St. Louis Matches: Nakamura and Robson win classical

5/23/2011 – The start was inauspicious to say the least with Nakamura losing the first game, and getting into trouble against Ponomariov in the opening of most of the games. Yet sheer grit kept him alive, and in the sixth he finally got it all right. "I was just simply outplayed," Ponomariov explained. Robson also won his last game taking the score to 4.0-2.0. The rapids start Tuesday. Report and videos.

2nd Hainan Dangzhou: Yu Yangyi leads with 2882 performance

5/22/2011 – After seven rounds, 16-year-old Yu Yangyi still leads, though with 5.5/7 and a 2882 performance now. Current Chinese number two, Wang Yue is close behind, though seems to be having an epiphany as the ultra-positional player has been experimenting with the other extreme. During the rest day, the players gave simuls to children from the area. Illustrated report by Gu Xiaobing.

Ivanchuk catches Le in final round of Capa Memorial

5/22/2011 – One round before the end the Vietnamese super talent Le Quang Liem led the field at the 46th Capablanca Memorial in Havana, Cuba, by a full point. But he still had to face Vassily Ivanchuk. Le played a brave game with black and had (we believe) the required draw in hand. But a few small inaccuracies left the Ukranian GM three pawns up and a clear win. The two players shared first.

Chess and general impressions from Luanda

5/22/2011 – The CUCA International Chess in Angola's capital of Luanda is a generously staged event in an exotic part of the world. We have problems coming by the games, but two of the participants, Romanian-born WGM Alina l'Ami and GM Sergey Tiviakov, originally Russia – both now live in Holland – took time off to explore the town and its culture. From them we have received this giant pictorial report.

Saint Louis: Nakamura equalises, Robson stays ahead

5/21/2011 – Ruslan Ponomariov and Ray Robson both won their first-round games at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. In round three the Ukrainian GM's opponent Hikaru Nakamura drew level, while GM Ben Feingold has not been able to win a game against the 16-year-old Guam-born GM who lives in Largo, Florida. Robson leads 2.5:1.5. Report after round four.

FIDE Candidates Finals G3: Strong novelty... quick draw

5/21/2011 – The third round of the candidates was quite disappointing, and not so much because it was a fourteen-move draw, but the circumstances. Grischuk chose a rare move in the Queen’s Gambit Declined, and ran into a strong and unpleasant novelty right there and then. It promised to be a fascinating game, and just as the spectators were settling down for the upcoming struggle...Draw!?! Report.

European Women's Championship: Cmilyte is champion!

5/21/2011 – It was a tough competition but Lithuanian GM Viktorija Cmilyte made it almost seem easy. After a five in five start she stumbled against Stefanova, but responded as if nothing had happened and still finished on an incredible 9.0/11 and a 2692 performance, including eight wins in eleven games. Bulgarian Antoaneta Stefanova stayed close and came clear second with 8.5/11. Report and videos.

Greetings from Pál Benkö for 25 years of ChessBase

5/20/2011 – "Congratulations to ChessBase on your 25th anniversary! Your news page is the the first thing I look at every day when I go on the Internet. You do such wonderful work. Keep up your great service for the whole chess world." Heartening words from legendary great chess player, theorist, author and problem composer – who in addition sent six anniversary puzzles for our readers.

Kavalek in Huffington: How to Cook in Chess

5/20/2011 – Actually, "to cook" in chess has nothing to do with culinary pleasures, but is a dreaded thing for chess composers. A problem is cooked when there a different unintended solution is found. But a composition can be also cooked when someone creates a sound problem or study from an unsound work and eliminates the dual solution. You can also have it both ways as Prof. Noam Elkies proved.

FIDE Candidates Finals G2: Grischuk close to win against Gelfand

5/20/2011 – It was an exciting game with the players opting for a complicated Symmetrical English. Gelfand got the worst of it and ended up with a rook for two pieces. In the ensuing endgame the two fought hard and Grischuk seemed to have a winning position. However with an array of paths to choose, a clear victory never materialized, and Gelfand held. GM commentary by Alejandro Ramirez.

ChessBase is 25

5/19/2011 – It is difficult to determine the exact date when ChessBase was born. Was it when a science journalist and a future World Champion discussed computer databases? Or when a very talented programmer started to actually write one? We think it was when the two showed the prototype to the World Champion and decided, at his urging, to commercialise the product. That was May 19, 1986.

FIDE Candidates Finals: First game drawn after fight

5/19/2011 – The last match of the Candidates is upon us, this time a six-game match to decide Anand's challenger. Grischuk and Gelfand played a Queen's Gambit Declined, though contrary to his treatment of Kramnik, Grischuk was not amenable to a fightless draw. The game simplified to a tough rook endgame in which Grischuk pressed hard but never broke the balance. GM Alejandro Ramirez annotates.

Le Quang Liem and Andreikin lead at Capa Memorial

5/18/2011 – The 46th Capablanca Memorial is taking place from May 10-21, 2011, in Havana, Cuba. The Elite Group is a double round robin with six strong GMs. Top seed Vassily Ivanchuk suffered a somewhat mysterious defeat in round four, while GM Le Quang Liem from Vietnam survived a long attack by Czech GM David Navara in the same round. Entertaining.

2nd Hainan Dangzhou: 16-year-old Yu Yangyi leads

5/18/2011 – After the success of the first Hainan Dangzhou tournament, the second edition is underway and a long-term contract has already been signed for five tournaments. This year has the cream of the crop of Chinese players including Wang Hao, Wang Yue and the teen prodigies, Hou Yifan and Yu Yangyi. 16-year-old Yangyi leads after three rounds. Here is the illustrated report by Gu Xiaobing.

Ponomariov draws first blood in Saint Louis

5/18/2011 – From May 17-25 there is an interesting match taking place at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis: top US GM Hikaru Nakamura plays former FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov in six regular and four rapid games. The event has unprecedented live and archived video coverage – hours and hours of it. In their first game Ponomariov was forced to mate with bishop and knight.

CUCA International in Angola

5/18/2011 – In a sign of the enormous reconstruction efforts being made in Angola, the CUCA international Chess event is being held in the capital Luanda. The Open brought star chess globetrotters, Nigel Short and Sergey Tiviakov, not to mention the generous prize fund, and the Women's event has also been given its due. With his tireless camera, here is a large pictorial by Sergey Tiviakov.

2011 Canadian Closed Chess Championship

5/17/2011 – Canada’s top players gathered at the University of Guelph, playing for the Zonal title and a berth in this year’s World Cup. The tournament, with 29 players, was topped by GM Bator Sambuev, 2750 on the Canadian rating scale (2513 FIDE), who finised equal first together with IM Eric Hansen, Alberta’s provincial champion. Bator won the tiebreak, Hansen got the World Cup ticket. Illustrated report.

Instant knowledge – download the new ChessBase Powerbooks

5/17/2011 – Looking for new lines in your favourite opening? New ideas for your next tournament games. In our latest Powerbook series you will find not just lines from master-level games, but also hundreds of thousands of games played between top chess engines – a treasure-trove of unpublished chess knowledge. Best of all: the Powerbooks are inexpensive and instantly available as download. Video tutorial.

FIDE Candidates Semis Tiebreak: G-Day for the Ks

5/16/2011 – It was G-Day for the Ks, as both Kramnik and Kamsky bowed out to Grischuk and Gelfand respectively. Grischuk pursued his "draw with white" plan into the rapids, and pushed into the blitz, where he manhandled Kramnik and went through. Kamsky beat Gelfand in game three, but the Israeli clinched the fourth, and then won the blitz. Surprise finalists. Big illustrated report.

Karsten Müller's CBM Blog: Deceptive Simplicity, Knight Moves

5/16/2011 – Our resident GM endgame expert shows us that even pawn endings with only a few remaining pawns can be quite tricky. In his second example he shows us a tricky pawn ending with rook and knight, one he asks you to try and work out in your mind before you look at the solution. Dr. Müller once again proves that learning can be fun.

Candidates Semifinals G4: Blood, sweat and real tears this time

5/15/2011 – Yesterday’s blurb might well have fitted today’s, although with the names inverted. Kamsky improved on the game two opening against Gelfand and drew in 23 moves. Kramnik-Grischuk was a hair-raising English, with both players missing golden opportunities for large, if not winning, advantages. In the end a dejected Kramnik had to accept perpetual check. GM Fabiano Caruana comments.

European Women Chp: Cmilyte and Khotenashvili keep the lead

5/14/2011 – After eight rounds of grueling competition, Cmilyte still has the lead with 6.5/8 despite a slip in round six against GM Stefanova. With the same score, but slightly worse tiebreak, is local hero IM Khotenashvili. On the day off, the ladies were entreated to tourism and even dancing out at night sadly lacking more men! Here are the video reports by Robert Fontaine as well as pictures of the ladies.

FIDE Candidates Semis G3: Blood, sweat and tears

5/14/2011 – The bad news is that we had two more draws; the good news is that at least one of the games had people on the edge of their seats until the end. It wasn't the quiet Petroff in Grischuk-Kramnik, but Kamsky-Gelfand's incredibly complicated Najdorf where both missed clear chances, and fate chose not to favor either. Once again our Russian colleagues in Kazan provided spectacular video coverage.

Light versus dark squares

5/14/2011 – The black queen has a dominating position on d4, and White faces the question whether to attack it directly, indirectly (idea 38.Bxh7+) or not at all. So what's the correct continuation?
A) 37.Bc4
B) 37.e5
C) 37.g3

The solution is here, but first ponder over it with a larger version of the diagram.