensson, tepesigemanchess.com

5/1/2024 – The colorful Chess Houseboat 2024 tournament will take place from 23rd to 30th November 2024. It is once again scheduled to take place at God's own country, the state of Kerala. . The new attractions this year are the three different places of stay: at the floating houseboat itself in the Vembanadu lake, a beachfront resort at Trivandrum, the capital city of Kerala, and a majestic Dutch fort at Cochin. Apart from the usual Rapid tournament, this time there will also be a Blitz tournament. If all these pique your interest, you must register before 1st June to get early bird discount. Check out all details of the entire event and itinerary, written by IM V Saravanan. Photo: Orient Chess Moves

4/30/2024 – The Queen's Indian Defense is one of the most solid defenses against 1.d4. From a rock-solid position, the black player can pursue many ideas and plans without having to worry about coming under quick pressure. In this video course, the young Indian Grandmaster Leon Mendonca presents the most solid black responses in various variations.