9/17/2019 – Women's world champion Ju Wenjun is the sole leader of the Skolkovo Grand Prix after six rounds. A three-player chasing group is close behind though, with Kateryna Lagno, Humpy Koneru and World Championship challenger Aleksandra Goryachkina all standing at a half-point distance. The twelve participants are having a rest day, before the final five rounds take place through next Monday. | Photo: David Llada / FIDE

8/1/2019 – World Champion Magnus Carlsen hit an Elo rating of 2882 in May 2014. Five years later, he's back at that exact same number on the official August list, and arguably stronger than ever, following a string of successes in the first seven months of 2019. Alireza Firouzja and Jeffrey Xiong are two top Juniors now over 2700, and Ju Wenjun has narrowed the gap between herself and Hou Yifan to 59 points. | Photo: Justin Kellar / Grand Chess Tour

3/15/2019 – The Challengers tournament of the Prague Chess Festival ended yesterday with a victory of Spanish GM David Anton, who drew his last round game with Praggnanandhaa. Runner-up was Jan Krejci from the Czech Republic while Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun came third. In the Masters, Nikita Vitiugov coasted to tournament victory today. | Photo: Vladimir Jagr

3/14/2019 – The Challengers group at the Prague Chess Festival concludes today, and with one round to play Spanish GM David Anton is in pole position, leading by half a point over Jan Krejci. But Anton will face one final challenge as he seeks to qualify to the 2020 Masters: Indian prodigy Praggnanandhaa. | Photo: Vladimir Jagr / PragueChessFestival.com

3/11/2019 – Five rounds of the Prague Chess Festival have been played so far, both in the Masters and the Challengers. Jan-Krzyztof Duda leads the main event on 3½ out of 5, but has Nikita Vitiugov and Radoslaw Wojtaszek breathing down his neck a half point behind. The Challengers had women's world champion Ju Wenjun in the lead until round four but, after her loss against Praggnanandhaa, she now shares first place with three other players. | Photo: Vladimir Jagr / Official site

2/1/2019 – February ratings are out with changes resulting mainly from the Tata Steel Chess tournament. Gibraltar ended just past the cutoff time, so this month's update is, to a certain extent, already out of date. Carlsen is, of course, still first on all three lists. He is at his highest point since November 2016. Anish Giri, at 2797, is just one point shy of his career best, and Jan Nepomniachtchi has set a new career peak for himself at 2771. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

1/11/2019 – A few weeks ago we launched reader polls with nominations for the best players of 2018. In addition to overall player and best female, we added "newcomer" of the year. The latter proved to be a close contest between World Junior Champion Parham Maghsoodloo and German IM Vincent Keymer. Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun easily took the "female player of the year" honours, and Fabiano Caruana edged World Champion Magnus Carlsen in the readers' minds for "player of the year". Here's to an even greater 2019! View the results...

1/3/2019 – As announced following the 2018 Woman's World Championship knockout, FIDE has adopted a new format more closely aligned with the open World Championship. Earlier this week, FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich added the date and city for the 2019 Candidates Tournament, to begin at the end of May in Kazan, Russia. Eight players have qualified for the fight for the right to challenge Ju Wenjun in a match. | Photos: ChessBase Playerbase

1/1/2019 – FIDE's January ratings are out and saw a few big moves in the top 100 rapid and blitz lists thanks to the recently completed World Rapid and Blitz Championships. Carlsen's blitz dominance was on display and he solidified the top rating spot, now at 2954. Daniil Dubov gained notoriety (and rating) for his impressive run in the World Rapid Championship. Among the women, Ju Wenjun took her third world title of the year, but Kateryna Lagno, who lost the World Championship final in a blitz tiebreaker against Ju, managed to win the Blitz Championship well ahead of her rival. | Pictured: Women's World Blitz Champion, Kateryna Lagno | Photo: Lennart Ootes

12/29/2018 – Seven wins and four draws left Magnus Carlsen as the co-leader after day one of the World Blitz Championships in Saint Petersburg. The Norwegian is sharing first place with blitz specialist Vladislav Artemiev, who recovered from an early loss to complete the twelve rounds on Saturday with an astounding 9½ score. Two strong performances were also seen in the women's section, where Kateryna Lagno and Sarasadat Khademalsharieh are sharing the lead on 7½/9. | Photos: Maria Emelianova / Lennart Ootes / Official site

12/29/2018 – No tie-breaks were needed to decide the winners of the 2018 World Rapid Championships in Saint Petersburg. In the open section, Daniil Dubov arrived in the last round alone at the top of the standings and kept his position after all the top games finished drawn. Meanwhile, Ju Wenjun continued her great run and practically secured first place with a round to spare — will the Chinese manage to win the 'triple crown' of world championships this year? | Photos: Maria Emelianova / Lennart Ootes / Official site