10/10/2017 – Tuesdays at 5pm UK time Lawrence Trent goes on air on Playchess.com. In his show Lawrence Trent will be dealing with the latest trends, games and combinations from the elite chess tournaments. This week is all about the European Club Cup, going on in Antalya, Turkey.

10/9/2017 – If they come in pairs bishops can be very strong. But sometimes even a single bishop is strong enough to control the whole board. This edition of Karsten Müller's endgame column looks at what happens when the bishops face off against a rook.

10/9/2017 – The 83rd Spanish Individual Championship was held between September 29th and October 7th in Las Palmas of Gran Canaria. After nine rounds of competition, champion Ivan Salgado López was crowned. He scored six wins and three draws and left the final score at 7½ / 9. Runner-up was David Anton with 7/9 points. Daniel Forcén was third. | Photos: Patricia Claros

10/9/2017 – The European Club Cup began with wins for top teams in both the Open and the Women sections. The Russian team Globus, with several of the world's elite grandmasters, won 6: 0 against the Icelandic team Fjölnir. Defending champions Alkaloid from Macedonia had a slightly harder time, initially giving up 1½ board points against Augusta Perusia from Italy. Among the Women's teams the favourites from Batumi won just 2½ : 1½ against Anatolia from Turkey.

10/9/2017 – The October 6th, 2017, was a great day for Singapore chess. Thanks to the efforts of Norwegian Business Association Singapore, World Champion Magnus Carlsen visited the country for a simul against 16 players that was greatly enjoyed and appreciated by all the chess lovers of Singapore. The opposition that Magnus faced was not easy. Some players were rank amateurs, but there were also seasoned experts, with six-time National champion IM Kevin Goh Wei Ming (rated 2461!) being one of the participants. But Magnus showed absolutely no mercy; he cleaned up the field with a 16-0 score in little over an hour! | Pictured: Esther Koh (Business Development Director, Zenitant Holdings), Magnus Carlsen, and Michelle Tay (Director, Hauterobe Pte Ltd) | Photo: Junior Tay

10/8/2017 – The Chess Federation of Canada will present their case on behalf of Anton Kovalyov on Monday morning at the Ethics Commission hearing during the 88th FIDE Congress, in Antalya, Turkey. Before heading East, Canadian delegate to FIDE, Hal Bond, gave us a preview of some of the issues that are likely to come up in the meeting. | Pictured (clockwise from top left): Zurab Azmaiparashvili, Francois Strydom, Anton Kovalyov, Rajesh Hari Joshi, Willy Iclicki, Ion Dobronauteanu, Pedro Dominguez Brito | Photos: FIDE.com (except Kovalyov: Amruta Mokal)

10/3/2017 – Rooks should go behind passed pawns! In rook endings this is a popular and helpful rule of thumb. After all, in most cases this is indeed where the rook should go. But unfortunately - or fortunately - there are exceptions.

10/3/2017 – Ten days ago we proposed a contest to "fix" the cover of New Scientist magazine's September 23rd issue, which featured a fictitious illustration of President Trump squaring off against North Korea's Kim Jong Un, in what was dubbed 'Endgame'. The position was nonsensical. Of the many creative suggestions, here are our favourites. | Illustration: Robert Carter (crackedhat.com)

10/2/2017 – Have you heard of the City of Smiles? When a crippling economic depression hits your region, how do you recover? Would you just cry for aid or would you start a tradition called the Masskara festival to rouse the masses? When GM Srinath Narayanan was invited to Bacolod to take part in the Negros International Open, he felt inspired by the spirit of the Negrenses and decided he had to pay this wonderful place a visit. Read on to find out more!

10/2/2017 – Inspired by the image of endgame expert Alexey Troitzky sitting in a Siberian forest, analyzing night after night whether king plus four knights can always beat king plus queen, Prof Azlan Iqbal set his AI composer Chesthetica on finding a nice 4N-Q chess problem. It took his program a week, and the result was deemed not aesthetically perfect. So we issued a challenge to our readers: come up with a better problem of four knights vs queen. Here are the results.

10/2/2017 – It was a much awaited return to form for Magnus Carlsen, who dominated the Chess.com Isle of Man Open from start to finish, defeating his nearest challengers one after the other. His final game against Hikaru Nakamura was expected to be a quick draw, and it was. Among the challengers who might join Nakamura for a share of second was none other than Vishy Anand who played a superb game to beat Hou Yifan in the last round. | Photo: John Saunders

10/1/2017 – 2017 has been literally the Year of the Levon, with an amazing series of major wins, now culminating in the second World Cup title, guaranteeing him a place in the next Candidates tournament. Perhaps one of the most noteworthy things is a change in the balance of power, since now the Top 20 contains four Russian players... and four Chinese players, the oldest being 28. Enjoy this report on the latest lists and results. | Photo: Amruta Mokal