2/18/2019 – 250 years ago, August 15, 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte was born. The statesman and military leader is said to have been a passionate chess player, and in France the opening 1.e4 e5 2.Qf3 is called "Ouverture Napoléon", Napoleon's Opening. The French emperor also founded the city of La Roche-sur-Yon which celebrated Napoleon's jubilee and his passion for chess with a match between Maxime Vachier and Jorden van Foreest. A campaign in which "MVL" was more successful. | Photo: La Roche-sur-Yon, Ville & Agglomération

1/9/2019 – The early defeat of GM Le Quang Liem (pictured) against 12-year-old Christopher Yoo at the Bay Area International Open, January 1st to 7th, in California caused a stir, but the Vietnamese grandmaster recovered with a winning streak which saw him score 5½ points from the last six rounds, and finally manage to win the tournament jointly with the Russian GM Andrey Stukopin, who also reached 7 points. Christopher Yoo, slipped to 37th place but with the consolation of earning his third IM norm, which makes him the youngest American IM ever. | Photo: David Llada

1/2/2019 – "There is always a chess tournament somewhere in the world", they say, and even over the Christmas holiday one could indulge in the 64-squares at the Chess Festival in Groningen, Netherlands. The participants of the annual nine-round open play on December 24th and 26th and wrap up before New Year's Eve. This year, victory went to Estonian Grandmaster Ottomar Ladva (left) in front of the young Dutch IM Liam Vrolijk — both players with 7 points. | Photo: Harry Gielen

12/26/2018 – The rapid world title fight starts today in St. Petersburg's Manege exhibition hall with the first of three days of rapid chess (WATCH LIVE). The Blitz Championship will follow on Saturday and Sunday. In the Open sections, the reigning champions Viswanathan Anand (Rapid) and Magnus Carlsen (Blitz) are back in action. In the women's rapid tournament, Anna Muzychuk is the top seed followed by World Champion Ju Wenjun. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

10/10/2018 – The Black Sea coastal city of Sochi held the Russian Rapid & Blitz Championships from October 5th to 9th. The Russian players that participated in the Olympiad were not able to attend — except Nepomniachtchi, who arrived in Sochi for the Rapid Team Championship. The star of the events was Vladislav Artemiev, who won both the Rapid and Blitz Championships and led Ladya to first place in the team event. Polina Shuvalova, Alina Bivol and Ugra won the women's tournaments. | Photo: Russian Chess Federation

9/23/2018 – Rashid Nezhmetdinov (1912-1974) was one of the most famous chess players in the world during his lifetime — a few decades ago, it was almost impossible not to find his name while studying or following chess. In the early sixties, the International Master even worked as a coach of World Champion Mikhail Tal. The city of Kazan, Nezhmetdinov's hometown, hosts a memorial tournament in his honour every year. The 40th edition of the event finished Friday with a narrow victory by Russian Grandmaster Vladislav Artemiev. | Photos: Official website

8/13/2018 – Saturday in Dresden, the 89th German Individual Championship ended after nine rounds with Rainer Buhmann and Hagen Poetsch on the top of the table. The field was missing many of Germany's top players and Buhmann and Poetsch were the only two grandmasters (nationally numbers 13 and 37 respectively). With a key last round win, Buhmann became German champion with a full point lead. He succeeds German number one, Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, who won the tournament in 2017. | Photos: Karsten Wieland

7/15/2018 – At the Sparkassen Chess-Meeting in Dortmund the four games of the first round ended drawn. However, if you think about symmetrical structures and a lot of early exchanges, you are completely wrong, because all boards were struggling hard for the full point. The only player with significant chances to win probably was the birthday boy Ian Nepomniachtchi (against Giri), but the position was pretty tricky. There was also a draw between Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Vladislav Kovalev that went almost the full seven hours possible. The ceremonial first move was made by the mayor of Dortmund, Birgit Jörder. | Photo: sparkassen-chess-meeting.de

7/10/2018 – The Swedish championship ended Sunday, in Ronneby, a small town in the south of the country. The night before, Grandmasters Tiger Hillarp Persson had shared the lead with Tikkanen, but after Tiger made a tactical misjudgment against Nils Grandelius, the way was cleared for Tikkanen. The new (and old!) Swedish champions also won their last games with Black - the win against Oskar von Bahr was Tikkanen's sixth win in the nine-round tournament. The final score: Tikkanen 7.0 / 9, Hillarp Persson and Grandelius 6.0 / 9. | Photo: Lars OA Hedlund

7/8/2018 – In Amsterdam the last round Sunday was not to determine a winner; the Dutch Champion for 2018 was already set in the person of Sergei Tiviakov. Tiviakov had to deal with Loek van Wely, the top seed in the field, in round six, but after Van Wely made a serious mistake, Tiviakov pressed an extremely dangerous initiative and converted his advantage confidently to take an insurmountable lead over Erwin l'Ami, Erik van den Doel and Ivan Sokolov. | Photos: Harry Gielen / Official site

7/2/2018 – The combined rapid and blitz tournament of the four "chess legends" Anatoly Karpov, Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Eugenio Torre and Anatoly Vaisser in the Catalan seaside resort of Platja d'Aro ended yesterday with Karpov's overall victory. While the ex-world champion had fallen behind Vaisser by half a point after the six Rapid games at the start of the event, he succeeded in reversing the story during the blitz tournament. In the end, Karpov won with a score of 12½ / 18 ahead of Vaisser's 12 / 18. Third, was Ljubojevic with 7½ / 18 and last, Torre with 4 / 18. | Photo: David Llada

6/23/2018 – Another single round-robin of rapid chess was completed in Paris over the past three days. This weekend the French capital hosts a double-round blitz tournament, with the scores of the two tournaments combined to produce an overall winner. As before in Leuven, the lead in the standings is in the hands of the American Wesley So, but this time his margin is much narrower, as he has only one point more than his compatriot Hikaru Nakamura and the Russian former World Blitz Champion Sergey Karjakin. Today, So calmly drew all three of his games. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

6/16/2018 – In the Belgian city of Leuven, the "Your Next Move Rapid & Blitz" ended today with the victory of the American Wesley So. His score in the rapid tournament, which ended on Thursday, gave him a substantial lead in the overall standings. But a bad run of form in the blitz saw his lead melt away to zero, and set up an exciting if somewhat unlikely final round that saw So — but also his closest rivals Sergey Karjakin and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave — all lose. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

5/13/2018 – The seventh game of the Women's World Championship match between reigning World Champion Tan Zhongyi and challenger Ju Wenjun was drawn after 33 moves. Ju Wenjun now leads by 4-3 and Tan Zhongyi has only three more games to catch up and to keep her title. | Photos: Gu Xiaobing

4/8/2018 – In the GRENKE Chess Classic, standings shuffled dramatically after the seventh round. Fabiano Caruana managed a convincing win against his former co-leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with the black pieces, to take the sole lead in the standings. World Champion Magnus Carlsen also won with Black, against Arkadij Naiditsch, and moved up to second place. Georg Meier missed chances to add to Viswanathan Anand woes. GM Daniel Fernandez annotates all five games | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

4/5/2018 – On April 5th, the 5th round of the "GRENKE Chess Classic", now in Baden-Baden was the first in which all five games ended in a draw. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Fabiano Caruana and Nikita Vitiugov thus continue to lead the standings; a half point behind are Levon Aronian and World Champion Magnus Carlsen. Against Georg Meier, Carlsen was on the verge of losing shortly before the time control, but the German grandmaster missed the win! Another game was nearly decisive: Arkadij Naiditsch stood much better against Matthias Bluebaum, but here it was the young German, who somehow managed to survive a devastating attack and fight back in the endgame. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

4/4/2018 – The GRENKE Chess Classic continued today in Baden-Baden with round four. For a long time, it looked like this was going to be a game day where all players would struggle to play the 40 moves required before draw offers are allowed. However, Fabiano Caruana exploited an opening left by Arkadij Naiditsch, and showed that his brilliant form from Berlin persists. With only a queen and knight each left on the board, the American was able to produce dangerous threats against Naiditsch who ultimately collapsed under the pressure. As a result, Caruana joins the leaders, Nikita Vitiugov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

3/24/2018 – In the Candidates Tournament in Berlin, the leader and his closest pursuer played draws in the eleventh round: Fabiano Caruana found precise answers to Vladimir Kramnik's opening ideas, Shakriyar Mamedyarov steered Wesley So towards an early peace. With three rounds to go, Caruana is still half a point ahead of Mamedyarov. Musical chairs in the chasing group. The Chinese Ding Liren was on the verge of a brilliant victory against Alexander Grischuk, but in mutual time pressure, Grischuk managed a miraculous escape. For Ding, his eleventh consecutive draw. | Photo: World Chess