2/24/2010 – With Alexander Grischuk sharing first in Linares (as of this writing), poised to win Linares for the second straight year and at an all-time career high rating (2770), it seems an auspicious time to feature him in this week's Playchess presentation by Dennis Monokroussos. Watch him deal with the likes of Gata Kamsky in Khanty-Mansiysk back in 2005. 9 p.m. ET Wednesday night.

2/24/2010 – The position in the diagram is from the game Bu Xiangzhi-McShane. Black will soon have to give up the rook for the a-pawn and when that happens the decisive question is whether the duo of black king and f-pawn are favourably enough placed to draw against the rook and the king. Amongst the weapons in Black's arsenal, there is above all the bodycheck in order to keep the white king at a distance. White, on the other hand, can get to work with a barrier. Sharpen up your analytical abilities by trying to work out the solution and comparing what you find with GM Karsten Müller's analysis. It's well worth the effort! CBM Online.

2/23/2010 – When did the chess brain develop? Turns out that Caissa made it some 50 km south of Nairobi, Kenya, in the pre-historic wastelands of Olegersaille. She called the bipedal primate Homo Sapiens. Today, 200,000 years later, the Kenyans are picking a national team to join their cousins from all over the world at the Siberian Olympiad. Spectacular pictorial by Mahul Gohil.

2/23/2010 – One way to measure the relative strengths of chess engines is to play them against each other – see who wins and by how much. But often newer engines can be "booked" to beat older rivals straight out of the opening. To get objective results without killer books John Nunn introduced opening test suites. That was a decade ago. Now Albert Silver presents an update and explains how to use it.

2/23/2010 – Alexander Grischuk won his second game in a row, the third in this tournament. He beat the leader Veselin Topalov, avenging a loss to him in the first half. Topalov and Grischuk go into the final round tied for first. Topalov has white against Gelfand, Grischuk black against Vallejo. It's going to be an exciting finish – watch it on Playchess with GM Danny King at the mike. Round nine report.

2/22/2010 – 19-year-old Le Quang Liem has won a string of very strong events, jumping from practically nowhere into the top 50 in the world (expect to see him in the top 20 soon). His achievements are in the news all over the world. And he is joined by Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son. High time for us to learn these names and understand how they work. Nguyen Hong Son helps us.

2/21/2010 – Once again: the result sounds boring, the games on the other hand were electrifying. Not, we hasten to add, due to their flawless perfection – on the contrary, they demonstrate that these are humans playing at the boards. Humans with nerves and frailties. The result left Veselin Topalov still in the lead by a point and a half, and the tail ender Vallejo the tragic hero of the event.

2/21/2010 – "Two exciting games – and one Petroff," writes our commentator GM Anish Giri. Gelfand used the latter in a colorless draw against Vallejo. The other two games were more entartaining. Topalov had a clear win against Aronian but missed the killer move; and Grischuk profited from a non-obvious error in Gashimov's Benoni to narrow the gap to the leading Topalov. Big illustrated report with commentary.

2/20/2010 – It was a very complicated game, and with Veselin Topalov pressing hard and Francisco Vallejo in terrible time trouble the Spaniard, who had had winning chances, blundered a full rook. This third victory put the Bulgarian GM a point and a half ahead of the field – and two points ahead of Magnus Carlsen in the live world rankings. Game with commentary by GM Anish Giri.

2/19/2010 – All three games were full of fight: Aronian came close to defeating Gelfand but drew; Vallejo even closer to defeating Gashimov but lost; and Alexander Grischuk had clear winning chances against Veselin Topalov but was outplayed by the Bulgarian in the end. We bring you extensive and deeply insightful commentary on this exciting struggle, provided by GM Anish Giri. Miss it at your own peril.

2/19/2010 – ... was the scenario in this game from the Austrian Bundesliga, where White had just played 28.Bf4-c1, giving his rooks free view to the black king. How would you assess the situation now?

A) White wins due to the threat 29.Rf1+;
B) the game should end in a perpetual check
C) Black wins.
The solution is here, but first ponder over it with a  larger version of the diagram.

2/18/2010 – This young Vietnamese grandmaster is having an incredible run: after finishing joint first in the very strong Moscow Open, and without a single day's rest, he played in the Aeroflot and clinched sole first with a fine win over Ian Nepomniachtchi in the final round. Second was Ukrainian GM Anton Korobov. Final results, games and pictures from Moscow.