8/8/2009 – Originally it was bigger, with the winners of six major tournaments invited to participate in the Basque town of Bilbao. A major financial crisis led to the down paring of the event to a four-player double round robin (six rounds) and the prize fund considerably reduced from last year's total of €400,000. Now one of the participants, Veselin Topalov, has opted out, and is replaced by Levon Aronian. Press release.

8/8/2009 – Make no mistake, it is GM Monika Socko, not her top-rated husband Bartosz, who is leading the Arctic Challenge with 6.0/7 and a 2703 performance. No less sensational is that 14-year-old IM Ray Robson is sharing first with a 2679 performance. The action is exciting ("hammer time") and the landscape lovely in the land of the midnight sun. Big illustrated report by Misha Savinov.

8/7/2009 – The Netherlands Championship, which took place from July 21st-30th, was finally won by GM Erwin L'Ami. 15-year-old Anish Giri, who had led with 5.0/5 points and a 3164 performance, ended in second place, together with Jan Timman and FM Roi Miedema. "There are now one billion photographers on the planet," sighs Dutch professional Fred Lucas. Here are his extraordinary visual impressions.

8/7/2009 – In Canadian youth and junior chess, a number of names are becoming difficult to forget, but note these two: FMs Raja Panjwani and Eric Hansen. They will not be going away anytime soon, as indicated by recent performances at the Victoria Summer Chess Festival. With the Bluvshtein-Nakamura encounter serving as a warm up to the main events, things just got better from there.

8/7/2009 – Sunday, 9 August 2009, heralds the start of the events around the 200-year anniversary of the Schachgesellschaft Zürich, the oldest chess club in the world. Attendees on the final weekend (August 22-23) include Kasparov, Anand, Karpov, Korchnoi, Kramnik, Spassky, Ponomariov and Topalov. Richard Forster and Christian Rohrer retrace the historical development of the Schachgesellschaft.

8/6/2009 – At the Arctic Chess Challenge in Tromsø 120 players are competing in the year’s most prestigious Norwegian event. After five of nine rounds there are four players in the lead. Three are GMs, one a female, but the fourth is of particular interest: 14-year-old US American IM Ray Robson, whom some people are calling the new Bobby Fischer. Pictorial report by IM Torstein Bae.

8/2/2009 – These words come from the eleven-time Chess Classic winner Vishy Anand, who failed to qualify this time for the final on Sunday. Anand had a good position in his must-win game against Ian Nepomniachtchi – Q+2P vs Q – but only managed a draw. Levon Aronian, on the other hand, beat Naiditsch to secure his place one round before the end. Aronian plays Nepomniachtchi in the final.

8/1/2009 – In Chess960 the pieces are shuffled before the start of each game – to eliminate all opening preparation. But does that render top GMs helpless? It does not. For a long stretch Gata Kamsky, was leading. He lost to former world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov in the final round, so that the winner in the end was top seed Alexander Grischuk. Report with lovely pictures by Christian Bossert.

8/1/2009 – The first day of the Rapid Chess World Championship in Mainz brought a nasty shock for the eleven-fold Chess Classic winner Vishy Anand, who lost his first two games, both with white, to Levon Aronian and newcomer Ian Nepomniachtchi. Anand retained chances to enter the final on Sunday by beating Arkadij Naiditsch in the third game. Aronian and Nepomniachtchi lead with 2.5/3. Illustrated report.

7/31/2009 – From July 20-28, Victoria, British Columbia played host to a number of events, including the Canadian Youth and Junior Chess Championships, and the British Columbia Open. Well attended and well received, the festival was highlighted by an encounter between GMs Mark Bluvshtein and Hikaru Nakamura during the opening ceremonies. Pictorial report.

7/31/2009 – ... is almost half done with a bishop placed on d3 (d6), keeping the enemy king in the c-file. Here Black sent out a clear signal with 23. ... Qxa2 - the white king is to be hunted down with 24...Nb3+. How do you judge the situation now?
A) Checkmate can only be prevented by giving up the queen, leaving Black on the victory path;
B) Thanks to Black's back rank weakness, White just so manages to escape into a roughly equal endgame;
C) White actually wins.
The solution is here, but first ponder over it with a larger version of the diagram.

7/31/2009 – On the first day of the Chess960 World Rapid Chess Championship in Mainz Levon Aronian had dominated, winning all three of his games. On the second day US GM Hikaru Nakamura had won all of his to get into the finals. And there he beat Aronian in the first three of four games to take the 2009 title of 960 World Championship. Illustrated report. with video.