7/14/2016 – Now into its ninth edition, this annual event is held in a city teeming with furious energy, one that never sleeps. The first three places in the ratings tournament were occupied by Indian player, the "best foreigner" was Russian GM Boris, 2639, in place four. Makes you wonder: which is the great super-power in chess these days? Priyadarshan Banjan's richly illustrated report contains a deadly dangerous song and some devastating advertising puns. Utterly butterly.

7/13/2016 – In round four of the Sparkassen Chess-Meeting Dortmund Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won against German grandmaster Rainer Buhmann. Long time Buhmann's Breyer looked solid but then the French grandmaster opened lines with a tricky pawn-break. The three other games ended in a draw: Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu could not convert an advantage against Evgeny Najer, Fabiano Caruana found no recipe against Leinier Dominguez' Petroff and Ruslan Ponomariov and Vladimir Kramnik also drew without too much excitement.

7/13/2016 – The first round of the Masters in Bilbao started with a bang. For the first time in his career Hikaru Nakamura won against Magnus Carlsen in a game with classical time control. World Champion Carlsen played too aggressively and an unimpressed Nakamura countered. The two other games were drawn. Wei Yi successfully defended a difficult ending against Anish Giri while Sergey Karjakin and Wesley split the point after some excitement in the middlegame.

7/13/2016 – The sixth round of the 7. Hainan Danzhou tournament was a round of draws. No game had a winner. For tournament leader Ian Nepomniachtchi, who played against Wang Hao, it was his first draw after winning four and losing one game. The table, of course, did not change much: Nepomniachtchi now leads with 4.5/6 but is still one point ahead of Bu Xiangzhi and Wang Yue.

7/13/2016 – Today, 16.00 CEST the first round of the IX Bilbao Chess Masters Final begins, yesterday the opening ceremony took place. The players were presented to the press and the pairings were drawn. In round one Sergey Karjakin plays against Wesley So, Anish Giri faces Wei Yi and Magnus Carlsen plays against Hikaru Nakamura. You can follow the games live and with commentary on the playchess server.

7/13/2016 – In this week's "Agony Column" Jon Speelman enters into an analytical dialogue with Aaron Demby Jones, an amateur player from the US. Jones sent in two attacking games, one in which he agonizingly failed to finish a strong attack in style, and one in which he unleashed a brilliant sacrificial to initiate an ecstatic and entertaining king hunt.

7/13/2016 – Cimannacce, a village in the mountains of Corsica with a population of just 132 people (!), was host to a strong blitz tournament. World number four Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was the top seed of the event and was up against strong players like Bacrot, Laznicka, Areshchenko, Jones, Grandelius, Zhigalko, etc. The French number one scored 8.0/9 and won the event in style. In this report we have two games sent to us by MVL from the event. We also show you how a high class blitz tournament is organized.

7/12/2016 – Round three of the Sparkassen Chess-Meeting in Dortmund was a delight for spectators. This was to a huge part due to Vladimir Kramnik, ten times winner in Dortmund, who really seems to be inspired by the flair of this tournament. The former World Champion played with White against Rainer Buhmann and initiated a brilliant sacrificial attack in the spirit of Mikhail Tal. But Buhmann defended well and saved a draw!

7/12/2016 – Ian Nepomniachtchi continues to dominate the Hainan-Danzhou tournament in China. In round five he played against Women's World Champion Hou Yifan, demonstrated good technique in a knight endgame four vs three on one wing and scored his fourth win. All other games were drawn. Nepomniachtchi now leads with 4.0/5, one point ahead of Yu Yangyi, Bu Xiangzhi and Wang Yue.

7/12/2016 – All players in the field of the "Masters Final" are tremendously strong and deserve attention but the limelight will definitely be on World Champion Magnus Carlsen and World Champion Challenger Sergey Karjakin. It is the last time these two will meet before their World Championship match in November. Follow the games live and with commentary on playchess.com.

7/12/2016 – English Grandmaster Daniel King knows how to do both: to entertain and to instruct. He does it on many ChessBase DVDs and he does it on his PowerPlayChess YouTube channel. Here he recently reviewed "The Big Book of Chess World Championships" by ChessBase editor André Schulz, an entertaining book rich with stories. But if you prefer instruction to entertainment and happen to search for a good answer to 1.d4 you might want to have a look at King's latest DVDs.

7/12/2016 – He was arguably the strongest player never to become world champion. Viktor Korchnoi died just under a month ago, and a lot has been written about this super-grandmaster who had played against six generations of chess players. Jonathan Speelman, who faced him 18 times, has written an insightful eulogy in CHESS magazine, which includes a number of little-known pictures.