8/10/2021 – Grandmaster Aleksandr Lenderman won the U.S. Open with 8½ points out of 9 rounds. Mike Walder annotates Lenderman’s wins over Grandmasters Hans Niemann and John Michael Burke. Alexey Root reports on the awards presentations, book signings, and meetings held at the U.S. Open’s Cherry Hill, New Jersey site. | Photos: Alexey Root

8/10/2021 – The fourth leg of this year’s Grand Chess Tour will be played on August 11-15. The Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz will host 10 of the top players from around the world including world number 2, Fabiano Caruana (pictured), and 2021 Paris Rapid and Blitz winner, Wesley So. The tournament will showcase four GCT full tour players and six wildcards, including American favorites Hikaru Nakamura, Leinier Dominguez and first time participants, Sam Shankland and Jeffery Xiong. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

8/10/2021 – Svitlana sets up a classic position between Nigel Short and Jan Timman. But before we start with the famous position, we derail a bit to the Alekhine Opening. It turns out, Svitlana Demchenko has a genuinely good score when playing the Alekhine Defense as Black. After the popular example, Svitlana shows us a similar technic from one of her own games, which she played in her chess club in Ottawa.

8/10/2021 – Chess tournaments in Dortmund, Germany, have a long and illustrious tradition. In 2021, the Sparkassen Chess Trophy continued this tradition. Vishy Anand won a "No Castling" match against Vladimir Kramnik, Pavel Eljanov won the "Deutschland Cup". Now, the organizers released a video that reviews highlights of this year's tournament. In a personal statement during the award ceremony, Carsten Hensel, former manager of Kramnik, and driving force behind the organisation of the tournament, had already explained why Dortmund 2021 was a real highlight for him.

8/10/2021 – The duel bishop against knight is often tricky. When defending, the side with the knight often tries to build a fortress to exploit the color blindness of the bishop. In the diagram position Black is two pawns down but built a fortress. However, will it hold? And, if so, how does Black make it last forever?

8/10/2021 – The FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss and Women’s Grand Swiss will be held in Riga in the format and dates originally scheduled: from 25 October to 8 November 2021. The difficult decision to relocate the tournament from Douglas, its original planned location, was forced due to the strict COVID-19 restrictions still in place in the Isle of Man. | Photo: Diego Delso

8/9/2021 – Britain’s first-ever outdoor chess festival, ChessFest, attracted 6,000 visitors at London’s Trafalgar Square, and featured a varied programme of fun activities, including live chess games with actors, grandmaster simuls, mass teach-ins and video shows. The organisers, Chess in Schools and Communities, say they would like to make ChessFest an annual event. Tim Wall reports. | Photo John Beardsworth

8/9/2021 – In the "Endgame Magic Show #155" Karsten Mueller talks with Abhimanyu Mishra about the endgame. In the old days people said that one should just go into the endgame against a young player which then would win itself. But Abhimanyu Mishra, the world's youngest Grandmaster ever, proves this to be wrong. He knows a lot about endgames, has watched all 154 previous "Endgame Magic" shows, and stuns Karsten again and again with insights and questions. In the current show the young Grandmaster proves his defensive skills in rook endings, but in some examples Abhimanyu is also attacking, when he is no less resourceful. | "Endgame Magic" is on air most Mondays. Watch it on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

8/9/2021 – A draw in the second set of the finals was enough for Wesley So to secure first place at the second edition of the Chessable Masters. The Filipino-born grandmaster thus obtained his third title in this year’s Champions Chess Tour. Le Quang Liem finished in a remarkable second place, while Vladislav Artemiev got the bronze after beating Levon Aronian in the match for third place.

8/9/2021 – The game Adolf Anderssen against Lionel Kieseritzky, the "Immortal Game", played in London 1851, is arguably the most famous game in the history of chess. Anderssen won with a brilliant mating combination after sacrificing huge parts of his army. But his opponent Lionel Kieseritzky also played an "Immortal Game". Stephan Oliver Platz discovered this game and uses it as a starting point to take a close look at Kieseritzky's contribution to the King's Gambit.

8/8/2021 – The Chessable Masters is the eighth event of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Sixteen strong grandmasters are set to play a preliminary stage lasting three days to find out who moves on to the quarterfinals. In the knockout stage, each encounter is decided over two days. The action kicks off at 17.00 CET (11.00 ET, 15.00 UTC).

8/8/2021 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. In the 39th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman takes another look at critical moves, this time with the help of a fine game by the young Garry Kasparov. | Photo: Tommy Grooten