Jon Speelman's Agony Column #43

3/5/2017 – This week's Agony is from a young Canadian filmmaker and producer, a childhood friend of Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor Drake, about whom he has made a documentary film. Jacob Stein submitted two Ecstasy games in the London System (Queen's Pawn Openings with Bf4), and when Jon Speelman requested some “Agony”, he added an obviously very painful loss.

Women's World Championship Final: Tan Zhongyi is the 16th World Chess Champion

3/4/2017 – The dramatic final tiebreaker of the Women’s World Championship ended with a victory for the one with steel-like nerves: Tan Zhongyi from China. As we expected, the Chinese showed a great control over her nerves to bring the best of her game forward and defeated yet another favorite to win the tournament, Anna Muzychuk, to win the coveted title. Illustrated report and analysis by GM Elshan Moradiabadi.

Vladimir Fedoseev wins Aeroflot Open 2017

3/4/2017 – Vladimir Fedoseev had a half point lead over the field going into the last round. He ensured that there were no hiccups and rightfully picked up the winner's purse of €18000. Along with that he gets an entry into the 2017 Dortmund super tournament. In the blitz section, it was Anton Korobov who crushed the field and won with 15.5/18. Illustrated report with analysis by IM Shah and GM Yermolinsky.

Matsuura wins second Brazilian Championship after 26 years

3/4/2017 – It really must be considered a Cinderella story, since by all means, Everaldo Matsuura was not even supposed to be in the final, let alone win it, yet by forceful contortions of fate, the friendly player from the state of Paraná stormed away with the event, winning his second Brazilian title after 26 years. Juliana Terao crushed the Women’s Championship with 8.5/9. Here is the large illustrated report with GM analysis.

ChessBase live broadcast – in case you haven't noticed

3/3/2017 – We have some very interesting new functionality on our news page. On the right you see a list of "Live Tournaments" – these are events that are currently or were recently broadcast on Playchess. A single click takes you to a luxury broadcast page where you can follow the most important games, or replay all of them from the event, analysing them with engine assistance. But best of all: you can load deep realtime analysis and find out instantly what happened. All on different devices, without ever leaving the news page!
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Staircase mission

3/3/2017 – Playing 32...Rh6! in the diagram, Black wants to create fresh threats on the kingside. But this rook is going to do much more - at the end it will neutralize White's counterplay in the b-file! How this?...

Women World Championship Final: Calm before the storm

3/3/2017 – The classical part of world women championship in Tehran, Iran, has concluded but the winner, similar to the last World Championship in New York, has yet to be determined by tiebreak. The two finalists, after shedding blood in rounds two and three, took a rest and agreed to a rather fast draw in the last round to go for a tiebreak. Report, tiebreak preview, and analysis by GM Elshan Moradiabadi.

AMD releases new Ryzen processor

3/3/2017 – One of the most important days in years for computer consumers was the launch yesterday of AMD’s newest microprocessor, the R7 Ryzen. For a decade, AMD had been out of the race in high-end desktop CPUs, but the release of the new architecture has shown it is not only back, but at a far more affordable price, and what is more: the best deal around for chess analysis.

9th Batavia tournament: cozy conviviality

3/2/2017 – Hailing from sunny Brazil, and living in Georgia, GM Alexandr Fier is a fixture on the circuit of opens throughout Europe and South America. The Brazilian player is now playing in the 9th Batavian Tournament, a GM event held in a café in Amsterdam, which he describes as the friendliest event he has known. Enjoy his midway report with photos and analysis.

Study of the month: A knight, a knight - my kingdom for a knight!

3/2/2017 – Last year Indian GM Abhijeet Gupta showed us a study where a knight defeats an entire kingdom. Knights can be very powerful in the correct situation, but they are just as amazing when it comes to domination of pieces, building fortresses, forking king and queen, even helping in and delivering the smothered mate. Siegfried Hornecker demonstrates this and some remarkable ideas in chess studies.

Women's World Championship Final: The Greek gift from Persia

3/2/2017 – The third game of the Women's World Chess Championship in Tehran saw one of the best games of the tournament so far! What else could make a championship as spectacular as this than to have the the best games of the event take place in the very last rounds! Trailing by a point, Anna Muzychuk could not believe her eyes when she was given the chance for the classic Greek gift with a bishop sac on h7. Full report with analysis by GM Elshan Moradiabadi.

March 2017 ratings: Ju Wenjun breaks 2600

3/1/2017 – In a list with several notable results, including an important one as Wesley So moves to world no. 2 as a result of Fabiano Caruana's subpar performance at the Gibraltar Masters, the most important one is without question Ju Wenjun's leap to 2604, thus becoming the fifth female to crack 2600, following Judit Polgar, Humpey Koneru, Hou Yifan, and Anna Muzychuk. Here is the report with results of the new ratings list.

Women's World Championship Final: Good night, bad knight!

3/1/2017 – In the second game of the four-game finals for the Women's World Championship 2017, Tan Zhongyi managed to put immense pressure on birthday-girl Anna Muzychuk with the white pieces. She played a technical game, perfectly suiting her style, and won thanks to the bad knight in her opponent's position. Illustrated report with GM analysis by Elshan Moradiabadi.

2750 is my next barrier - Interview with B.Adhiban Part II

3/1/2017 – Adhiban's challenge at the Tata Steel Masters 2017 didn't begin so well, but suddenly picked up speed as he defeated Karjakin. This was followed by wins over Wojtaszek, Andreikin and Rapport. He was also very close to beating Magnus Carlsen. In the second part of the interview we continue the dissection of the key moments in Adhiban's games along with his views on them.

Aeroflot Open Rd6-8: Tournament victory and Dortmund await Fedoseev

3/1/2017 – With a rating performance of 2839, Vladimir Fedoseev is running away with the top spot with 6.5/8 at the Aeroflot Open 2017. From rounds six to eight he defeated two extremely strong opponents in the form of Najer and Matlakov. Vitiugov and Najer follow Fedoseev on 6.0/8. It's going to be an exciting final round, but for now we have an illustrated report from rounds six to eight with grandmaster analysis by Alexander Yermolinsky.

Grischuk wins Sharjah FIDE Grand Prix

2/28/2017 – Without taking anything away from his last-minute wresting of the gold from the two previous leaders, Alexander Grischuk's win of the FIDE Grand Prix in Sharjah was a bit of a disappointment, not for the result, much less the player, but because of the extremely modest 5.5/9 score required to do so. In many ways, it reflected the very sedate event and its astonishingly high draw rate. Here is the final report with analysis by GM Alex Yermolinsky.

Endgame tactics

2/28/2017 – Even seemingly simple endgames can be surprisingly tactical. A good reason to be careful till the end of the game.

Jon Speelman's Agony Column #42

2/28/2017 – This week's Agony (and a soupcon of lukewarm Ecstasy) is all mine, after two rather challenging weekends at the 4NCL in Northampton and then the Bunratty Open. The latter was my first weekend tournament since I played there over a decade ago, and quite a shock to the system given the old-fashioned schedule of a game on Friday evening, three on Saturday and two on Sunday.

 Women's World Ch. 2017 Final G1: Last 'woman' standing

2/28/2017 – In the first game of the four-game finals for the Women's World Championship 2017, Tan Zhongyi managed to carry out her game strategy by forcing a calm and strategic play onto Anna Muzychuk. The opening she chose to play with black did not allow Anna, with her white any chances to put pressure. Illustrated report with GM analysis by Elshan Moradiabadi.

Michal Krasenkow: The Triangle Setup - a review

2/27/2017 – What to do against 1.d4? Michal Krasenkow recommends the "Triangle Setup": Black puts his pawns on c6, d5 and e6 - a solid and flexible system that offers Black still a lot of scope to play for a win. This is what FM Markus Hochgräfe was looking for and why he had a careful look at Krasenkov's DVD.

The power of chess!

2/27/2017 – Chess is a powerful game. It has the ability to transform lives. But what happens when the inmates of a high security prison in Spoleto, Italy are taught chess? FM Mirko Trasciatti was entrusted with this task and he tells about the impact that his teachings had on the lives of the prisoners. A heart warming story on how potent the game of chess is.

Sharjah Grand Prix Rd8: Grischuk beats Mamedyarov and joins lead

2/27/2017 – Good news or bad news first? The good news is that only one game ended in a short draw, while almost all games were played out to a proper end. The bad news is that only two ended in a decisive result, and it could have been just one. The unquestionable win was that of Pavel Eljanov over Jon Hammer, while the most important was Grischuk's victory over Mamedyarov. Mamedyarov had an equal endgame, but blundered fatally on move 49, and resigned soon after. Full report with analysis by Tiger Hillarp-Persson.

Aeroflot Open R04-05: Evgeniy Najer on a roll!

2/26/2017 – There is something about Aeroflot Open that brings out the best in Evgeniy Najer. In 2016 he went on to win the tournament ahead of Boris Gelfand. In 2017 he is already the sole leader with 4.5/5. Najer played some exquisite games to beat players like Jobava and Bluebaum. In this report we have the analysis along with some excellent pictures.

Women's World Ch.: Muzychuk and Zhongyi in the final!

2/25/2017 – What an amazing semifinal it was for all involved and watching. After a very close affair in game one, which she won, Anna Muzychuk won her second game against Kosteniuk to make the final with no tiebreaks and 9.0/10 in the standard games. On the flip side, Harika Dronavalli and Tan Zhongyi played a gripping tiebreak that went to the tape with constant swings that left everyone on the edge of their seats. Here is the large illustrated report.