4/27/2018 – Sam Shankland and Fabiano Caruana both drew and remain tied after a tumultuous round in St. Louis. Ray Robson and Alex Lenderman scored full points with Robson's win coming after 144 moves over Varuzhan Akobian. In the women's championship, a whopping six decisive games, including another win from Annie Wang who scored a big point against Irina Krush and retains her full point edge, with just three rounds to go. |Photos: Lennart Ootes

4/27/2018 – When working at a computer some people prefer to use the mouse while others like to keep their fingers on the keyboard. They steer the computer with keyboard shortcuts. ChessBase and Fritz have default shortcuts but you can also define shortcuts of your own. Here are a few hints! | Drawing: ChessBase

4/27/2018 – Veselin Topalov has yielded the lead to Magnus Carlsen at the Vugar Gashimov Memorial. In their head-to-head encounter, Topalov gave up his queen for rook and bishop, but could not hold the game against the reinvigorated world champion. Ding Liren also came out on top against the floundering David Navara. Is Carlsen's success off the board foreshadowing a Norwegian win in Shamkir? GM Daniel Fernandez annotates all games of round seven. | Photos: ShamkirChess.az

4/27/2018 – Playing 30...Rxd4! in the diagram position, Black goes all-in for a counter attack against the white king. Can you work out the win for him after both 31.Rxf8 and 31.Qd8 then?

4/26/2018 – It might sound like a joke, but it is not: the revolutionary techniques used to create Alpha Zero, the famous AI chess program developed by DeepMind, are now being used to engineer an engine that runs on the PC. This project has now been underway for about two months, and the engine, Leela Chess Zero, is already quite strong, playing at 2700 on good hardware, and is freely available. As will be seen, just about every aspect of this new engine is revolutionary and breaks all the paradigms that had dominated the field until now.

4/26/2018 – Leader Sam Shankland played a calm draw against Wesley So, in the seventh round of the US championship, and remains at the top, but he was joined by Fabiano Caruana who scored his fourth win, defeating Varuzhan Akobian. So, meanwhile, had time for some fun trash-talk, giving all the commentators a good time during the live-broadcast, don't miss it! In another surprise, the "favorites fright" Zviad Izoria defeated Hikaru Nakamura. Annie Wang won once again in the Women's and now has a full point edge. After round six, players were invited to a party dubbed "Chess After Dark", abd the next day they gave simultaneous exhibitons against local students. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

4/26/2018 – Thursday at 6pm UK time Daniel King will go on air on playchess.com. You can watch the episode live for free. This episode is about a Vugar Gashimov speciality: 1 e4 c5 2 Nc3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Qxd4 Nc6 5 Bb5. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

4/26/2018 – Excellent calculation is one of the secrets of champions. We often calculate for 10-20 minutes, even landing in time-trouble, only to discover our time was essentially wasted. In this DVD, the actual thinking process one should follow is clearly explained, even proven through the analysis of many examples from real games. If you want to learn how to think through a position effienctly, and make sound decisions at the board, reviewer DAVIDE NASTASIO says, give IM Robert Ris a chance and, after five hours of intensive training, the board will never look the same!

4/25/2018 – Round 6 of the Vugar Gashimov Memorial in Shamkir brought interesting games, but only one win. Anish Giri benefited from a tactical blackout by David Navara, to net his first full point of the tournament. The four remaining games ended in a draw, two without much excitement, but two after an interesting run. | Photos: Shamkir Chess

4/25/2018 – In chess, braving the gap often leads to disaster after a few moves. We should be able to avoid things going so far. The ChessBase Opening Encyclopaedia offers you an effective remedy against all sorts of semi-digested knowledge and a means of building up a comprehensive and powerful repertoire. It features complete coverage of all opening areas on a single DVD and constitutes the best possible introduction to opening training from many renowned specialists in their own area of expertise have contributed to this Chess Base Opening Encyclopaedia, e.g. Avrukh, Berg, Gormally, Krasenkow, Kosintseva, Kuzmin, Marin, Moskalenko, Postny, Ribli, Rogozenko, Stohl, Sumets and Szabo.

4/25/2018 – The World Chess Hall of Fame and Museum, which opened across the street from the Saint Louis Chess Club in September, 2011, has long boasted of having the "world's largest chess piece" outside its front door. King ‘Kong’, as it was known, was massive and many doubted the record — officially sanctioned by Guinness World Records — would ever be broken. But in 2014, St. Louis were bested by a small town in Belgium! Now they've taken the record back. | Photo: Austin Fuller

4/25/2018 – At the beginning of April the 13-year old German talent Vincent Keymer created a sensation by winning the strong Grenke Open in Karlsruhe. In an interview Keymer reveals how he experienced the last day of the tournament, how a positive, optimistic approach helped him to play, and why he likes bike-riding to keep in shape. | Photo: André Schulz

4/25/2018 – What should you do when you are in the mood for some chess don't necessarily feel like serious training? Perhaps treat yourself to some "chess-cinema" and simply review a few nice games? ChessBase 14 makes this easy and fun. | Drawing: ChessBase

4/24/2018 – Sam Shankland, after a big win Monday over Varuzhan Akobian, is in the sole lead with five rounds to go. Fabiano Caruana caught up with Wesley So after posting his third win of the tournament and the pair are in second place heading into the lone rest day. So drew his game with Zviad Izoria. Annie Wang is on | Photo: Lennart Ootes

4/24/2018 – Tuesdays at 18:00 CEST (5 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. Today, Lawrence will have a look at games from the U.S. Championship and U.S. Women's Championship.

4/24/2018 – After a lethargic start, the Vugar Gashimov Memorial in Shamkir has slowly gained momentum. On Monday two games were decided: Magnus Carlsen celebrated his first win, against Radoslaw Wojtaszek, and Veselin Topalov made it two in a row by beating David Navara with the black pieces. Topalov continues in sole first place as we reach the one and only rest day. | Photos: Shamkirchess.az

4/24/2018 – Nino Khurtsidze died Monday in Tbilisi after a long illness. The multiple times youth and junior world champion was one of the best players in Georgia. In 2017, she was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 41. | Photo: David Llada

4/24/2018 – Two passed pawns are strong, but a bishop is often stronger — particularly so if it is supported by its king.