10/7/2019 – Problem solving is a challenging field, with young participants generally dominating. There is one exception. Year after year a British mathematician, grandmaster and chess writer gives the strongest and brightest a run for their money. This year 64-year-old John Nunn finished a close second, and reported on this success. Today he presents, in his own inimitable style, the solutions to seven of the problems he had to solve at the 43rd World Chess Solving Championship in Vilnius. Our picture shows John Nunn winning the silver medal at the WCCC2019 in Vilnius and composing a chess problem, in the mid 1980s.

10/6/2019 – GM Jon Speelman analyses three d4 games from a class A player for your instruction and amusement. | Send in your own games! Jon can always use more material from readers. If your games are selected for the Agony column, not only will you get free detailed commentary of your games by one of chess’s great authors and instructors, and former world no. 4 player, but you also win a free three-month ChessBase Premium Account!

10/6/2019 – As often happens in tournaments, the first few rounds are filled with upsets, lower rated players stunning their higher rated opponents. However, once the rounds progress and the dust settles you begin to see the stronger players with higher rating begin to call the shots. This is what is happening at the World Youth 2019 as players like Praggnanandhaa, Shuvalova, Garifullina, Makarian, Suleymanli, Rakshitta are in the lead. IM SAGAR SHAH brings you the most interesting moments of the day along with analysis of some selected attacking games, endgames and study like positions. | Photos: Amruta Mokal

10/6/2019 – At the end of the fourth round of the World Youth 2019, we have one section where a sole leader has emerged. In under-14 open, Srihari LR (pictured) claimed the pole position by beating top seed Sreeshwan Maralakshikari. The game was so good that it was given the "ChessBase Game of the day prize"! Divya Deshmukh, the top seed in under-14 section lost her game to a player rated over 400 points below her. Rudik Makarian, Aronyak Ghosh in under-16 open and Leya Garifullina and Nazerke Nurgali in under-16 girls are the four other players on a perfect score of 4.0/4. IM SAGAR SHAH brings you a detailed report with pictures, game, analysis from the Hotel Renaissance in Mumbai. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

10/5/2019 – The Chess Classic tournaments in Frankfurt and Mainz are legendary. Organiser and driving force behind these tournaments was Hans-Walter Schmitt (pictured in 2004 with supermodel Carmen Kass), a tireless chess promoter. But after 25 years of organising chess events he now invites to a last spectacular event: a double simul with Vishy Anand and Vincent Keymer who both play on 40 boards. | Photos: Hartmut Metz

10/5/2019 – Azerbaijani Grandmaster Teimour Radjabov defeated rating favourite Ding Liren in tiebreaks at the final match of the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk. After draws in all four rapid games, Radjabov got victories in both blitz encounters to take home the title and USD 110,000. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave prevailed in the match for third place with a commanding 2:0 victory over Yu Yangyi. IM LAWRENCE TRENT sent a video recap of the play-offs. | Photo: FIDE

10/4/2019 – A double-round in a day always speeds up an event. After the first day, we had two rounds on the second day of the World Youth 2019. In all the sections we have five or fewer players on perfect score. In the under-18 girls section we already have a sole leader! IM SAGAR SHAH analyzes the win of Honorata Kucharska, the sole leader in girls under-18 and try to improve our understanding of the Exchange French. We also have two very interesting games by the highest rated player in the event Shant Sargsyan (2580) and lastly we look at two pawn endgames that were complex enough for strong players to solve them over the board! | Pictured: Polina Shuvalova and Alexandra Obolentseva share some light words before the game | Photo: Amruta Mokal

10/4/2019 – Fabiano Caruana is already qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2020 and Ding Liren too de facto. They should now be joined by two World Cup finalists. Instead, the situation is less clear. Anish Giri is banking on a rating spot freed up by Ding's new qualification. Radjabov is also in, if he wants it, but that is very much an open question. CONRAD SCHORMANN explains. | Photos: FIDE

10/4/2019 – After 23...exd4 in the diagram, White is never going to recapture this pawn in the game — he just has better things to do! Have you spotted his leitmotif?

10/4/2019 – Teimour Radjabov qualified to the next Candidates Tournament by knocking out Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the classical phase of the World Cup semi-finals, which meant he had an extra rest day heading into the final match against Ding Liren. In parallel, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is facing Yu Yangyi in the match for third place. Live games and commentary from 10:0 UTC (12 Noon CEST / 6:00 AM EDT). | Photo: FIDE

10/4/2019 – If Niclas Huschenbeth recommends something, you might want to listen. On his Facebook page the reigning German champion, national team and World Cup participant gives his verdict on the recently released three-volume video series from Fabiano Caruana: "This is massive".

10/3/2019 – First and third places of the World Cup will be decided Friday in Khanty-Mansiysk, as the classical phase of the deciding matches ended with 2:2 scores. Ding Liren and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave had the white pieces in the last "slow" games of the match-ups, but could not get last-minute victories to avoid the rapid play-offs. Teimour Radjabov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave will kick off the tiebreaks with the white pieces. Round-up show by GM YANNICK PELLETIER. | Photo: FIDE