7/4/2018 – It's Independence Day in the United States, and therefore a day for cookouts, celebrating and fireworks. Or, why not take in a film? In this case, you only need spare 13 minutes to learn all about the 2016 Olympiad triumph of Team USA. Starring Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Wesley So, Sam Shankland and Ray Robson, with John Donaldson (as "captain") and Aleksandr Lenderman (as "coach"). Produced by the World Chess Hall of Fame.

7/4/2018 – During the next Chess Olympiad, a new president will be elected at the FIDE Congress. That much became clear after Kirsan Ilyumzhinov officially withdrew his candidacy last weekend. The three options, now officially confirmed by FIDE, are Georgios Makropoulos, Nigel Short and Arkady Dvorkovich. Let us bring you — even the FIDE political neophyte — up to date. Break out the popcorn folks, it's going to be an interesting three months!

7/4/2018 – In the latest magazine issue #4 from New In Chess, you can find an in-depth story on the U.S. Championship by GM Alejandro Ramirez: "The tallest king In St. Louis". Sam Shankland's win kicked off a remarkable streak — in a matter of two months, he jumped from 2671 to 2727. He gained 59 Elo points in a span of just 60 days and raced to the rank of world number 27, jumping from being a strong grandmaster to a super elite player. NIC shares this excerpt from their feature story. Photo: Lennart Ootes

7/3/2018 – Tuesdays at 18:00 CEST (5:00 pm UK time, Noon EDT) Lawrence Trent goes on air on Playchess.com. In his show, Lawrence will be dealing with the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments. This week features GM Cristian Chirila's exploits in Las Vegas...playing chess of course!

7/3/2018 – On Saturday, the Swedish Championship started in Ronneby, embedded in a big chess festival. Hans Tikkanen leads after three rounds with 2½ points and showed himself as a virtuoso of the defence yesterday in his game against Nils Grandelius. The tournament has a long history going back over a century to 1917! | Photo: Lars O. Hedlund

7/3/2018 – Live games from the 2018 Russian Higher League, where top Russian grandmasters battle for one of five qualification spots to the 2018 Russian Championship Superfinal. The overall prize fund is 5 million rubles, or around 68,000 euros. | Pictured: Alexey Sarana | Photo: Dmitry Kryakvin / Russian Chess Federation

7/3/2018 – 30 years ago the King’s Indian Attack was considered as an interesting and original way to avoid theoretical battles. But today’s theory sees the King’s Indian Attack in line with the modern approach to postpone the fight for the centre to the middlegame. The King’s Indian Attack is full of positional and tactical ideas and often an unpleasant surprise for the opponent. The opening is easy to prepare but it’s important to remember that the King’s Indian Attack is more about ideas and plans and less about forced and complicated lines. Since my junior days it has been a reliable weapon and it still serves me well today.

7/3/2018 – Usually, the endgame rook and knight vs rook is a draw when no more pawns are left on the board. But when the defending king is caught in the corner the attacking side sometimes has winning chances.

7/3/2018 – The two best female players of all time recently came together for The Conversation, a BBC podcast interview. They spoke about their respective chess careers as the best women in the sport, the challenges they each faced, and how they chose to transition away from dedicated competition. These are subjects both have dealt with often before, but rarely have the two come together for a direct back-and-forth conversation like this.

7/2/2018 – Ludek Pachman was an important theoretician, an industrious author, and a controversial personality. In Czechoslovakia he was a staunch communist but after the "Prague Spring" he changed from Saul to Paul or, as some people think, from Saul to Saul. Vlastimil Hort shares memories of Ludek Pachman. | Photos: Archive Michalek

7/2/2018 – In this Simon Says, Simon looks at "The Magic of Tal" today. The action is live most Mondays starting at 18:00 CEST (Noon EDT).

7/2/2018 – The combined rapid and blitz tournament of the four "chess legends" Anatoly Karpov, Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Eugenio Torre and Anatoly Vaisser in the Catalan seaside resort of Platja d'Aro ended yesterday with Karpov's overall victory. While the ex-world champion had fallen behind Vaisser by half a point after the six Rapid games at the start of the event, he succeeded in reversing the story during the blitz tournament. In the end, Karpov won with a score of 12½ / 18 ahead of Vaisser's 12 / 18. Third, was Ljubojevic with 7½ / 18 and last, Torre with 4 / 18. | Photo: David Llada