5/5/2021 – In the Russian Team Championship in Sochi, Mednyi Vsadnik St. Petersburg defended its lead by defeating KPRF Moscow in round 4. In the women's tournament, Chess Team Moscow, with Kateryna Lagno, Polina Shuvalova and Alexandra Kosteniuk on the top boards, won its fourth match in a row and is clear first. | Photos: Russian Chess Federation

5/3/2021 – From 10 to 18 July, Dortmund will once again be Germany's chess capital. Chess fans in Dortmund organise the "Sparkassen Chess Trophy", a grandmaster tournament, and Vladimir Kramnik and Vishy Anand will play a match in No Castling Chess. In an interview Kramnik reveals more.

4/29/2021 – None of the players who lost the first set of the quarterfinals could make up for it in the second set. Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov quickly secured their tickets to the semifinals. Magnus Carlsen, after a 2-2 against Radjabov in the first set, won the second set and is also through. | Photo: Alina l’Ami

4/28/2021 – In an interview after the last round of the Candidates Tournament, Wang Hao declared his retirement from professional chess, citing health issues as reason. However, he said he would continue to be involved in chess. Here's a short portrait and the interview. | Photo: Screenshot from the interview at the Candidates Tournament

4/27/2021 – World Champion Magnus Carlsen dominated the preliminaries of the New in Chess Classic. He did not lose a single game and on each of the three days of the preliminaries he scored 3.5/5 to finish sole first with 10.5/15. Perhaps his good form was due to his preparation: Carlsen played from the Meltwater office in Oslo and took a bicycle to come to work.

4/21/2021 – Magnus Carlsen loves chess and he loves a challenge. On Monday, after commentating round 8 of the Candidates for several hours live, the World Champion played a 22 game 3+0 Banter Blitz match against the "Challengers", 20 of the world's most promising juniors. Carlsen convincingly won the match with a score of 19.5-2.5. He only lost against Nihal Sarin and Awonder Liang and drew against Vincent Keymer.

4/23/2021 – Last year, Arnold Schwarzenegger asked people to "Stay at home" to fight against the spreading of the coronavirus, and to make this campaign better known, Schwarzenegger published videos that showed him playing chess with his donkey. Now a much stronger chess partner, "Iron Mike" Tyson, world heavyweight champion from 1987 to 1990, tested the chess skills of the "Terminator". | Photo: Henry Cejudo (Instagram)

4/14/2021 – 14 points out of 15 games and an Elo-performance of 2843 - Parham Maghsoodloo won the Iranian Championship 2021, a 16-player round-robin tournament, in impressive fashion. However, Maghsoodloo was also pushed by his rival Pouya Idani, who scored 13.0/15 and finished second. | Photo: Iranian Chess Federation

4/13/2021 – Probably the Candidates Tournament 2020-21 will go down in history as the longest over-the-board chess tournament of all time. It started on 17 March 2020 and was interrupted for more than a year after the outbreak of the Corona pandemic. Now, it is scheduled to resume next Monday, 19 April 2021, in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

4/13/2021 – The Iranian National Championship is currently being held in Tehran. 16 mostly young players are competing in a round-robin and after 13 of 15 rounds Elo-favourite Parham Maghsoodloo is leading the field with 12.0/13. But Pouya Idani (11.5/13) is only half a point behind and still has chances to catch the leader. | Photo: David Llada

4/7/2021 – 110 years ago, a very strong tournament was played in San Sebastián. Almost all the top players of the time participated. In the end, the winner was a newcomer, José Raúl Capablanca, who was still completely unknown in Europe.

3/27/2021 – The Central Chess Club in Moscow is the most beautiful chess club in the world. The edifice on Gogolevsky Boulevard has a long history and an even longer prehistory which offers a profound look into the society of pre-revolutionary Russia. | Photo: admagazin.ru

3/23/2021 – Viktor Kortschnoi is a phenomenon. He started his chess career in 1943 when he joined the Pioneer Palace in Leningrad and played until his death in 2016 when he was confined to a wheelchair. Today Kortschnoi would have celebrated his 90th birthday. | Photo: De Telegraaf via David Llada

3/19/2021 – Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So are favourites in their semifinal clashes against Ian Nepomniachtchi and Anish Giri at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational. But they are both behind after the first set. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

3/11/2021 – The Iranian chess arbiter Shoreh Bayat is one of 21 recipients of the 2021 International Women of Courage Award, which has been awarded by the US State Department since 2007 to women who have worked for peace, justice, human rights, gender equality and women's empowerment. | Photo: US State Department

3/5/2021 – There is a long list of great German chess players, and one of the greatest was Siegbert Tarrasch. He was the world’s best player at times, but he was unable to win the World Championship title. Today is the 159th anniversary of Tarrasch’s birth. | In the painting by Antti Faven, which shows a scene from the Café der la Regence, Tarrasch is standing at the very back on the left.

3/3/2021 – Recently, Peter Heine Nielsen, Danish Grandmaster, coach and second of Magnus Carlsen, and father of four children, enthusiastically retweeted a tweet by Cindy Zhan, which shows a scene from game six of the World Championship match Fischer vs Spassky in Reykjavik 1972. However, the photo does not show the real match but a Lego model of it. It is one of many creations by Cindy Zhan, self-declared "Chess Mom and Lego Fan". | Photos: Cindy Zhan

3/2/2021 – So far, the Tata Steel Tournament in Wijk aan Zee was the only over-the-board top tournament this year. It was played in the second half of January, but its results did not affect the rating list of February 2021. But Wijk changed the rating list from March 2021: Magnus Carlsen and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave lost points, other players gained rating.