7/26/2018 – Summer time is holiday time. But not all chess players use their holidays to play in a summer open. If you pursue other interests but still want to keep in shape you might want to turn to the playchess.com WebApp. It offers a good way to play on your iPhone, smartphone, tablet or IPad, etc.

7/26/2018 – The streak of two decisive games per day finished on Wednesday at the Biel GM tournament, as the players split points in all three boards in the fourth round. Nico Georgiadis finished his bad run by defending a highly complicated position against World Champion Magnus Carlsen. Mamedyarov and Carlsen still lead the standings and will face-off in the fifth round. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Biel International Chess Festival

7/25/2018 – Amin Bassem leads a field of ten strong chess players from ten different African countries. They are competing at the Cote d'Ivoire Rapid & Blitz Invitational, an event that mimics the format used in the Grand Chess Tour. The tournament is organized by the Fédération Ivoirienne des Echecs (FIDEC) and the Kasparov Chess Foundation. Starting today, 90-minute highlight shows will be provided daily. | Pictured: GM Amin Bassem | Photo: Alina l'Ami

7/25/2018 – The Smith-Morra Gambit (1.e4 c5 2.d4!) is a great attacking weapon against the popular Sicilian Defence. On move two White sacrifices a pawn for fast development and good attacking chances, and Black can easily fall into one of the many devious opening traps. With this gambit in your opening arsenal you are highly unpredictable and able to deal heavy blows at short notice. Your opponent will have to solve concrete problems from the beginning and can easily be under pressure before move ten!

7/25/2018 – Nikita Vitiugov defeated Hou Yifan by a 6½-3½ score in a Blitz Encounter in Russia as part of the ongoing Russia-China friendship series of events. Back in China, the injured Ding Liren seems to be making a smooth recovery and is already set to play a match with Veselin Topalov next month. Details on how he's been spending his time, and games from the Chinese League, which he had to miss. | Photo: Vladimir Barsky

7/24/2018 – For the third day in a row, two players left Biel's Congress Centre with a win in their pockets. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov inflicted Maxime Vachier-Lagrave's second consecutive loss and now shares the lead with Magnus Carlsen. The other winner was David Navara, who increased Nico Georgiadis' woes with a Black win in 39 moves. Peter Svidler and Carlsen signed a three-fold repetition draw after exploring a complex line of the Najdorf | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Simon Bohnenblust / Biel International Chess Festival

7/24/2018 – 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 games from the Xtracon Open!

7/24/2018 – On Sunday, the Accentus GM tournament started in Biel with a few super GMs, including none other than the World Champion himself. Magnus Carlsen had an exciting duel with David Navara, in which Carlsen proved that the queen may be overrated. So far, the World Champion has shown himself in excellent form. On Monday he scored again, this time with Black against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Peter Svidler celebrated his first victory, against Nico Georgiadis, and is tied with Mamedyarov for second place. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Simon Bohnenblust / Biel International Chess Festival

7/24/2018 – Rook endings require precision, rook endings with passed pawns even more. And precision sometimes requires to make moves that seem to be counter-intuitive, paradoxical, like retreating when you want to advance.

7/24/2018 – The World Senior Team Championships was on Jon Speelman's mind recently, and now it's Vlastimil Hort's turn. Hort was born in 1944 and initially wanted to wait until he reached his eighties before starting to play in senior tournaments. However, friends convinced him to try it earlier and he took part in Radebeul. He enjoyed the time and was happy to meet a lot of old colleagues and friends. | Photos in the report: Karsten Wieland

7/23/2018 – Jonathan looks at his own agony / ecstasy pair of games from the recent World Senior Team Championship near Dresden. In two weeks he'll be back to looking at reader submissions — and 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!

7/23/2018 – Saint Louis hosted the 2018 editions of the U.S. Junior Chess Championship and the U.S. Girls Junior Championship last week. Awonder Liang and Carissa Yip qualified to the national main event by winning in each category. This was Liang's second consecutive win in this event, while Yip improved greatly on her eighth place from last year. | Photos: Austin Fuller / Saint Louis Chess Club