4/7/2018 – The sixth round of the Grenke Classic tournament lasted no less than seven hours today. Fabiano Caruana suffered long and hard against Yifan Hou but finally came to a happy draw. Matthias Bluebaum celebrated a great success against Viswanathan Anand, while Arkadij Naiditsch won against Georg Meier | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

4/6/2018 – The strongest open tournament in Australia, the Doeberl Cup, has been held annually for 56 years in the capital city, Canberra. This year saw a new winner from Uzbekistan who represents the USA, GM Timur Gareyev, who edged out Australian IM James Morris on tiebreak score. The "Blindfold King" also swept the field by winning 10-0 in a blindfold exhibition prior to the tournament and had a perfect score in the 2018 Doeberl Cup Lightning. A successful trip to the land down under by Gareyev, but also for our reporter IM Irene Sukandar, who won the prize for the best woman. | Photo: O2C Doeberl Cup

4/6/2018 – This DVD provides everything you need to know to be able to play one of the most classical openings with Black, the Nimzo-Indian, arising after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4. Nearly every World Championship and top tournament features the Nimzo-Indian. It is a well trusted “lifetime“ choice for players all around the globe. The former FIDE World Champion, Grandmaster Rustam Kasimdzhanov, gives you both the concrete variations, with many novelties to catch your opponent by surprise, and the positional nuances to enhance your understanding of the opening and of the game in general.

4/6/2018 – In September 2017, in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sergio Negri, a researcher specialized in chess of Argentine origin, completed an epic treatise on the origins of chess. Thoroughly detailed, and thought-provoking, we bring it to you in a new series of articles over the coming weeks. This first part introduces the topic and discusses the first of several theories: a Persian origin. | Photo: "Zereshk" (Own work) CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

4/5/2018 – On April 5th, the 5th round of the "GRENKE Chess Classic", now in Baden-Baden was the first in which all five games ended in a draw. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Fabiano Caruana and Nikita Vitiugov thus continue to lead the standings; a half point behind are Levon Aronian and World Champion Magnus Carlsen. Against Georg Meier, Carlsen was on the verge of losing shortly before the time control, but the German grandmaster missed the win! Another game was nearly decisive: Arkadij Naiditsch stood much better against Matthias Bluebaum, but here it was the young German, who somehow managed to survive a devastating attack and fight back in the endgame. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

4/5/2018 – A calm position... in which one is about to see a wealth of tactical motifs: knight fork, intermediate move, decoy, pin, deflection, overloading and mate combinations. Things start with 12.0-0 — tally charts allowed! :-)

4/5/2018 – A solid tactical understanding is sure to help any chess player in critical situations. Whether it is a simple exchange or a mating attack, tactics are ubiquitous. Take advantage of the opportunity to develop your tactical understanding in this series with IM Oliver Reeh and Pascal Simon! (Normally) Friday's at 15:30 CET (9:00 AM EDT) it's all about Capablanca's all-in-one — one game, eight tactical motifs!!

4/5/2018 – The Mediterranean Flower was a closed WGM tournament held from Feb 24th to March 3rd, 2018. The 10-player round-robin attracted players from six countries and was won by Russian WIM Elena Tomilova. Besides winning the tournament, Tomilova also scored her second WGM norm. Strong performances were also recorded by lower seeds like Patricija Vujnovic and Petra Kejza. WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili sends us a pictorial report. | Photo: Top three finishers (L to R): WIM Olga Prudnykova, WIM Elena Tomilova and WGM Evgeniya Doluhanova

4/4/2018 – The GRENKE Chess Classic continued today in Baden-Baden with round four. For a long time, it looked like this was going to be a game day where all players would struggle to play the 40 moves required before draw offers are allowed. However, Fabiano Caruana exploited an opening left by Arkadij Naiditsch, and showed that his brilliant form from Berlin persists. With only a queen and knight each left on the board, the American was able to produce dangerous threats against Naiditsch who ultimately collapsed under the pressure. As a result, Caruana joins the leaders, Nikita Vitiugov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

4/4/2018 – Chess mastery is a bit like a PhD in a university, many subjects need to be studied: openings, middlegames, endgames, tactics, checkmate patterns etc. One of these fields to add to the curriculum are beautiful games which can help raise our aesthetic appreciation of the game, while at the same time giving us ideas and interesting maneuvers we can apply to our games. Reviewer Davide Nastasio takes a look at Simon "Ginger GM" Williams' picks in his entertaining DVD "Most amazing moves"!

4/4/2018 – R Praggnanandhaa had been making headlines ever since he became the world's youngest IM in May 2016. All eyes were on the little genius, with everyone eager to see if he could become the world's youngest GM too. The kid gave it his all, and as the deadline to break the record approached closer, he travelled across the globe playing every tournament that offered him the possibility of scoring a norm. But, in the end, he lost the race against time. However, Praggna earned heaps of admiration and love, and, most importantly, his zeal to excel remains undeterred. So, all things considered, wasn't the struggle worth a lot more than the record? | Photo: Lennart Ootes Reykjavik Open Facebook page

4/3/2018 – On Easter Monday, the GRENKE Chess Open ended with a sensation. Vincent Keymer won Europe's largest open chess tournament with 8.0 points from nine rounds. He started as number 99 in the ranking list, yet left behind 49 grandmasters, including such well-known names as Etienne Bacrot (France), Richard Rapport (Hungary), Alexei Shirov (Latvia) and Anton Korobov (Ukraine). What makes the victory all the sweeter is that it comes with a GM norm and a cash prize of 15,000 euros. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

4/3/2018 – Knight against bishop — an interesting duel. In open positions, the bishop is usually better than the knight. But of course, the bishop first has to BE in an open position.

4/3/2018 – “Last year I took part in the British Over-50 Championship,” our friend and author writes. “A number of people wondered why I had entered. The explanation is that 2017 made it exactly half a century since I first took part in the British Championship, and it seemed reasonable to mark the occasion by once again playing in the event. I thought it would be interesting to tell the story of these two events, although I have allowed myself to wander off-topic to some extent.” Well, here it is for you to enjoy.

4/3/2018 – The third round of the Grenke Classic seemed headed to a very dull series of draws, but somehow things changed before the games ended. Carlsen tried very hard to lead young Bluebaum astray, but no luck, while Caruana final scored a win after a fairly sharp game against Meier. Finally, Hou Yifan lost a tough game against MVL. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

4/2/2018 – Samuel "Sammy" Reshevsky was possibly the greatest player ever to never be a full-time chess professional, even as he vied for the no.1 spot during his prime. He was also one of the greatest prodigies of his day, conducting master level simuls around the world as a child. He played in many World Championship cycles, including the 1948 World Championship tournament. We bring you photos and a historic game commented by Reshevsky himself! | Photo: Kadel and Herbert

4/2/2018 – In a day when White scored 4½/5, how else could one describe the round? Even the one draw took herculean measures by Matthias Bluebaum (with black) to survive Fabiano Caruana's powerful attack. For Nikita Vitiugov, the qualifier from last year's Open, it means 2/2 also. Still, be sure to see the fascinating notes by GM Yermolinsky, who sheds light on how chess understanding has changed in the last 20 years. Not to be missed! | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

4/2/2018 – Did you think that the "Drunken Master" story we published 24 hours ago was an April 1st jest? No, it wasn't. It was funny but perfectly true (so far as we know). So is the made-up report coming? No, it isn't. We have decided to abandon the twenty-year tradition (this time really!) and stick to straight and truthful news. But we will look back at some of the pranks we have perpetrated in the past — just to prove we have not lost our sense of humour.