12/19/2017 – Indian IM Rathnakaran (pictured) won the Penang Chess Festival 2017 which tool place from December 4th to the 10th, in Malaysia, ahead of GM Karen Grigoryan and 132 other players in the 9th Penang International Open, the biggest chess event at a World Heritage site. The festival also featured a Challenger's category as well as blitz and team events. Edwin Lam reports from the scene. | Photo: Penang Chess Association

12/19/2017 – "Do not rush!" is a well-known rule of thumb in the endgame. Indeed, in many endgames the direct way often is often a dead end. To know which way to go usually requires precise calculation.

12/18/2017 – The European Rapid Chess Championship in Katowice ended with a surprise. The 68th seed IM Maxim Vavulin from Russia won with ten points from eleven games for the gold. Silver goes to Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland) and bronze to Pavel Ponkratov (Russia). In the blitz championship, Grandmaster Sergei Zhigalko was the 24th by rating, but the 28-year-old from Belarus finished first with 18 / 22. Right on his heels were Luke McShane (England) and Peter Michalik (Czech Republic) both with 17½ / 22. | Photo: Official site / Walusza Fotografia

12/18/2017 – In this Simon Says Simon Williams takes a look at Christmas is near so lets take a look at the Christmas Tree variation of the Dutch! Watch live from 18:00 CET (12 Noon EDT).

12/18/2017 – Botvinnik has many quotes which well describe this book. One which comes to mind is the following: "Chess mastery essentially consists of analyzing Chess positions accurately." Often as chess players we look for the miraculous shortcut, which will improve our strength, without putting in the necessary hard work to achieve it. Instead, the following review shows how one cannot become good at chess, without the painstaking work of analysis!

12/18/2017 – For an adult player Christmas can come early — In this case more than a year ago, May of 2016, when reviewer Davide Nastasio discovered Magic Of Tactics 2. Here's his take just in time for the holidays. There's also a corresponding book, which Davide will look at in a follow-up post.

12/17/2017 – Last week we gave you some interesting problems to solve, today we bring you the solutions thereof. And some logical puzzles, which the veteran Super-GM gave us during spectacular walks along the cliffs of Cornwall. For some we need mathematical assistance and invite our readers to provide this. Finally a selection of prize-winning compositions, published over the years, by John Nunn himself. If you do participate there is a a very nice personal prize to win. | Photo: Frederic Friedel

12/17/2017 – Morgon from Canada plays well positionally...before it all goes pear shaped. JS has the blow-by-blow. Fancy Jon taking a look at your games? Send them in! If you appear in 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!

12/17/2017 – Live from Katowice, Poland, December 16th and 17th. This Swiss system rapid tournament features 11 rounds, in which players have 15 minutes plus a 10-second increment for the entire game. Over 1,000 players are participating in all, and the prize fund is €21,000, with €4,000 for 1st place. After day one, Igor Kovalenko, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Vladimir Potkin and Marcin Dziuba were leading with 6 points, but on day two, Russian IM Maxim Vavulin was perfect and ended in sole first with 10 / 11.

12/17/2017 – In 2005, a Moroccan online chess magazine was created: ‘Maroc–Echecs’. It grew into a very popular chess news site in French and Arabic, and a platform where everybody could express their opinion about matters related to chess with a Moroccan focus. But its very existence imperilled the livelihood of Moroccan players who criticised their federation's management. Part one looked at some of the allegations of corruption and mismanagement. In part two we focus on the testimony of some of those, in the Moroccan chess community, who suffered the consequences. | Pictured (L to R): Mohamed Tissir, Ismael Karim, Ali Sebbar, Abdelaziz Onkoud | Photo: maroc-echecs.com

12/16/2017 – The most well-known quote by Tarrasch, if memory serves me well, is, "he who fears an Isolated Queen Pawn should give up chess." There are many steps one must follow in order to become a chess master. While tactics are fundamental, at a certain point it becomes obvious one needs to know how to treat pawn formations resulting from certain openings. The Isolated Queen Pawn (IQP) results from many different openings, hence the need to know it. When the topic of the DVD is the IQP and Tactics, one knows this is a DVD to have at all costs!

12/16/2017 – Both the open and women's Russian Superfinals in St. Petersburg 2017 could not have been more exciting! In the open event, the two St. Petersburgers Peter Svidler and Nikita Vitiugov were in first place with 7 points each after 11 rounds and had to decide the title in rapid chess (two games 15 minutes + 10 seconds). Svidler took his record eighth title, winning both tiebreak games. The same thing happened in the women's tournament: Alexandra Goryachkina and Natalia Pogonina were tied after eleven rounds also on 7 points each and also followed by an exciting rapid playoff, won by the 19-year-old Goryachkina. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili