Tromso 07: Russia Wins, Russia Falls!

8/9/2014 – A very eventful round seven! The Russia Women's team beat top-seeded China and are now the leaders of the event. In the open section Azerbaijan defeated Cuba despite Dominguez's demolition of Mamedyarov. Meanwhile the Russian men were defeated by the Czech Republic! Oh, and just by the way, Carlsen lost, costing his team the match! Report of a dramatic round seven.

Round seven preview

8/9/2014 – The Open section has many tough matches today; but the top board is the contest between Cuba and Azerbaijan, a close duel that will determine who leads the Olympiad after today. In the Women's section there is a decisive match as Russia takes on China, both teams on perfect scores. A little further down USA faces Armenia a match in which five Armenians will be playing!

Marin on Tromso R6 – Originality at the Top

8/9/2014 – After each round of the Olympiad our special commentator GM Mihail Marin picks out one to three games and annotates them, quite extensively, in his own inimitable didactic style for you – making sure you understand the spirit of the game. In round six, looking at the pairings, he was sure there would be a lot of originality on the top boards. Turns out he was absolutely right.

Tromso 06: Two top Olympiad

8/8/2014 – Six teams entered the sixth round of the Open section with 9/10, but only two teams moved to 11/12. Cuba thrashed Kazakhstan while Azerbaijan did the same to Georgia and they will face each other in a very important match in round seven. Bulgaria meanwhile could only draw against Serbia. Russia almost drew Uzbekistan, but they squeezed a win at the end. Report of round six.

Rest Day in Tromso

8/8/2014 – After five grueling rounds it was time for the players to relax a little and enjoy the city of Tromso. Most players preferred to take a walk around the city and explore some of the beautiful views this place has to offer; a common activity was for players to go "up the mountain" and take pictures. However some teams were more adventurous, especially the Italian national team!

Tromso: Female chess stars at the Olympiad

8/8/2014 – Remember when top women chess players were stereotyped as elderly matrons? Well, times have changed, and today they look more like film or sports stars. And we can prove it: there are many wonderful video interviews conducted by GM Daniel King with top women from our Olympiad studio in Tromsø. Many of the interviews are online for you to watch. Enjoy.

Seemingly solid but actually weak

8/8/2014 – Three major pieces behind a knight on the fifth rank on an open file - what could be more solid? But in chess things are not always as they appear on first sight. Which one of the world's best players had to find out in a recent game from the Olympiad in Tromso. Oliver Reeh has the details and invites you to take a second or third look.

Kasparov interviewed by King

8/7/2014 – Playchess viewers have been treated to more than the expected dose of grandmaster commentary of the games. Daniel King has been on-site conducting interviews each and every day, live on Playchess. When Garry Kasparov sat at the table, days before the elections on August 11th, King quizzed him on everything from the world championship, the campaign, and even what he taught Magnus.

Quickchats and R6 preview

8/7/2014 – It is a rainy free day in Tromso and most people are catching their breath, especially after the Bermuda Party. There are many matches that are particularly interesting in round six, and there are many that will be crucial to the standings. Azerbaijan has a great chance of increasing their lead while the relatively weak team of Kazakhstan plays Cuba. We bring you a preview and some interviws.

Marin on Tromso R5 – Taking a break

8/7/2014 – Wednesday was an unusual day at the Olympiad: the famous (or infamous) Bermuda party was scheduled, which our main reporter of course had to attend. That has led to a delay in our full round five report. Back in Bucharest our expert annotator Mihail Marin had a football match to watch – the first in thirty years. For this reason he restricts himself to one key encounter, the top game on the top board.

GM Helmut Pfleger turns 71

8/6/2014 – Seventy-one? So why this report, we hear you ask. Because a year ago we missed his 70th birthday – quite unforgivable, he being one of our earliest friends in chess. So we make it up today with a portrait and some personal stories – of which there are more than we can tell. Pfleger has done more for chess in Germany than anyone we know. Happy birthday Helmut!

Tromso 05: Shocks

8/6/2014 – Kramnik absolutely crushed Topalov. Mamedyarov had destroyed Ivanisevic's position within the first hour. Yet none of these were decisive for the matches. Iotov surprised Karjakin, an opponent 200 points higher rated, and beat him without problems drawing the match. Perunovic tied the Serbia-Azerbaijan match by beating Radjabov. Speaking of Serbia, their women's team beat Ukraine!

Tromso R5 Preview

8/6/2014 – The fifth round is under way in Tromso with many magnificent games, several of which are 2700+ in their average rating... one of them is even over 2800! Russia plays Bulgaria on the second board while Armenia plays Norway in the third. Additionally, we bring you several bite-size interviews, and a view of the live action from Norway!

Karsten Mueller: Chess Endgames 14

8/6/2014 – "There is both good and bad news about GM Karsten Mueller's Fritztrainer series "Chess Endgames". The good news is that a new volume has just been released but the bad news is that it will be the final volume." It is subtitled The Golden Guidelines of Endgame Play and rounds off the whole series with general advice, backed up by well-chosen illustrative examples. Review by Sean Marsh

Marin on Tromso R4 – battle of the kings

8/6/2014 – In team events often the top games end in rapid draws, while it is left to the lower-ranked players to decide the ultimate outcome of the matches. Our commentator GM Mihail Marin knows the feeling from his early youth. He prefers it when, just like medieval hero kings, the players on the top boards decide the matches – which happened in some of the top encounters of round four.

Tromso 04: Azerbaijan!

8/5/2014 – The Azerbaijani teams has triumphed over France with a key victory by Shakhriyar Mamedyarov over Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. With draws on the other boards the Azeris have good reason to celebrate. Some surprises occurred in the Women's section; Indonesia annihilated Armenia while Iran did the same with Slovakia, and they now move to 15.5/16 board points. Indepth analysis.

Black Magic

8/5/2014 – Richard Rapport is one of the best juniors in the world and officially ranks as the 45th best player on the planet. Thus, his loss with white against against the much lower rated Juan Armando Rohls Montes from Venezuela in the second round of the Olympiad came as a big surprise. And before black won the game he had to work some magic with his knight.

Tromso: R4 preview and interviews

8/5/2014 – The battles rage on in Norway with some incredible matches. France faces Azerbaijan, but right next to them the duel between Carlsen and Wojtaszek is taking place. Even on the "lower" boards the games are intense; in board 14 Latvia plays England, which means Adams-Shirov! We bring you a pictorial report, the game that ended in five minutes and an interview with Chuchelov.

Marin on Tromso R3 – Breaking Black

8/5/2014 – Sounds like a smash hit TV series but it has nothing to do with drugs: we are talking about the problem White faces these day, when up against fashionable hyper-solid lines. But at the very top of the Elo scale in Tromsø Black's walls – Berlin, Petroff and Dutch – did not always stand up to White's pressure, as GM Mihail Marin shows in these three wonderfully annotated games.

Tromso 03: Champions Fall

8/4/2014 – The defending Olympic Champions, Armenia, have suffered their first defeat of the tournament... and it is only round three! Movsesian, who has had close calls already, lost his game against Fressinet while Aronian missed an important chance to win his game against MVL. France took it 2.5-1.5 In the women's section, there were quite a few surprises. Round three report.

Chess on the mythical hill of Erice

8/4/2014 – We are spoiled with choice of beautiful venues where chess tournaments are staged: from seaside resorts, to alpine villages, exotic islands – and now the Arctic Circle where the Chess Olympiad has just started. But a small town, tucked up on a misty hill on the Italian island of Sicily, is yet to be discovered by chess adventurers looking for a wonderful chess holiday. Diana Mihajlova reports.

Interviews from Tromso

8/4/2014 – With many players having days off and some of the teams finishing their rounds earlier then others, the ChessBase Studio in Tromso has kept itself busy interviewing people from all over the globe and in every rating range! We bring you a collection of interviews so far, from Ulf Andersson to Peter Leko, and from Vladimir Kramnik to the Jamaican Olympic team!

ChessBase Magazine 161 – 'highly recommended'

8/4/2014 – Sergey Karjakin is the cover star of the latest CBM, due to his extremely impressive victory at the Norway Chess tournament, which receives comprehensive coverage: in addition to most of the games featuring annotations, there is an opening survey based on the tournament from Mihail Marin and a series of video presentations by Danny King. CBM 161 review at Marsh Towers.

Marin on Tromso R2 – round two selection

8/3/2014 – For many participants, one of the main attractions of the Olympiads is the presence of World Champions (the reigning one, former ones and, who knows, maybe the next one). And the champions themselves do not mind rubbing shoulders with mere mortals, even though this may look risky for their ratings. GM Mihail Marin looks at three interesting and exciting games.