10/16/2017 – The Azerbaijani team Odlar Yurdu were poised to win the European Club Cup 2017 in Antalya, Turkey on Saturday, but came up short against the Czech team of AVE Nový Bor losing 2½ : 3½. That let the Russian top seeded team of Globus to leapfrog into victory. Vladimir Kramnik finally got a white game, and duly won over Ernesto Inarkiev. Among the Women, Batumi Chess Club NONA, though not without incident. | Photo: David Llada

10/16/2017 – World number two Levon Aronian and Arianne Caoili were married on September 30th, 2017, in Yerevan, Armenia. It was a Christian wedding ceremony held in one of the most ancient churches of the country. The most important guest at the wedding was Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan along with first lady Rita Sargsyan. We have official pictures of the wedding exclusively sent to ChessBase and also a few videos to give you a feel of the celebrations, including Levon singing! | Photo: Alisa Studios, Los Angeles

10/15/2017 – We look back at IoM one more time, focusing on the many Indian players who performed admirably, first and foremost, Vishy Anand for his second place finish, scoring 7.0 / 9. The second was Vidit Gujrathi, who had a very solid +4 performance. However, his biggest achievement of the event was surely holding Magnus Carlsen to a draw. And the third, rather lesser known, was GM Swapnil Dhopade, with a rating of 2532, but who performed at an Elo of 2768. We got in touch with all the three high performers and try to understand the secrets of their success. Photos: | Alina l'Ami (Anand), Chess.com/Maria Emelianova (Vidit and Swapnil)

10/14/2017 – Grandmaster Bill Lombardy died in California on Friday morning, of a likely heart attack. Lombardy was the World Junior Champion in 1957 (the first American to win that title) scoring a perfect 11-0, a performance that has never been repeated. He shared first at the U.S. Open Championship three times (1963, 1965 and 1975). But he is perhaps best known as a coach of Bobby Fischer. Lombardy was with Fischer throughout the 1972 World Championship match in Reykjavik. He would have turned 80 years old in December.

10/14/2017 – Globus edged out Odlar Yurdu in the final round by beating SHSM Legacy Square Capital 4½ : 1½ on the second table, while Oldar Yurdu lost the Czech team of AVE Nový Bor 3½ : 2½. In the Women's competition, Batumi Chess Club NONA and Odlar Yurdu were even on match points, but the Batumi team had the better Sonneborn-Berger tiebreak score. Live games and commentary from 14:00 (CEST) | Photo: David Llada

10/14/2017 – From November 11-18, 2017, the Marcel Duchamp International chess festival will be held in sunny Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There will be no fewer than eight events, from the Master group with grandmasters and masters already inscribed, a sub-2200 and sub-1800 event, as well as the Brazilian Rapid and Blitz championship. All in the gorgeous setting of Rio de Janeiro. | Photo: Albert Silver

10/13/2017 – In his most active series of chess events in many years, the highlight of GM Alex Yermolinsky's summer was a trip to Europe where he played his first open there in 20 years: the Innsbruck Open in Austria. For anyone seeking a relaxing event surrounded by Mother Nature at her most gorgeous, the setting of mountains, forests, and the Inn river is hard to improve upon. And of course while playing a fine chess tournament! | Photo: A. Yermolinsky

10/13/2017 – Due to his confined king, Black must be very careful when taking on e5 in the diagram position. The game continuation 33...Rxe5? loses by force. Can you prove the win for White after that?

10/13/2017 – Concluding the series on memory techniques, after detailed tutorials on how to create a Memory Palace, its history, and the Peg system, here is the chapter on how it all ties together to be used in chess. Timur Gareyev, who broke the world record for a blindfold simul, wrote to the author detailing his personal adaptation used to help him break the record. We hope you enjoyed this series and find it useful. | Photo: Sohn Conference/Youtube

10/13/2017 – An introductory tutorial to using ChessBase 14, from our resident expert. Learn installation and activation, navigating the program, working with databases, entering games, training, the cool "assisted analysis" feature, how to use Fritz as a sparring partner effectively, advanced search functions, creating a custom repertoire against your next opponent, and using databases in the cloud! You'll want to bookmark this for future reference for sure!

10/12/2017 – Top team Globus continues to lead, but had to jump a high hurdle in Novy Bor during Round 3. In a very competitive match, the Russians finished with a tight 3½ : 2½, lead by a win from Sergey Karjakin. In the fourth round, they crushed Gambit Asseco from Macedonia 5½ : ½, but will have a tough test once again in Round 5 facing the strong Azerbaijani team of Odlar Yurdu. | Pictured: Arkadij Naiditsch and Rauf Mamedov | Photo: David Llada

10/12/2017 – Thursday at 5pm UK time Daniel King will go on air on playchess.com. You can watch the episode live for free. Daniel King will have a special guest for this show: GM Karsten Müller. For this episode some endgames will be discussed as well as some puzzles. Puzzle and the live video...