4/18/2019 – Alina Kashlinskaya is the sole leader of the Women's European Championship after her victory over Pauline Guichard. Both had been leading the field after five rounds. Marie Sebag is in second. Wednesday was the tournament's one and only rest day. | Pictured: Alina Kashlinskaya and Marie Sebag | Photo: eiwcc2019.tsf.org.tr

4/17/2019 – After an eventful final round, eight players finished the Reykjavik Open tied with 7 points. Constantin Lupulescu had the best ranking on tiebreak and was declared the winner of the tournament ahead of Alireza Firouzja. Gawain Jones cracked the 2700 mark. | Photos: Fiona Steil-Antoni

4/15/2019 – Constantin Lupulescu beat Newcomer Alireza Firouzja in the 7th round of the Reykjavik Open with a very double-edged and topical variation in the French Defence and took a full point clear of the rest of the field with two rounds to play. Report on Round 7 plus live games and commentary of Round 8. | Photo: Fiona Steil-Antoni

4/13/2019 – Five out of nine rounds of the Reykjavik Open have been completed, and four players share the lead on 4½/5. Tied with the best tie-break score are Robert Hovhannisyan from Armenia and 15-year-old Alireza Firouzja from Iran, who in addition finished in clear first place at the Fischer Random side event. Also co-leading are Sergei Movsesian and Constantin Lupulescu. Seven players are a half point behind. | Photo: Fiona Steil-Antoni / Official site

4/10/2019 – The 33rd Reykjavik International started at the Harpa Concert Hall (pictured) in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik on Monday. The two sometime-2700s Gawain Jones and Nils Grandelius have both dropped half points, leaving two GMs, an IM, a class A and even a class B player (!) as the only perfect scores through three rounds. Highlights and live commentary of Round 4 (from 17:00 UTC / 19:00 CEST / 13:00 EDT) | Photo: Lennart Ootes / ReykjavikOpen.com

4/3/2019 – Last weekend the Austrian chess player Eva Moser died at the age of 36. She was the best female Austrian chess player of all time and in 2006 even won the open Austrian National Championship. In 2015 she stopped playing tournament chess, presumably due to her battle with Leukaemia. | Photos: ChessBase

3/22/2019 – In the second round of the US Championships, Wesley So showed flashes of brilliance against Timur Gareyev, giving a master class in the endgame with rook and knight against rook and knight. Just when everyone thought it was a draw, that's when the struggle really began. So now leads alongside Sam Sevian and Jeffrey Xiong. Carissa Yip and Jennifer Yu in the Women's Championship are now the only two players in either tournament to remain with a perfect score. | Photo: Justin Kellar

3/18/2019 – Vassily Ivanchuk is a fixture in the international tournament chess scene. It feels like the Ukrainian has always been there among the world's elite. In July 1991, almost 30 years ago, the he first reached number two in the world with and Elo of 2735. Today Ivanchuk celebrates his 50th birthday. Congratulations! | Photo: Nugzar Kereselidze

3/13/2019 – In addition to Lasker's 150th birthday, the German chess had another anniversary to celebrate last year. On July 6, 1818, 200 years ago, Adolf Anderssen was born in Breslau. After his victory in London in 1851, he was considered the best player in the world. He died 140 years ago today, on March 13, 1879. Replay his "Evergreen Game" with notes by Garry Kasparov! | Photo: German Chess Federation

3/13/2019 – Russia defended its lead at the World Team Championship in Astana with a narrow 2.5: 1.5 win over the USA. In the women's tournament, the Chinese were able to extend their lead to three points as Russia scored a point against Ukraine. | Photos: David Llada

3/11/2019 – Russia, the leading team at the World Team Championship, unexpectedly gave up a team match point to Azerbaijan round six. India and England are only one point behind. England scored an important win over Iran 3-1 despite the early loss of their reserve player Jon Speelman on board four. In the Women's section, China continues to lead the field. | Photos: David Llada

3/1/2019 – The organizers of the Olympic Games periodically consider proposals for new sports to be included. FIDE has applied for chess to be on the list. Just two weeks ago we reported "the Olympic dream is alive", but once more the sport did not make the cut. LA 2028 anyone?

2/28/2019 – The surprise winner of the 17th Aeroflot Open is Kaido Kulaots who turns 43 today. The Estonian grandmaster was able to win his game in the final round and had more black games — the tiebreak — (not to mention better performance rating) after both he and Haik Martirosyan finished with 7.0/9. Kulaots is expected to receive an invitation to the Dortmund supertournament to be held in July. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

2/26/2019 – Krishnan Sasikiran, who had led the Aeroflot Open confidently after six rounds, lost in the seventh round to strong Armenian youth GM Haik Martirosyan and was overtaken by GM Kaido Kulaots. The trio now has a half point lead over four other grandmasters with two rounds left to play. | Photo: Mohammad Kheirkhah / ruchess.ru

2/9/2019 – On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Armenian Dram currency, the country's central bank has recently issued new banknotes. The newly introduced 2000 Dram certificate honors the Armenian world chess champion Tigran Petrosian.

2/7/2019 – Over the past decade, the Saint Louis Chess Club has expanded its roster of events from US-centric tournaments for top players, to the international elite, junior tournaments, norm tournament, and now, with the Cairns Cup, a new initiative to support women and girls. The instigators, Rex Sinquefield and Dr Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield welcomed ten of the world's best women chess players to the "chess capital of the USA". | Photo: Austin Fuller / Saint Louis Chess Club

2/7/2019 – Boris Savchenko won the Moscow Open at the RSS University January 26th to February 3rd. In the separate open tournament for women, Anastasia Bodnaruk was the top scorer. In addition to FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, his predecessor, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, visited the tournament and was evidently enchanted by the magic show at the opening ceremony. | Photos: Tournament page

1/25/2019 – The Iranian IM Sarasadat Khademalsharieh is the player of the hour at the Gibraltar Chess Festival. She defeated GM Alexander Donchenko in Round 3 and was one of the five leaders with a perfect score. The dream start for Nigerian expert Kolade Onabogun, who beat two GMs, came to an end in Round 3, as he lost to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. We take a brief look at these two outsiders. | Photo: John Saunders