FIDE presidential race is all set

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!

NIC #4: Shankland's sprint

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

The Weekly Show with Lawrence Trent

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!

Swedish Championship in Ronneby

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

Russian Higher League LIVE

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

NEW: Victor Bologan: Winning with the King’s Indian Attack

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.

Sometimes a good team: rook and knight

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.

Polgar and Hou on BBC The Conversation

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.

Hort stories: Ludek Pachman (part 1)

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

Simon Says — The Magic of Tal

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).

Anatoly Karpov wins "Legends" tournament

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

Speelman's Agony #79

7/2/2018 – Jonathan annotates Jonathan...Rubeck that is, a math teacher from North London. And by the by — 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!

July 2018 FIDE Ratings

7/1/2018 – June was a busy month for rapid and blitz ratings with some players playing 36 games of the latter. In terms of classical performances, Sam Shankland has earned himself the cover of American Chess Magazine as he has continued his ascent among the 2700 echelons. Wesley So made a big leap in rapid ratings, and Jan-Krzysztof Duda is now the top junior. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

An unexpected leader in Russia's Higher League

7/1/2018 – It is hard to name favourites in such a competitive tournament, but having the 31st seed as sole leader after five rounds can be considered, even in this case, a surprise. The young Muscovite Alexey Sarana is heading the field on 4½/5 at the half-time of the Russian Higher League. The women's section has a clear leader as well — Elena Tomilova also won four and drew one to top the standings. | Photo: Dmitry Kryavkin / Russian Chess Federation

Americans playing for the title: Wilhelm Steinitz

6/30/2018 – For the less historically enlightened, the first official American to become World Champion was the great Bobby Fischer, but the native New Yorker can only claim to be the second as the title of first goes to the father of modern strategy: Wilhelm Steinitz. Read on to find out more on the great champion with annotations by Garry Kasparov. | Photo: Steinitz vs Lasker, 1894, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Friends in France: Rinck and beer

6/30/2018 – It's rare to be able to smoothly segue from beer to endgame studies, but that's what our Study of the Month columnist SIEGFRIED HORNECKER manages to do in this month's investigation into the life and work of Henri Rinck. Born into a family of brewers, he would come to brew his own endgame studies while living near Barcelona. Here are five favourites. | Photo: HeritageEchecsFra.free.fr

Magnus' Kingdom, confidence and Caruana

6/29/2018 – Magnus Carlsen weighs in on "peak performance" in a video published by Inc.com, and Play Magnus has launched a new app aimed at children five to nine years old called Magnus' Kingdom of Chess. The World Champion will play two tournaments plus the European Club Cup in the run-up to his title bout with Fabiano Caruana.

Commonwealth 2018: A wealth of chess improvement

6/29/2018 – Chess reports are filled with news and updates, but this report from Commonwealth 2018 is different. It is filled with high level of instructional content. IM SAGAR SHAH, says, "To go through this entire report will take two hours of your time. But if you do it carefully, it is bound to teach you a lot about chess." Games, training, video and, to add more flavour to it, you have some world class photography by Amruta Mokal. | Pictured: Standing out from the crowd - GM Deepan Chakkravarthy!

Jerusalem hosts the 4th Japhet Tournament

6/29/2018 – Elite rapid chess and more in the Israeli city of Jerusalem. Nepomniachtchi, Svidler, Ivanchuk, Gelfand, Meier and Anna Muzychuk star in the 4th edition of the Gideon Japhet Memorial, beginning July 1st. | Pictured: The prize giving podium of the third Japhet tournament 2016 | Photo: Ritvo photography
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Light summer mate III

6/29/2018 – In the diagram position, Black is just fine — the only thing she should avoid is the game continuation 20...Ne5?? Are you itching to move some white pieces after that?

GM tutorial: learn to play the Ruy Lopez

6/28/2018 – GM EFSTRATIOS GRIVAS is a world renown trainer. He tells you what the strategic goals of the main line of the Ruy Lopez are, and the way you can continue in tournament play. After reading a few paragraphs about this very popular opening, you can try it out for yourself, right there in your browser, against an engine that matches the playing strength of your potential opponents. You can play any number of games and test different ideas. Have fun!

Abu Dhabi: 'The land of the Gazelle'

6/28/2018 – The Abu Dhabi Chess Festival is just around the corner and its premier event, the Masters' Tournament, features an exciting list of players. Some of the bigwigs include Richard Rapport, Alexander Morozevich, Anton Korobov and Vladimir Fedoseev. With such a strong field, the tournament offers an ideal opportunity for aspiring masters to earn norms or gain rating points.

Four chess legends meet in Platja d'Aro

6/28/2018 – A small town in Catalonia's beautiful Costa Brava has welcomed four renowned chess players from the past. Anatoly Karpov, Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Anatoly Vaisser and Eugenio Torre are playing a unique rapid and blitz tournament in Platja d'Aro. David Llada sent some very nice pictures from the singular Legends Tournament. | Photos: David Llada

The Power Play Show

6/27/2018 – Wednesday at 6pm UK time Daniel King will go on air 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...