7/16/2017 – It was a suitably exciting end to an overall excellent tournament. In the final round, Teimour Radjabov fought a tough-as-nails game against Ian Nepomniachtchi, who needed a win in order to pull the first-place rug from under the Azeri’s feet. Incredibly, both players offered draws at different moments, and both declined, though in the end, they did indeed draw, giving clear first to Radjabov, and second to Nepomniachtchi. Final report with analysis by GM Lenderman.

7/16/2017 – Wei Yi is having a stellar performance in the super-GM tournament in Danzhou, China. With an impressive +4 score, he looks unstoppable, as he rockets up the FIDE rating list to crack the Top 15 for the first time. GM Elshan Moradiabadi looks at two of Wei's key wins.

7/15/2017 – Round eight of the FIDE Grand Prix in Geneva was both fascinating and intense. While leader Teimour Radjabov drew quickly and quietly against Alexander Raizantsev, Alexander Grischuk put up a huge fight against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and in spite of a huge advantage, was unable to close the deal. Ian Nepomniachtchi took advantage and joined Grischuk in second after beating Levon Aronian.

7/15/2017 – The traditional Porticcio Open took place for the fourth year in a row on Corsica island, gathering 139 participants from 18 countries and beating all the records of the previous years. Tournament winner Michal Krasenkow from Poland had an impressive 8/9 score and 2834 performance. Eltaj Safarli and Gadir Guseinov finished 2nd and 3rd. IM Nino Batsiashvili was the top woman. Surprise upsets were 14-year-old Corsican prospect Albert Tomasi (rated just 2141) beating GM Sergei Zhigalko, and 10-year-old Maurizzi Marc Andria (a mere 1841) downing French grandmaster Fabien Libiszewski (2542)!

7/14/2017 – When a close-to-2700 GM wins a super tournament, a lot of things have to go his way. He needs to convert winning positions, he needs to save the inferior endings, and in general he has to showcase tremendous amount of willpower to register such a result. At the 52nd Capablanca Memorial 2017 Sasikiran Krishnan did just that. And in his conversation with IM Sagar Shah via Skype, Sasikiran shares all the interesting moments that happened in his games of the tournament. Going over the annotations carefully is a sure shot way of improving your chess.

7/14/2017 – Three wins, but what a win one of them was. In round six, Indian Pentala Harikrishna had scored a big win over Levon Aronian, not only dashing the Armenian’s dreams to pieces, but making it a three way tie for first with Grischuk and Radjabov. In round seven, Teimour Radjabov had some inspired opening play, and milked a small advantage for all its worth into a resounding victory to take sole first. Here is the report, video interviews, and analysis by GM Lenderman.

7/14/2017 – The "Exercises in Style" invite readers to have a fresh look at the games of the World Champions. Part 1 presented four games, one each by Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine. However, the information who played when and where against whom was hidden. Instead, you were asked to guess which World Champion played which game. A surprisingly difficult task though each game to a certain extent was typical for the World Champion who played it. Here are the solutions.

7/14/2017 – The only thing one might dislike in Black's position in the diagram is the unprotected bishop a3, while his king seems reasonably safe. But just two knight moves — 21.Ng5!? Nf5? — and it's already over: White gets a decisive attack, with the innocent looking rook d1 being the possible match-winner. Ready for a workout?

7/14/2017 – In this second part on the Peg system, author David Fadul explains how this works, and how it is used together with the Memory Palace technique to give a fuller system to use. You will also learn about how Dominic O'Brien, an 8-time World Memory Champion, added his own refinements to become the Dominic system, as well as the Major System. Though this will all be tied together to use in chess in the final part, note that this has also been a hot topic in mainstream media such as CNN and Time magazine.

7/13/2017 – There are many chess variants. A recent one was invented by an AI expert at the Tenaga National University of Malaysia, by Dr Azlan Iqbal. He subsequently received a research grant to develop a mobile app, in order to study "cleverer algorithms" and get the computer to play as well as humans. Working on a shoestring budget Azlan managed to develop two apps, one for Android and one for iOS. You can try your hand – it's free of charge.

7/13/2017 – The rest day in Geneva seems to have done the trick, since round six was sizzling. Five of the nine games ended in decisive results, and even the draw between the leaders Alexander Grischuk and Teimour Radjabov was hard-fought. At the top of the leaderboard, it was Harikrishna’s convincing win over Aronian that made the biggest waves, allowing him to join the leaders. Report, videos, and GM commentary.

7/12/2017 – "Do you find yourself spending too much time on social media?" asks the columnist in the July issue of CHESS Magazine. "Me too." John describes how he keeps compulsively checking his Facebook and Twitter accounts. It uses up a lot of time, but there are plus points: you find a lot of chess puzzles, many of them quite irresistible. He shows us two examples which you can try to solve on our interactive javascript chess board. Have fun.