8/11/2021 – Chess legends Judit Polgar and Vladimir Kramnik have joined forces with the Play Magnus Group to launch a new elite online tour designed to support rising young players and advance gender equality in the sport. The third event, dubbed the Kramnik Challenge, kicks off on August 11. The lineup includes youngest-ever French Grandmaster Marc’Andria Maurizzi.

8/11/2021 – The Riga Technical University Open is taking place on August 9-15 at the international exhibition centre Kipsala in the Latvian capital. The tournament sees 176 players fighting for a €17,100 prize fund. German GM Alexander Donchenko is the top seed, and is followed closely by nine other 2600+ rated players, including six grandmasters hailing from India. After three rounds, nine players still have a perfect score.

8/11/2021 – In this week's "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent is doing something a little different: he will analyse the first "Over-the-Board" game he has played for about 18 months! It is his victory vs Torben Schulenburg from a match between the SK Norderstedt and the Chess Friends Hamburg in the "Oberliga", Germany's third league. Lawrence will also talk about the big news such as the Chessable Masters, World Cup winner etc. | Lawrence's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here

8/11/2021 – The 66th edition of the Mexican Open took place on August 4-8 in Villahermosa, Tabasco. Seven concurrent tournaments were held, including an International Open and events reserved for women, seniors and amateurs. In the main event, top seed Jorge Cori from Peru was the clear winner. Sandro Mareco (Argentina) and Juan Carlos Obregón (Cuba) finished second and third respectively. | Photo: Official site

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.