7/28/2019 – 41 years ago Wolfram Runkel, (1937-2019) wrote a piece in the prestegious Hamburg weekly "Die Zeit". It was the first major article on computer chess in a German broadsheet. A young science journalist, Frederic Friedel, read it and, with Runkel's help, produced two science documentaries on the subject. And he went on to co-found the chess software company ChessBase. Today, with kind permission of Die Zeit, we bring you the historic article that set everything off.

7/28/2019 – After the rapid tournament, one felt that Vidit was not playing his best chess. But his play improved towards the end of rapid and in the classical event! After dominating the first four rounds of the classical, he now razed the field in Blitz with a powerful 11.0/14! His victory in this section followed a well-known pattern: ruthless against the bottom half with 8.0/8(!) and holding his own against the remaining three by breaking even (3.0/6). Sam Shankland played superbly as well, but a last round loss from a completely winning position ruined his chances, and he now trails the two-player race by a point with three Classical games left to play. TANMAY SRINATH has an exhaustive report. | Photo: Simon Bohnenblust / Biel Chess Festival

7/28/2019 – Exciting chess was the norm in the first three rounds of Rapid at the Paris Grand Chess Tour. Fabiano Caruana and Viswanathan Anand kicked off with wins in rounds one and two and drew their direct encounter to share the lead on 5 out of 6 (wins in Rapid are worth two points). Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Jan-Krzysztof Duda are their closest chasers, on 4 out of 6. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

7/27/2019 – Study of the Month columnist SIEGFRIED HORNECKER outdoes himself this month with a tour de force including eight studies! You can truly spend the entire month with this one. Featured first is Sergiy Didukh (pictured), a Ukrainian studies composer who invented the term “thematic wrong try”. Enjoy! | Photo: Arves.org

7/27/2019 – The Biel Grandmaster tournament has entered its only rest day, after five gruelling days of chess. Along with this flagship event, a nine-round Masters Tournament is being organized for players above 2000 Elo. The top seed is newly minted member of the 2700 club Jeffery Xiong, who faces stiff competition from fellow American Gata Kamsky and Israeli Tamir Nabaty. With 34 GMs and 22 IMs there are a lot of norm chances as well! After five rounds, Croatian surprise package Ante Brkic and German Alexander Donchenko lead the tournament with 4½ out of 5, followed by a host of players on 4 points. | Photo: Simon Bohnenblust / Biel Chess Festival

7/27/2019 – “If it ain't broke, don't fix it” is a false statement in Indonesia. Improvement is always possible for the JAPFA GM & WGM round robin tournaments, traditionally held in Jakarta. The wind of change began to breeze last year in Solo City, where the chess events were relocated, and carried on whiffing towards the latest edition organized this June in Yogyakarta (or Jogja for short) where, IM ALINA L'AMI witnessed some interesting methods to get to the game on time...

7/27/2019 – The 2019 American Continental Championship ran from the 5th to the 13th of July in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The eleven-round open tournament served as a qualifier to the World Cup, with four players getting tickets to the event scheduled for September in Khanty-Mansiysk. Coincidentally, four players — from four different countries — finished on 8½ out of 11, with Venezuelan Eduardo Iturrizaga winning the event on tiebreak criteria. | Photo: Elana de Souza

7/26/2019 – Boris Johnson has completed an improbable rise to the top of British politics. After the resignation of Theresa May as the United Kingdom's Prime Minister, Johnson is next in line to unravel the Gordian knot of the so-called "Brexit". Back in 2014, as the Mayor of London, he was a guest at the London Chess Classic and spoke clever things about the game of chess. But is his game up to the task ahead?

7/26/2019 – On the show today: GM Daniel King will be examining Alekhine miniatures. Power Play is live most Fridays at 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST, Noon EDT) on playchess.com. You can watch the episode live for free! All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

7/26/2019 – Really? Game of the year? You heard it right! After an opening mistake from Vidit Gujrathi, Nico Georgiadis turned on beast mode and made it to an endgame a pawn up. However, instead of a routine piece capture, he had a chance to end the game with a spectacular piece sacrifice! Vidit survived by the scruff of his neck, and is now joined at the top by Sam Shankland, who produced a Sicilian miniature consisting of temporary piece and exchange sacrifices to down Maghsoodloo in only 26 moves. Friday is the tournament's rest day, so play resumes on Saturday with blitz!

7/26/2019 – In the diagram position White played 31.Qb8+!, but then after 31...Kg7 failed to find the right defensive continuation, and three moves later it was over. Can you see the whole picture?

7/26/2019 – GM Le Quang Liem won his maiden Asian Continental for the very first time in his career, becoming the first Vietnamese player to do so. But he did not stop there and continued his momentum going on to win two more strong tournaments consecutively — the Saint Louis Summer Classic and World Open in Philadelphia — all in just a little over three weeks. Shahid Ahmed investigates how he maintains strong composure in such difficult fields? | Photo: Austin Fuller / Saint Louis Chess Club