12/11/2018 – The 10th London Chess Classic is underway with the semifinal played at the headquarters of Google's DeepMind. Demis Hassibis (pictured in the background) joined tournament director Malcolm Pein and a schoolgirl — learning chess under the Chess in Schools and Communities umbrella — on stage at the start of the first classical game. Yesterday, at the London Pro-Biz Cup, chess-loving business people or celebrities joined grandmasters taking turns in a tandem chess team tournament. Garry Kasparov was among the professionals, but it was the team of Roiko Vujatovic and David Howell that won. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

11/30/2018 – Today, on November 30th, 2018, Magnus Carlsen celebrates his 28th birthday, carefree, as World Champion, after successfully defending his title two days earlier in a match against Fabiano Caruana by a 3-0 win in the rapid tiebreak. Carlsen is already considered one of the best players of all time, but a few numbers show how impressive his career has been, and provide a handy gateway into the ChessBase archives. | Pictured: Magnus Carlsen in the ChessBase office in October 2017 | Photo: Nadja Wittman

11/16/2018 – Defending champion Ju Wenjun (pictured) qualified for the final at the 2018 Women's World Championship knockout. With a safe draw in the second game of the semi-final, the current World Champion won her mini-match 1½-½ over Alexandra Kosteniuk. In the second match of the semi-final, Kateryna Lagno and Mariya Muzychuk also drew and therefore have to play a tiebreak match Saturday for the remaining spot in the final. | Photos: Official site

11/9/2018 – Mikhail Tal was born on November 9th, 1936 in Riga, and died June 27, 1992 in Moscow. He probably would have been happy to know that the World Championship match between Carlsen and Caruana begins on his birthday. Tal loved chess and chess fans loved him for his bold, enterprising play and his stunning combinations. He had a very keen eye for tactics — which sometimes best showed in more light-hearted events. Here are two examples to commemorate the birthday of this great player and tactician. | Photo: Ron Kroon / Anefo [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

10/16/2018 – 110 years ago, on October 16th, 1908, the Soviet Master and famous opening theoretician Vsevolod Rauzer was born in Kiev, Ukraine. Rauzer died in 1941 but during his short career, he discovered a number of new ideas in the opening and the endgame. Rauzer was convinced that 1.e4 is better than 1.d4 and wanted to prove that with all his might. | Diagram: The starting position of the Richter-Rauzer Attack

10/12/2018 – Kings that go walkabout on a full board are rare but charming. At the Chess Olympiad 2018 in Batumi such wandering kings could be admired in two interesting games. In Mamedov vs Shankland (pictured) the voyage of the king was defensive, in the game Hillarp Persson vs Laurusas, which won the brilliancy prize in Batumi, the white king joined a mating attack against the black king. Both games have historical predecessors. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

9/28/2018 – Round four of the Chess Olympiad in Batumi brought a number of interesting games. Particularly amazing was how the Lithuanian grandmaster Sarunas Sulskis creatively outplayed Baadur Jobava by coming up with one incredible sacrifice after the next. | Photo: Sarunas Sulskis by Andreas Kontokanis from Piraeus, Greece, via Wikimedia Commons

9/14/2018 – 170 years ago, September 14th, 1848, Adolf Albin was born. Statistics give Albin a historical rating of 2643 for August 1895 and with this rating he would have been the world's number 15 of that time. Today, Albin is mainly known as the namesake of an entertaining line in the Queen's Gambit, arising after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5!? - the Albin Counter-gambit. Another gambit, which Albin liked to play, is named after Alekhine. | Photo: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

8/28/2018 – The victory of Tigran Gharamian (photo) at the French Championships 2018 in Nimes turned into a marathon affair as the Armenian-born French grandmaster claimed the title only after two sets of tiebreaks culminating in an Armageddon game. The Women's Championship was clearer: Pauline Guichard won the title with 7½ out of 9. Second place went to Sophie Milliet, who scored 6½ points. | Photo: Amruta Mokal (archive)

8/23/2018 – A twelve-game match between Wei Yi and Ernesto Inarkiev was played in Magas, the capital town of the Republic of Ingushetia. The Chinese defeated the 2016 European Champion 4:2 in the classical section and achieved a 3½:2½ victory in the rapid. Wei Yi demonstrated his tactical talent more than once. | Photo: Amruta Mokal (archive)

7/26/2018 – Stefan Zweig's novella "Chess", which Zweig wrote during World War II in exile in Brazil, shortly before committing suicide with his wife Lotte, is considered as one of the greatest literary works on chess. It also has been tremendously successful and popular. But Johannes Fischer is not entirely convinced. While he liked the virtues of the book he still has some critical remarks.

7/19/2018 – 40 years ago this week, Karpov and Korchnoi started their fight for the world title in Baguio City on the Philippines. Yesterday we published a lengthy interview with Karpov, who won the match 6 : 5, but Korchnoi almost became world champion. A good occasion to take a look at Genna Sosonko's new book "Evil-Doer: Half a Century with Viktor Korchnoi", a fine memoir of one of the most interesting chess players of the 20th century. | Pictured: Korchnoi and Sosonko | Photo courtesy Elk and Ruby

6/15/2018 – Wesley So survived the third day of the Grand Chess Tour in Leuven, Belgium, without a loss and won the tournament confidently with 14 out of 18 possible points. Three points behind are Levon Aronian and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Tomorrow, the first nine of 18 rounds of blitz are on the program, and So must defend his lead against some legendary blitz specialists like Vachier-Lagrave, Karjakin, Nakamura and Grischuk. | Photo: Lennart Ootes, tournament page

6/13/2018 – Wesley So got off to a good start in the rapid tournament in Leuven, with 5 / 6 (rapid games use double scoring). So maintained his lead on day two, keeping the same rhythm. He won in rounds 4 and 5, in round 6 he played a draw, bringing his point tally to 10 / 12. In second place is Levon Aronian with 8 / 12 | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

6/2/2018 – The city of Hamburg, Germany, is shaped by two rivers: the Elbe that runs from East to West and connects Hamburg to the sea, and the more idyllic Alster that runs from North to South through the city. In 1957 schoolteachers in Hamburg had the idea to let schools lying to the right of the Alster play chess against schools to the left of the Alster. In 1958 the first "Alsterufer" match took place. 60 years later it is one of the world's biggest chess tournaments - and a fantastic chess spectacle. | Fotos: Stefan Malzkorn

5/31/2018 – Magnus Carlsen seems to be in top form at this year's Norway Chess tournament. In Round 3, he defeated Levon Aronian in a near miniature and in a manner that was typically Carlsen-esque. This puts the World Champion in the clear lead after with 2½ of 3. The four other games ended in a draw, leaving Carlsen the only player who has yet scored a full point — and with two of them, he's already a heavy favourite to win the tournament if history is any guide. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Norway Chess

5/30/2018 – From May 26 to June 5 the French Team Championships are played in the town of Brest, in the west of France. The counting method of the championship is unusual: the winning team gets 3 points, a draw yields 2 points, and a loss is still rewarded with 1 point, just for showing up. Of course if you lose by default that's punished with 0 points. After four rounds, Bischwiller leads with 12 points, followed by Grasse Echecs with 11 points (three wins, one draw), and three teams with 10 points each.

5/28/2018 – The Altibox Norway Chess Tournament started with a blitz tournament, and with 10 of the world’s best players competing it was probably one of the best blitz tournaments in the history of chess. It determined which five players will have one more game with White in the classic tournament which starts today on Monday, April 28, but was of course also about prestige and invites predictions of form. Magnus Carlsen was favourite but Wesley So won. | Photo: Alina l'Ami