Judit Polgar sets Guinness record

10/12/2014 – "The longest time a female player has been consecutively ranked chess world number one is 25 years and 1 month and was achieved by Judit Polgar". That's what the official certificate of the Guinness organisation reads. Thousands of chess lovers filled the Budapest Palace of Arts completely, to honor their queen at the Aquaprofit Polgar Chess Festival 2014. Big pictorial report + video.

World Junior R04+05: Many leaders, close games

10/11/2014 – A tournament like World Juniors is more about endurance than anything else. With 13 rounds in both Open and Girls event it makes perfect sense to pace yourself for this long event rather than going all out at the start and running out of steam towards the end. After five rounds there were three leaders in the Open section, ten with the Girls. Big pictorial report by Sagar Shah.

Impressions from the Millionaire Chess Open

10/11/2014 – Playing chess in style and for huge prizes - that was the idea of Maurice Ashley and Amy Lee when organizing the Millionaire Chess tournament in Las Vegas, the open with the biggest prize-fund in chess history: one million USD. Dress code, the money you can win, and the town of Las Vegas help to make this tournament unique. Sabrina Chevannes caught impressions.

Baku 08: Svidler saves the day

10/10/2014 – Let's face it: we were spoiled terribly with the recent Sinquefield Cup and its high percentage of decisive results. Perhaps the most important lesson was that chess needn't be a drawfest at the highest echelons, with the only exceptions coming at the cost of embarrassing blunders. The only player to stand out today was Peter Svidler with his win over Dominguez. Round eight report.

Viva Las Vegas!

10/10/2014 – Maurice Ashley and Amy Lee want more people to enjoy chess and benefit from it. Thus they organised an open tournament boasting of a record prize-fund of one million USD. More than 500 players paid a fee of 1.000 USD to take part. They play seven rounds Swiss, the first four qualify for a knock-out - and if you win that you will win 100.000 USD.

Baku 07: He is human!

10/10/2014 – Despite what his recent success seems to indicate, Fabiano Caruana is capable of losing a game! He had a particularly bad day and his executioner was Dmitry Andreikin. His technique was not immaculate, but by the 40th move he had netted a pawn and converted it confidently. Gelfand drew and catches the Italian, while Karjakin beat Nakamura thanks to the American's dubious opening.

Three leaders at Isle of Man tournament

10/10/2014 – 76 players from all parts of the world take part in the PokerStars Isle of Man tournament. After six rounds all of them lost some of their chips. However, with 5.0/6 French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, GM Gabriel Sargissian from Armenia and GM Gawain Jones from England suffered the least losses and lead the field. Six players follow with 4.5/6 each.

Route planner

10/10/2014 – "Chess is easy, just put the pieces on the right squares", smart people sometimes say. Maybe too smart a remark. After all, how do you know which piece is right on which square? Not everyone is born with a chessboard route planner. But practice helps. And Oliver Reeh helps you to practice. This week he asks you to put the knight on the right square.

World Junior R02+03: the tournament builds up

10/9/2014 – In the first round there were, naturually, mostly lopsided Swiss pairings, but things started to get more interesting in the next two rounds. Currently five players are leading with perfect 3.0/3 scores in the Open section, and one in the Girls. And of course there are multi talents in Pune, India, like Erik Ronka, who sports a rating of 2183 and plays a mean Presto agitato.

Chess art at the Swiss Championship

10/8/2014 – In the recently held Swiss Championship, a wide variety of activities, events, and exhibits were held in honor of the Swiss Chess Federation's 125h anniversary, a milestone in organized chess. One of these was an art exhibit related to chess, with original chess sets of all kinds as well as numerous humorous drawings and paintings. Peruse this fun pictorial.

Rapport vs Laznicka: A thrilling match

10/8/2014 – Unorthodox chess, opening experiments, fighting spirit, a surprising comeback, and some blitz: the six game match between Richard Rapport from Hungary and Viktor Laznicka from the Czech Republic was entertaining and exciting to the last minute. After trailing 1-3 Laznicka won the last two regular games of the match but then lost the blitz tie-break.

Baku 06: Caruana 2851 live!

10/8/2014 – The Italian wrecking ball keeps accumulating victories! Today he outplayed Svidler in an immensely complicated position stemming from the Grunfeld. With this victory Caruana leads the tournament by half a point and reaches a new record in his live rating: 2851, only twelve points away from Carlsen. Kasimdzhanov and Radjabov also won, capitalizing on their opponents' mistakes.

PokerStars Isle of Man combines chess and poker

10/7/2014 – The PokerStars Isle of Man Tournament kicked off at the Villa Marina on Douglas’ seafront with players from seventeen countries participating in the myriad tournaments. By virtue of the sponsor, a number of activities involving original combinations of chess and poker are also there, with top players of both modalities. Here is a report with video, and pictures by Alina L'Ami.

Baku 05: Peace after the rest day

10/7/2014 – To quote one of the commentators of the event, Sutovsky, "Quite a boring round here in Baku. Only Gelfand-Tomashevsky and Nakamura-Dominguez were exciting at some stage." And even those games were not thrilling. Gelfand-Tomashevsyk petered out to a draw right after move 30 while Nakamura was trying to nurse two extra pawns in a probably drawn opposite colored bishop endgame.

Aronian's Arrow

10/7/2014 – Sometimes being a pawn or even two pawns up is not enough to win the game. Especially in endings with opposite colored bishops - if only bishops are left. But things change if other pieces come into play because the bishop is suddenly not the only one attacking. But you have to be creative to exploit this advantage. Levon Aronian certainly is.

World Junior R01: exciting chess and personalities

10/7/2014 – There are 136 players in the Open section, with five players above 2600 and a tournament average of 2225. In the Girls section has four WGMs and 14 WIMs, with an average rating of 2048. There were lots of interesting encounters in the first round, including a ten-year-old beating a Swedish IM rated 2420. Our report introduces you to the top personalities of tomorrow's chess world.

World Junior has started in Pune

10/7/2014 – It is probably the strongest World Junior event of all time, with 18 GMs and 20 IMs, the most talented young players on the globe. They were greeted by another great talent, who won the event himself back in 1987 – and is currently preparing for a world title defence. Our reporters Sagar Shah and V. Saravanan are on the scene in India doing live commentary.

Yannick Pelletier wins 5th Swiss title

10/6/2014 – Thanks to an easy victory against IM Oliver Kurmann in the final round of the men's title tournament, Yannick Pelletier, who resides in France, won the title of Swiss Champion for the fifth time after winning it in 1995, 2000, 2002 and 2010. It was but one of the highlights in a series of events surrounding the 125th anniversary of the Swiss Chess Federation. A pictorial report.

A history of cheating in chess (5)

10/6/2014 – A few weeks ago FIDE took first executive steps to combat the most serious threat that the game of chess currently faces: the secret use of computer assistance during the game. In a paper written fourteen years ago Frederic Friedel had first drawn attention to the dangers that are lurking. We re-published this historical document in four parts. Here is the fifth and final section.

Baku 04: Fabi unstoppable

10/5/2014 – He could have been 4.0/4 as he had a strong advantage aginst both Nakamura and Gelfand in previous rounds, but his 3.0/4 is far from shabby! He beat Mamedyarov with a computer-like defense and precision. As many pieces as Mamedyarov sacrificed and as weak as Caruana's kind seemed, he survived and his material advantage was too big. He now shares the lead with Gelfand.

World Junior 2014 in Pune starts on Monday

10/5/2014 – Remember the days when young players wanted to win the World Junior Championship because it gave them an automatic GM title? How things have changed: this year a total of 139 players from 47 countries are participating, among them 18 GMs and 20 IMs, led by Russian GM Vladimir Fedoseev, clocked at Elo 2677. V. Saravanan reports on final preparations in Pune, India.

Baku 03: Grischuk flags; Gelfand leads

10/4/2014 – Some interesting games in Baku. The highlights are Grischuk's frantic endgame against Gelfand. Due to time pressure neither side played particularly well, and in a drawn position Grischuk flagged! Gelfand now leads solo with 2.5/3. Missing a good chance to keep up was Caruana who was winning against Nakamura... who, in his own words, should have castled like a man.

Richard Rapport vs Viktor Laznicka: 3:1

10/4/2014 – In the past Richard Rapport had trouble to play against Viktor Laznicka. But in their six-game match in Novy Bor, in the Czech Republic, things seem to have changed. Now Rapport is the one who calls the shots and after four games he leads the match with 3-1. However, he was lucky that Laznicka failed to exploit the chances given to him.

6th London Classic: The Super Six

10/4/2014 – The 'Super Six' are Fabiano Caruana, Viswanathan Anand, Anish Giri, Hikaru Nakamura, Vladimir Kramnik and Michael Adams, with an average rating of 2780. There is a Rapidplay Open on December 6-7, a Blitz on December 9th and then a classical tournament on December 10-14, with a number of subsidiary events. And all of this just two months away.