11/13/2019 – With the Superbet Rapid and Blitz in the books, the race for the Grand Chess Tour finals in London is becoming clear. Sergey Karjakin, by virtue of tying with Aronian for first is out of the running. Since Vachier-Lagrave is finished with his tour events, Viswanathan Anand is looking to qualify for London, and 6th place in Kolkata should be enough to close the gap. The new Chess960 World Champion Wesley So will be there too. Can you guess what is veiled with blue velvet below?| Photo: Shahid Ahmed

9/23/2019 – Humpy won the Skolkovo leg of FIDE's 2019 Women's Grand Prix by making a draw in the final round against reigning Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun. The Indian ace won her first major championship since returning to competitive chess in the Batumi Olympiad of 2018. Humpy finished at 8.0/11, gained 160 Grand Prix points and received EUR €15,000 for winning the tournament. Humpy, who is currently world number 3 among women by rating, behind Hou Yifan and Ju Wenjun, has just about every accomplishment in her bag except the World Championship title. | Photo: David Llada / FIDE

8/27/2019 – The former Georgia no.1 Baadur Jobava won the 26th edition of Abu Dhabi Chess Festival by scoring 8.0/9. Jobava finished sole first, a full point ahead of the runner-up young Uzbek GM Nodirbek Yakubboev at 7.0/9. Eight player tied for the third place at 6½/9, current World Junior Champion Parham Maghsoodloo secured the second runner-up position due to a better tie-break score. | Photo: Rupali Mullick

8/8/2019 – Baadur Jobava at one point in his chess career was well above 2700 on the Elo scale and otherwise has managed to keep his rating close to 2700. However, recently his bad form has taken him into the 2500 Elo mark. But that's not his true level! The Georgian GM is showing this at the Abu Dhabi Masters 2019 as he beats one GM after another and is now in sole lead with 6.0/6. Parham Maghsoodloo won the blitz event, while in the exhibition match between Leko and Morozevich, it was the Hungarian who came out on top. | Photo: Rupali Mullick

7/31/2019 – India's wunderkind 13-year-old GM R Praggnanandhaa started out Xtracon Open 2019 as the 21st seed, scored an unbeaten 8½/10 at a performance rating of 2741, to win the tournament convincingly. He finished a half point ahead of the pack of five players who were all higher rated than him. Norwegian no.3 GM Aryan Tari scored 8.0/10 and finished 2nd, while Armenian GM Gabriel Sargissian finished 3rd according to their tie-break scores respectively.

7/26/2019 – GM Le Quang Liem won his maiden Asian Continental for the very first time in his career, becoming the first Vietnamese player to do so. But he did not stop there and continued his momentum going on to win two more strong tournaments consecutively — the Saint Louis Summer Classic and World Open in Philadelphia — all in just a little over three weeks. Shahid Ahmed investigates how he maintains strong composure in such difficult fields? | Photo: Austin Fuller / Saint Louis Chess Club

7/9/2019 – The weeklong Asian Junior Championship concluded in Solo, Indonesia on Monday, after Standard, Rapid and Blitz competitions. The new overall champion is IM Nguyen Anh Khoi from Vietnam, who scored an impressive 8.0/9. Among the girls, WFM Assel Serikbay of Kazakhstan came out on top with 7.0/9. | Photo: Mulyadi R

4/12/2019 – The 19th edition of the Bangkok Open 2019 has reached its pinnacle of excitement. After six rounds, we have two leaders: top seed Nigel Short and second seed Jan Gustafsson. Both of them on 5½/6. They have set up the top board clash in round seven. In this article, SHAHID AHMED, reporting from Bangkok, takes us through some of the most interesting games that have been played by Short and Gustafsson in this tournament.