5/14/2019 – Rook endings often have drawish tendencies. But some rook endings that are theoretically drawn are sometimes still very difficult to defend.

5/14/2019 – Men in chess have higher ratings then women. Is this due to more male players being involved in serious chess? Or is there an innate difference between the sexes? Bruno Wiesend has a new critique of the "participation rate" hypothesis. VERA SPILLNER summarizes the findings.

5/13/2019 – Last week saw the finale of the 2018/19 season of the 4NCL in Great Britain. Guildford 1 was dominant and won all bouts during the season. Second was the new team from the Isle of Man: chess.com Manx Liberty, a team that two years ago left the German Bundesliga ("Buexit"?). | Photos: 4NCL

5/13/2019 – On Friday, the Russian team championships wrapped up in the Black Sea city of Sochi. In the "Premier League" the St. Petersburg team "Bronze Riders" defended their title. Two points behind were "ShSM Legacy Square Capital" (Moscow) and the Sverdlovsk team "Sima-Land" by ex-world champion Anatoly Karpov (in the left part of the picture, with microphone). In the women's team competition, "Yugra" won the title for the third time. | Photos: Vladimir Barsky

5/13/2019 – After scoring five wins on the final day of action at the first leg of the Grand Chess Tour in Abidjan, Magnus Carlsen won yet another event, this time by a margin of three and a half points. Tied in second place finished Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Hikaru Nakamura — the latter could have finished in sole second had he not lost from a rather equal position against the champion in the last round. | Pictured: Magnus Carlsen with Côte d'Ivoire's Minister of Sports Paulin Danho | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

5/12/2019 – The Kan Variation, also known as Paulsen Variation, is a popular line of the Sicilian. It is named after Ilya Kan, a Russian player who was born 110 years ago last week, on May 4, 1909. He lived most of his life in Moscow where he worked as a lawyer. Kan played in ten Soviet Championships and helped Botvinnik to prepare for his World Championship matches against Smyslov but outside of Russia he is still rather unknown.

5/12/2019 – After scoring five wins on the final day of action at the first leg of the Grand Chess Tour in Abidjan, Magnus Carlsen won yet another event, this time by a margin of three and a half points. | The first stop of the Grand Chess Tour 2019 is the Côte d'Ivoire Rapid & Blitz. It's the first time the GCT has held an event in Africa. World Champion Magnus Carlsen heads a field of ten top GMs competing for a prize fund of USD $150,000. Live games and commentary from 14:00 UTC (16:00 CEST / 10:00 EDT) with GM Yannick Pelletier, IM Tania Sachdev, GM Alejandro Ramirez & GM Maurice Ashley. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

5/12/2019 – Despite confessing at the end of the day that his play was below his expectations, Magnus Carlsen still leads the Côte d'Ivoire leg of the Grand Chess Tour by two and a half points. His closest chaser is Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who started the blitz section with five straight wins and is currently the number one player in the live blitz ratings list. The Frenchman took down Carlsen in what was the world champion's first loss since December. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

5/11/2019 – The great German chess composer Dieter Kutzborski passed away on April 27th 2019 at the age of 72. He was one of the foremost specialists of modern directmates in the style of Logical-New German school, whose productions have brought countless hours of joy to many a problem enthusiasts. SATANICK MUKHUTY been an ardent admirer of Kutzborski's work. His problems, especially the longer ones, are simply sensational; their strategic richness and adventurous play can for sure captivate any solver no matter how strong. | Photos: SSZ 1968 and Martin Minski

5/11/2019 – Anish Giri is one of the more extroverted Grandmasters on the professional circuit. He can be quite witty, and always has something interesting to say. He's also one of the more proactive social media presences on "chess Twitter" where he can be biting at times. He's been making the interview rounds following his win in the Shenzhen Masters in China last month. A few months ago he gave an entertaining blindfold simultaneous at his sponsor's office, Optiver in Amsterdam, which has recently published video of the event.

5/11/2019 – Magnus Carlsen finished all three days of rapid chess in Abidjan with the same result — two wins and a draw. Now he goes into the blitz section with a three-point advantage over Hikaru Nakamura, although each game will now be worth only a point. Besides Naka, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Wesley So threaten to take down the Norwegian, as both had a great run on Friday — MVL won all three games, while So got two wins and drew Nakamura. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

5/10/2019 – In the penultimate round at the TePe Sigeman & Co tournament, Gawain Jones took the sole lead with a victory over Tiger Hillarp Persson, while Harikrishna could only draw. The final round was set for drama as Jones faced Harikrishna head-to-head. But the English GM played solidly with the white pieces and offered a draw on move 21, which Harikrishna accepted, securing first and second places respectively for the duo.