10/21/2010 – When a lay audience sees all the games of a round ending without decision the first reaction is disappointment. But when a strong grandmaster looks at the games they can be filled with excitement – as was the case with our guest commentator today. GM Anish Giri, the rising star of Dutch chess, did express analysis and gives us his take on the round. Now with pictures.

10/21/2010 – , but in tournment practice when the clock is ticking away, it is often anything but easy to discover the correct defence. In this example from the Bundesliga match Werder Bremen-Hamburger SK Radoslaw Wojtaszek (White) on top board for the Hamburg side against Zahar Efimenko could still win, although there were pawns left only on the kingside. Efimenko defended against the attack on his h-pawn by 57...h5 58.gxh6 e.p. Ra5?. Karsten Müller has taken a look at the ending and shows you in his analysis how to liquidate to a won pawn ending and a stalemate trick with a desperado rook. ChessBase Magazine Online.

10/20/2010 – American GM Maurice Ashley is one of the games premier commentators. He has authored books, traveled the world promoting the virtues of chess and has recently released a DVD in partnership with ChessBase. It offers a new and general strategy: look for what your opponents last move did that actually hurt his position. Review by Michael Jeffreys.

10/20/2010 – In this position from the 20th game of the world title match Alekhine-Euwe 1935, Black (Alekhine) had just played 29...Rd6-a6 putting his pieces in very a delicate situation on the queenside. How would you judge the situation now?
A) equal, Black will unpin on the next move with ...Bb5;
B) White can prevent this manouvre leaving the black pieces on a dead track;
C) he wins material instantly.
The solution is here, but first ponder over it with a larger version of the diagram.

10/20/2010 – After a spectacular opening ceremony the first round of the Nanjing Pearl Spring Chess tournament got under way, with World Number one Magnus Carlsen bouncing back from a string of disappointing results with a clean win over French GM Etienne Bacrot. Anand-Wang Yue and Topalov-Gashimov were both drawn. Commentary to follow, here's our big pictorial report.

10/19/2010 – Nanjing 2010 is possibly the hottest round-robin tournament of the year, and is the first in history with three players rated 2800 in it. That it takes place in China is not so surprising considering they not only champion their own oriental values but even classical music. Read the preview, see the 1000 piano extravaganza, and above all, don't miss the breathtaking Yuja Wang!

10/18/2010 – In the magical world of chess composition, he was called "the player's composer", since his gems resembled positions from practical play. Ladislav Prokes (1884-1966) spread the pieces, usually not too many, around the board naturally and the solutions were very logical. A strong player, he composed 1,200 chess studies, of which GM Lubomir Kavalek has picked two wonderful examples.

10/18/2010 – The European Club Cup is taking place in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, from October 16th-24th 2010. A total of 351 players are in the open section, with 135 GMs, 61 IMs, and 247 titled players altogether. 24 of them are rated over 2700 Elo, making it one of the strongest team events of the year. The women's section has 64 players with ten GMs, 23 IMs, and 51 titled players. Round one results and games.

10/17/2010 – Got 140 thousand dollars and not sure what to spend it on? Maybe you have a few thousand lying around, and are just trying to meet your monthly chess quota. If you have been frustrated by our reviews and recommendations of relatively inexpensive items, let us make it up to you with a profile on chess sets designed exclusively for the rich and famous.

10/16/2010 – Spoiler: that's not him in our thumbnail, but a warrior carved in stone by the Jermuk lake. The third anniversary tournament for Karen Asrian, who died in June 2008 at the age of 28, was staged in the health resort in southern Armenia, and was won by seventh seed Tigran Kotanjian. Participants Siranush Andriasian and Liana Aghabekyan sent us a big illustrated report.

10/16/2010 – You know the feeling: the new program has arrived – as it did this morning at our doorstep. We want to install it, but that is going to be very tedious. Will everything stop running? Are we going to ruin a working system? Maybe we should do the installation tomorrow, or on Monday?! This time we took the plunge and started the DVD. In twelve minutes everything was running perfectly. Proof.

10/15/2010 – Next Thursday (October 21st) the Guinness record for simultaneous display will be challenged once again in the heart of the city of Tel-Aviv. GM Alik Gershon is going to face more than 500 opponents in Rabin Square, next to the town hall of the Israeli cultural capital, trying to defeat the official record set just 14 months ago in Teheran. Details.