9/19/2019 – Eight players reached round four of the FIDE World Cup after Wednesday's tiebreaks. The biggest surprise was given by Jeffery Xiong, who knocked out second seed Anish Giri in the 10'+10" rapid phase. The other underdog to go through was Le Quang Liem, who eliminated Vladislav Artemiev. Ding Liren, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Leinier Dominguez, Yu Yangyi and Peter Svidler also went through. GM DANNY KING recapped the action of the play-offs. | Photo: FIDE

9/18/2019 – Half the matches of the round of 32 at the FIDE Grand Prix in Khanty-Mansiysk already have a winner, while the remaining eight encounters will be decided on tiebreaks. None of the players that lost the first game of the round managed to bounce back, and only Levon Aronian got a win after having drawn on Monday. The biggest upset of the round was given by Kirill Alekseenko, who got a 2:0 win over Pentala Harikrishna. GM ERWIN L'AMI recapped the action of the day. | Photo: FIDE

9/17/2019 – The round of 32 of the FIDE World Cup began on Monday, with seven players getting the lead in their mini-matches. The three biggest underdogs — all with ratings in the 2500s — are amongst those needing a win to bounce back after a loss, as Alexander Grischuk, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Teimour Radjabov defeated Xu Xiangyu, Eltaj Safarli and Daniil Yuffa respectively. IM LAWRENCE TRENT recapped the action of the day. | Photo: FIDE

9/16/2019 – The pairings for round three of the FIDE World Cup are set, as the last fifteen (out of thirty-two) spots were decided on Sunday's tiebreaks. The rapid and blitz play-offs saw the first Armageddon battle of the event: the score in Anish Giri vs Evgeniy Najer remained tied after eight games — Giri got the black pieces and won the sudden-death encounter to get his pass to the next round. The other lengthy match-up of round two saw Daniil Yuffa knocking out Luke McShane. Round-up show by GM ERWIN L'AMI. | Photo: FIDE

9/15/2019 – Hikaru Nakamura and Ernesto Inarkiev were knocked out by nominally weaker players — Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu and Xu Xiangyu respectively — after game two of the second round at the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk. Besides these two underdogs, fifteen other participants secured their place in round three. Meanwhile, Wei Yi and Eltaj Safarli bounced back with wins after having lost on Friday to reach the tiebreaks. IM LAWRENCE TRENT recapped the action of the day. | Photo: FIDE

9/14/2019 – Round two of the 2019 World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk saw 11 out of 32 match-ups starting with a decisive result. The upsets of the day were achieved by David Anton and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, who defeated Wei Yi and Hikaru Nakamura respectively. Meanwhile, the youngest player in the field, Nihal Sarin, won a third classical game in a row, this time showing great positional feel to take down Eltaj Safarli. Round-up show by IM LAWRENCE TRENT. | Photo: FIDE

9/13/2019 – A number of upsets were in store at the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, as round one concluded after twenty-three matches were decided on tiebreaks. Most play-off encounters finished after the first pair of rapid games, while only two of them reached the third stage of tiebreaks. From the top quarter of the tournament bracket, besides Radek Wojtaszek and David Navara — who were knocked out in the classical phase — Bu Xiangzhi and Sam Shankland were eliminated before round two. | Photo: FIDE

9/12/2019 – More than half the matches of round one at the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk already have a winner, with most of the top twenty in the initial ratings list set to have a rest day before round two. That is not the case of Radoslaw Wojtaszek, however, who was eliminated by Johan-Sebastian Christiansen, while Yu Yangyi, Hikaru Nakamura and Dmitry Andreikin still have to defeat their lower-rated opponents on tiebreaks if they want to go through. Do not miss the round-up show by GM ERWIN L'AMI. | Pictured: Gawain Jones, who qualified to round two. | Photo: FIDE

9/11/2019 – The most anticipated tournament of the year kicked off in Khanty-Mansiysk. Most of the favourites started with a win, with eleven out of the sixteen top seeds getting a full point on Tuesday. The biggest surprise rating-wise was given by Norwegian Johan-Sebastian Christiansen, who beat Radoslaw Wojtaszek with Black. But Christiansen was not the only young player to have a good day, as Alireza Firouzja, Nihal Sarin, Andrey Esipenko and Nodirbek Abdusattorov also got off to a good start. Do not miss the round-up show by IM Lawrence Trent. | Photo: FIDE

9/9/2019 – A central event of the 2019-2020 World Championship cycle is about to begin in Khanty-Mansiysk, as the Western Siberian city will host the 2019 FIDE World Cup. In the single-elimination tournament, 128 players will be fighting to get one of the two tickets on offer to next year's Candidates Tournament. The lengthy event will run through October 4th, and will be the main focus of chess fans around the globe. | Photo: FIDE

9/7/2019 – After organizing one of the strongest elite tournaments from 1978 until 2010, the Spanish city of Linares has not ceased to host important chess events. This year, the VII Ibero-American Tournament took place from the 10th to the 18th of August at the auditorium of "El Pósito". Jorge Cori (Perú), Francisco Vallejo (Spain) and Carlos Albornoz (Cuba) finished the nine-round Swiss tournament tied atop the standings on 7 points. Cori had the best tiebreak score and claimed first place. | Photo: FIBDA

9/3/2019 – While those in the United States had an "unofficial end-of-summer" holiday during Labour Day, Garry Kasparov was back to work at the Champions Showdown event in Saint Louis. The former world champion had it rough, though, as he ended up losing his last three games against world number two Fabiano Caruana. Levon Aronian and Peter Svidler also racked up comfortable advantages over Hikaru Nakamura and Leinier Dominguez respectively, while Wesley So will kick off day two with a 4:2 lead over Veselin Topalov. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club

9/1/2019 – You know him as "Antonio Pereira", with over 200 articles to his credit since mid-2018, but starting today, our new Bolivia-based Assistant Editor CARLOS COLODRO steps out from behind the pseudonym. Adios Antonio, bienvenido Carlos! But why, you may ask? Read on to find out!

9/1/2019 – The 12th edition of the African Games took place in Morocco from August 23rd to the 31st. Chess was in the mix for a fourth time and, much like in the general standings, the Egyptian representatives dominated their opponents, as they won gold medals in all five competitions: Team Rapid (mixed), Rapid (open and women's) and Blitz (open and women's). Algeria finished second in the team event and collected three bronze medals in the individual competitions. | Photos: Mohamed Bounaji / FIDE

3/17/2019 – Venezuela is going through a devastating economic crisis, with hyperinflation, hunger, disease, massive emigration and death rates rising dramatically. Among the millions of emigrants is Juan Blanco, a PhD in Education that has worked with chess as a learning tool for over twenty years. He is now living in Peru and in conversation with ChessBase he talked about his current projects, the situation of chess in Venezuela and some of the reasons for this crisis. | Pictured: Protests from January 23rd, 2019 | Photo: Agencia Uno

6/14/2018 – Erudite, self-critical, cosmopolitan, Jorge Luis Borges, who died thirty-two years ago today, demonstrated great respect for chess throughout his work. Within the boundaries of his circular worlds, he made way for the sixty-four squares, the pieces that occupy them and the agents that give them life.

3/11/2018 – He faced the process of writing as a "literary chess problem", and considered the composition of chess problems to be comparable to poetry. Vladimir Nabokov was one of the most celebrated creators of bridges between art and chess. | Pictured: Nabokov in 1973 | Photo: Walter Mori