7/25/2024 – Last week we showed you some chess puzzles of a different kind – some were quite easy, some pretty hard. They were at least most entertaining, bringing smiles to our faces. Today we show you the solutions, and video of a strong chess player solving the problems in real time.

7/25/2024 – The 57th edition of the Biel Chess Festival is taking place on July 13-26 with its usual mix of elite tournaments, amateur events and attractive side activities. Remarkably, this edition will see two Triathlons taking place simultaneously: the Masters and the Challengers. Praggnanandhaa, Vincent Keymer and Le Quang Liem are the top seeds in the main event. | Follow the games live starting at 14.00 CEST (8.00 ET, 17.30 IST)

7/25/2024 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won the third event in this year's Champions Chess Tour, the CrunchLabs Masters, after beating Alireza Firouzja in the Armageddon decider of the Division I Grand Final. MVL thus secured a spot in the tour's Finals, set to take place over-the-board at the end of the year. The deciding match saw the contenders playing a number of technical battles, with four games ending in draws to set up a sudden-death tiebreaker.

7/25/2024 – The strongest junior and senior chess players in the United States have returned to Saint Louis. On July 16-26, the top 10 players across three divisions - juniors, girls, and seniors - are competing for more than $135,000 in prizes. Find here all games, standings and the daily recap produced by the Saint Louis Chess Club. | Pictured: Vladimir Akoprian, who won the Seniors Championship with a round to spare. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

7/25/2024 – Le Quang Liem once again showed that the Triathlon format suits him perfectly, as he defeated Praggnanandhaa R on Wednesday to claim his third consecutive tournament victory in the Biel Masters - with a round to spare! In the Challengers, which was won by Saleh Salem on Tuesday, Alexander Donchenko defeated Vaishali R to secure second place. | Photos: Biel Chess Festival

7/24/2024 – On July 20, 2024, for the 100th anniversary of its founding, FIDE planned a monumental event. It is a quest to set the Guinness World Record for the most chess games played in 24 hours, asking players all over the world to help achieve this goal. They are asked to play at least one 5-min game on one of the platforms or applications joining the World Records Attempt, between July 20, 2024 00:00:00 CEST and July 21, 2024 00:00:00 CEST. Here are the results in a FIDE press release.

7/22/2024 – FIDE has published the official entry and starting lists for the Chess Olympiad in Budapest (11 to 22 September). In the open tournament, the USA, India and China are the top teams in the seeding list according to Elo. The German team is in tenth place. In the Women's Olympiad, Georgia leads the seeding list. The German women are eighth in the seeding list. | Photos: FIDE

7/22/2024 – “Finishing off the opponent's king is, and remains, the ultimate goal of a chess game, and in order to memorise the checkmating patterns and know how to use them successfully in your own games, only one thing helps: practise again and again!”. Oliver Reeh introduces his tactics column in the new ChessBase Magazine #220 with these words. Is there anything to add? Let's go! Take advantage of the CBM reading sample of the week and go king hunting with Oliver Reeh. Here and now and directly via your web browser!

7/22/2024 – The blitz section of the GM Triathlons at the Biel Chess Festival decided which players would qualify for the final phase and thus fight for the 2024 title. There was particular tension in the Masters, where the Indian superstar Praggnanandhaa had to work hard to make it through, as he had a strong showing to qualify in third place after all. In the Challengers, Saleh Salem has a huge advantage in the standings thanks to an outstanding performance in the blitz, as he scored 9 out of 10 possible points. | Photos: Biel Chess Festival

7/21/2024 – With 5 out of 9 rounds played at the US Senior, US Junior and US Girls Championships, the three concurrent events have sole leaders atop the standings. In the Senior tournament, Vladimir Akopian leads with 4½ points, as only Gregory Kaidanov managed to hold him to a draw in the first 5 rounds of play. In the Junior event, rating favourite and 2022 champion Christopher Yoo leads with 4 points, while among the Girls, Jasmine Su leads with 3½ points despite having suffered a loss against Omya Vidharti in round 5. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

7/21/2024 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books on chess training and strategy. In the 187th episode of his ChessBase show "Understanding before moving" Herman continues his series "Chess history in a nutshell" and looks at the long career of Viktor Kortchnoi, one of the best players of all time who never became World Champion. | Photo: Pascal Simon

7/21/2024 – Two French representatives reached the final in the Division I winners' bracket of the CrunchLab Masters: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who defeated Magnus Carlsen, and Alireza Firouzja, who got the better of Jan-Krzysztof Duda. MVL needed to work hard to beat the world rapid and blitz champion, as their match, featuring all decisive games, went to Armageddon. Wesley So and Ian Nepomniachtchi remain in contention in the losers' bracket. | Photo: Vincent Michel / Ouest France