Kings tournament returns featuring Karjakin, Ivanchuk, Wei Yi

8/24/2017 – The annual Romanian event is back (November 24-29) and once again trying out a new format with eight players (four men, and four women) competing in two days of rapid and blitz. The tournament is held in memory of Elisabeta Polihroniade who helmed the event for its first nine years until her death in 2016 at age 80. | Photos: Kings Tournament Facebook page

Volodymyr Vetoshko wins 1st Irena Warakomska Memorial

8/24/2017 – A strong open tournament was held in the memory of Irena Warakomska from 11-18 August 2017. The small town of Suwalki became the centre of chess for those eight days as fifteen grandmasters fought for the first prize of €2,500. In the end 19-year-old Volodymyr Vetoshko from Ukraine became the champion with 7.0/9. In this report we game many interesting game analysis, interviews with participants and pictures. IM Sagar Shah and WIM-elect Amruta Mokal report from Suwalki.

Kasparov in St. Louis: a closer look

8/24/2017 – In 2005 Garry Kasparov, World Champion from 1985 to 2000 and arguably the best player of all times, withdrew from tournament chess. At the Grand Chess Tour Rapid- and Blitz Tournament in Saint Louis in August 2017 he dared a comeback and played a serious tournament again. His final score of 13.0/27 indicates that he was not as dominant as he used to be - but how good did he play, how good was his opening repertoire and did he miss chances? Let's take a closer look. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Exercises in Style: From Wilhelm Steinitz to Magnus Carlsen (4/4)

8/23/2017 – Modern top players are "universal players". They know and play a large variety of openings, they master brilliant attacks, difficult defenses and patient positional play equally well. However, the chess of Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen is still quite different. Can you recognize the style of these four World Champions?

Free: Book on "Match of the Millennials"

8/23/2017 – The ever-active FIDE Trainers’ Commission is always shopping around for new ideas. In early February this Michael Khodarkosvky, USA, informed his colleague Efstratios Grivas, Greece, the possibility of staging a match between young players of two teams representing USA and The World, born on/after the year 2000 (U.17) and the year 2003 (U.14). It happened in late July and was a tremendous success. Grivas has written a book on it, 92 pages long, with commentary and analysis. You can download the PDF version free!

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave at the Sinquefield Cup 2017 - a look at his games

8/22/2017 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won the Sinquefield 2017 convincingly. In a very strong field he won three games, drew six and became sole winner with 6.0/9, half a point ahead of Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian. But what distinguished his play, why was he so successful? Venkatachalam Saravanan took a close at his games and tries an answer. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Vachier-Lagrave on his Sinquefield Cup triumph

8/22/2017 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave registered the biggest win of his career at the 2017 Sinquefield Cup ahead of a strong field of players that included world champion Magnus Carlsen. In an exclusive interview with Dhananjay Khadilkar, the 26-year-old French Grandmaster talks about his performance in the tournament, including the epic encounter against Carlsen that took a toll on him. | Photo: Dhananjay Khadilkar

The wandering rook

8/22/2017 – "Rooks belong behind passed pawns." Apparently, this rule goes back to Tarrasch who was known to be a bit dogmatic at times. Moreover, it's an old rule. But neither the one nor the other makes it less relevant.

Impressions from the RTU Open in Riga

8/22/2017 – The RTU Open took place in Riga from August 7th to 13th, and was won by Ukrainian Grandmaster Vladimir Onischuk with 7½/9. Local hero Alexei Shirov couldn't show his best chess and finished 35th. Strong impressions were made by some youth players, including the world's current female No. 1 in the Under-18 category, Zhansaya Abdumallik | Photos: rtuopen.lv

Wesley So's so-so Sinquefield

8/21/2017 – Defending champion Wesley So went through a rough patch at the Sinquefield Cup 2017, scoring just 3.0 / 9 and tying for dead last (with Nepomniachtchi). There is no doubt about his potential and he's shown his tremendous playing strength in the past. We take a deep dive into his tournament to try to understand what went wrong | Photos: Lennart Ootes

Sandipan at the Netherlands Open

8/21/2017 – The history of the NK Chess Open began 140 years ago — that is — a long time ago. The city of Dieren hosted not only the first edition ever, but every event for the last 49 years. This year's edition was played between July 25th and August 3rd and crowned champion Sandipan Chanda, ahead of Koen Leenhouts. Both scored 7/9 points. | Photos: Alina l´Ami

Speelman's Agony #59

8/20/2017 – This week's column comes from the game of San Francisco bay area computer scientist Dr. Shivaji Shivkumar (pictured), a FIDE Master, with experience on open source chess projects. He sent in two games: a win over GM Anna Zatonskih, and a loss against GM Georg Meier.

Remembering Rudolf Spielmann (5. May 1883 - 20. August 1942)

8/20/2017 – The Austrian Rudolf Spielmann was a brilliant attacking player and a predecessor of Mihail Tal. His book "Richtig Opfern!" (The Art of Sacrifice in Chess) is considered to be a classic of attacking chess. Spielmann died under tragic circumstances on 20. August 1942, 75 years ago.

Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz: Highlights from Day 5

8/20/2017 – The thrills and spills from Day 4 continued into the final round-robin. Karjakin's surge faded, and he ended in a tie for second with Hikaru Nakamura. But neither player could catch Levon Aronian, who stayed one step ahead in the combined standings, to clinch first place overall with two rounds to spare. Garry Kasparov finally hit his stride, scoring 5½ / 9 on the final day. If the blitz were a standalone tournament, Kasparov would have been fifth. Here are some of Friday's highlights. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz: Closing Ceremony and Ultimate Moves

8/19/2017 – The live action continued Saturday featuring the now-traditional trash-talk filled blitz bonanza known as Ultimate Moves. "Team Rex" squeaked out the victory after a 3/3 tie sparked an wild impromptu tiebreak game (not planned in advance), which was unceremoniously concluded by an illegal move made by Randy Sinquefield!

All Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz interviews

8/19/2017 – Following on the heels of the Sinquefield Cup, the Saint Louis Blitz and Rapid lasted just five days, with each webcast lasting about 4½ hours. Most player interviews took place at the end of the day, after the rapid or blitz games concluded. For posterity, we've once again compiled quick links to all those post-game chats with Maurice Ashley and Cristian Chirila. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

Oldie Goldie

8/18/2017 – With his pawn on h6 the diagram position would be absolutely fine for Black. The way things are, however, White has a splendid sequence to exploit the enemy back rank weakness. Six moves spot-on - can you do it like him?

Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz: Karjakin ascendent

8/18/2017 – Reigning World Blitz Champion Sergey Karjakin dominated the first leg of the Blitz event as he scored 8 points out of a possible 9, but still pronounced that he was ‘actually very angry that I didn’t win my first game against Garry!’ in their mutual encounter. Aronian continues to lead the overall standings comprising the score from the Rapid event as well. One more round-robin cycle of Blitz remains to be played on Friday, August 18th. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

Bobby Fischer in Iceland – 45 years ago (10)

8/18/2017 – The Match of the Century was coming to a head, with Spassky, but despite all his efforts, unable to reduce the deficit. "I felt that Fischer was like a large fish in my hands," he lamented, "one that was slippery and hard to hold on to. At certain moments I let him slip. And then again the psychological torment would begin. Everything had to be begun again from the start ..." Spassky was beginning to feel despondent. | Photo: Skáksamband Íslands

Giri wins in Wenzhou

8/18/2017 – In the Chinese metropolis of Wenzhou last week, a four game match, dubbed the "Xinqiao Cup", was played between the two world-class players Anish Giri (Netherlands) and Ding Liren (China). Three games were drawn but Giri reeled in one full point to win the match 2.5:1.5. The decisive game contained several interesting moments worthy of further study. | Photos: www.qipai.org.cn

Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz: Kasparov was "too democratic"

8/17/2017 – Where Kasparov is, there is drama. On the last day of rapid at the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz tournament, the 13th World Champion was particularly emotive after he completely outplayed David Navara, only to spoil the game utterly. Levon Aronian leads the field alone. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz: Nepomniachtchi first to clear lead

8/16/2017 – After six rounds of rapid, Nepomniachtchi leads with 4.0 / 6. He dealt the first loss to Garry Kasparov in Round 5, as the 13th World Champion sits near the bottom of the cross table. But a large group is just half point behind with 3½ points. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

Endgame Magic with IM Irene Sukandar

8/16/2017 – Endgames are the soul of the chess games. This would probably be a phrase from GM Karsten Müller. The german grandmaster is one of the leading experts when it comes to endgames. He published books and DVD's about this topic. In his Endgame Magic Show Müller invites strong players and shows recent examples of the tournament praxis. Starting at 3pm Uk time. Guest: IM Irene Sukandar

The Weekly Show with Lawrence Trent

8/15/2017 – 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's show looks at two games from the Sinquefiels Cup and last night's first round of the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz.