6/18/2019 – The 2019 Women's Candidates Tournament in Kazan concluded with two decisive results in round fourteen — Mariya Muzychuk inflicted a first loss on Aleksandra Goryachkina, while Tan Zhogyi defeated Valentina Gunina to finish with a 7 out of 14 score. As expected, Anna Muzychuk secured second place by splitting the point with Alexandra Kosteniuk. Third place was shared between Kateryna Lagno and Tan Zhongyi. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

6/17/2019 – With 7.0/9 Vietnamese Grandmaster Le Quang Liem was sole winner of the Asian Continental Championships in Xingtai, China, five players qualified for the World Cup 2019, Dinara Saduakossava won the women's event with 7½/9, Nihal Sarin finished first in the blitz tournament, and a number of interesting games were played. | Photos: Chinese Chess Federation

6/17/2019 – The Women's Candidates is taking place in Kazan, Russia from May 31 to June 17. In addition to the EUR €200,000 prize fund, the largest in history for a tournament of this kind, the winner earns the right to challenge World Champion Ju Wenjun in match play. And the winner is Aleksandra Goryachkina! With one round to go she leads with 9½/13 and is 2 points ahead of her closest rival, Anna Muzychuk. The 14th and last round starts at 3:00 pm local time (12 Noon UTC / 14:00 CEST). Follow the games live, with video commentary by GM Evgeny Miroshnichenko. | Picture: FIDE Chess

6/17/2019 – So far, 2019 has been a good year for Vladislav Artemiev: in February 2019 the Russian Grandmaster had a rating of 2709 but after winning the Gibraltar Masters in January and the European Individual Championship in March he now has a rating of 2761 and is number 10 on the FIDE World Ranking List. At the strong Karpov Tournament in Poikovsky Artemiev was the number one seed but he needed a strong finish to win the tournament on tie-break. | Photos: Vasily Papin

6/17/2019 – The penultimate round of the 2019 Women's Candidates Tournament was played on Sunday in Kazan. Aleksandra Goryachkina had already secured first place on Friday, but the rest of the players showed they are still in the mood to fight for the remaining prizes. Anna Muzychuk defeated Valentina Gunina and practically secured second place, while Aleksandra Kosteniuk got a third win with White in the tournament, over Mariya Muzychuk. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

6/16/2019 – In the 100th edition of his Agony column, grandmaster JON SPEELMAN takes a look at three games from Ph.D. in Computer Science and race car driver Guy Argo, a player who "is happiest at the chess board when hacking". | 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!

6/16/2019 – AlphaZero changed the chess world and the way chess players think. But how does the program think and what makes its chess so special? In their book "Game Changer" Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan give answers and present a lot of games by AlphaZero. Carl Portman liked the book so much that he invited Sadler and Regan for a simul and a lecture about AlphaZero. Which was instructive and fun. | Carl Portman

6/15/2019 – After a 14-year tournament hiatus, Grandmaster Patrick Wolff recently played several rated games at the Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club, where he had been serving as Interim Director until June 14. In an extensive interview he tells WIM Alexey Root about updating his best-selling book, being a second to then-World Championship challenger Vishy Anand, winning two U.S. Championships, and making chess more appealing to corporate sponsors. | Photos: Courtesy of Patrick Wolff

6/15/2019 – The Altibox Norway Chess Tournament ended with a rematch of the 2018 World Championship duel in London: Fabiano Caruana against Magnus Carlsen. But this time Caruana won. In the classical game, Caruana missed the win in a complicated position but in the Armageddon game he outplayed the world champion. Carlsen had already won the tournament on Thursday and in the end finished with 13½ out of 18 points. Levon Aronian and Yu Yangyi followed with 10½ points each, but thanks to a better tie-break Aronian finished second. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / norwaychess.no

6/14/2019 – Aleksandra Goryachkina had a winning position against Tan Zhongyi in round twelve of the Women's Candidates Tournament, but decided to go for perpetual check and sign a draw, as this secured her first place in Kazan. The 20-year-old will play Ju Wenjun in the next Women's World Championship match. Meanwhile, Anna Muzychuk, Valentina Gunina and Nana Dzagnidze won their round twelve games. | Photo: Anastasiya Karlovich

6/14/2019 – On the show today: GM Daniel King be looking through the Caruana-Anand classical game from Norway Chess in detail - there are some beautiful variations. 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...

6/14/2019 – The 2019 Altibox Norway Chess Tournament is a ten-player single round robin taking place on June 3rd-15th in Stavanger. Every single match will have a winner: if the classical game ends in a draw Armageddon will follow, White has ten minutes, Black seven, but White needs to win. Magnus Carlsen won the tournament with one round to spare but there is still money and prestige stake. In the ninth and final round Carlsen will play against Caruana. The last round starts Friday at 17:00 CEST (15:00 UTC, 11:00 EDT). Follow the games live, with commentary by Judit Polgar and Anna Rudolf. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / norwaychess.no