10/15/2009 – Magnus Carlsen's victory in Nanjing belongs to the twenty best tournament results of all time; with white he even succeeded in winning all games (5). His encounter with Wang Yue resulted in a complicated endgame in which, due to the reduced material, a draw seemed more than probable. However, Magnus' knights managed to lay so many pitfalls that finally Black stumbled after all. GM Karsten Müller has annotated this impressive endgame for ChessBase Magazine Online, explaining among other things what importance the Troitzky line has here. Endgame analysis of Carlsen-Wang Yue.

10/14/2009 – It is one of the most famous games in chess history, one which used to be a part of every player's education back in the book era. It has even found its way on to a postage stamp. In his Wednesday night Playchess lecture Dennis Monokroussos takes another look at the heavyweight battle between two all-time greats. Be there at 9 p.m. ET or 3 a.m. CEST.

10/14/2009 – Remember the very dramatic final playoff game between Anna Zatonskih and Irina Krush? The former won the title with milliseconds on the clock. This year it was calmer sailing for Anna, who won the event one round before it finished. In the end she had a very impressive score of 8.5/9, with Camilla Baginskaite trailing two full points behind. Big illustrated report with pictures by Betsy Dynako.

10/14/2009 – Women make up about 10% of the World Chess Federation's estimated one million members. The caliber of the top female players is rising dramatically, yet FIDE persists in the "anachronistic and demeaning practice of awarding separate titles for women at lower levels of accomplishment." Time to drop gender-segregated titles for women, says Barbara Jepson in the Wall Street Journal.

10/14/2009 – In an earlier report we brought you a series of new pictures of the reclusive World Champion Bobby Fischer, during his 1973 visit ot the Philippines at the invitation of President Ferdinand Marcos. Today we have screen shots of the same visit from a second video that appeared on YouTube, together with one of an earlier (1967) visit for a "Beat Bobby Fischer" match. Again: strangely moving.

10/13/2009 – AMP is an energy drink distributed by PepsiCo under the Mountain Dew brand. The makers have launched a campaign where a person wearing an AMP can costume challenges athletes to a game of whatever they are good at. Recently it was chess, in a well-known hustler's paradise. The AMP can man – obviously a disguised grandmaster – gave a ten-board simul. Anyone know who he was?

10/13/2009 – A Renaissance château on the banks of the River Loire, with splendid gardens and stately rooms. The owner a great chess enthusiast, as well as a music aficionado. The participants: two young French players and two from China. The event: a friendship match which includes a "mixed double". And on the side: a concert of Chinese and French classical music. We have pictures and videos.

10/13/2009 – Born in Poti, Georgia (USSR), Nana learned chess at the age of four. At ten she started formal lessons and within six months became the girls’ champion of Tbilisi. By the age of twenty she had won the USSR Women’s Championship three times. Traumatically she missed becoming World Champion by tiny margins, but devoted her life to promoting women's chess. Today Nana Alexandria turns sixty.

10/12/2009 – With his 8.0/10 score at the recent Pearl Spring tournament 18-year-old Magnus Carlsen will certainly go into the record books. But how does his result fit among the all-time great performances? Using a new formula that takes the length of a tournament or match into consideration, chess statistician Jeff Sonas evaluates Magnus' Nanjing performance and puts it into historical perspective.

10/12/2009 – Once a great world center of chess, London is once again playing host to a very high level tournament, the highest in the city for 25 years. Participants in the eight-player Category 19 include Carlsen, Kramnik, Nakamura, Short and Adams. The event will be staged in December at the Olympia Conference Centre in West London. There will be free live broadcast on the Internet. Tournament details.

10/12/2009 – The legendary eleventh World Champion died on January 17, 2008. A year and a half later new pictures have emerged that show Bobby Fischer after his win against Boris Spassky in Reykjavik in 1972, just before he went into reclusive hiding, initially in Pasadena, California. The pictures are from a visit to the Philippines, Tokyo, Hong Kong in 1973. Unusual and strangely moving.

10/11/2009 – In 2006 she won the Women's World Championship in Ekaterinburg, three months pregnant at the time. Now GM Xu Yuhua has won the FIDE Women Grand Prix in Nanjing, with 8.0/11 points and a 2619 performance. The final round leading to this victory was especially dramatic in a tournament that produced a sensationally low 33.3% draw average. Big final pictorial report.