7/23/2022 – Chess is one of the most-played sports in the world. In the first official Chess Awareness Barometer, World Chess, a London-based long-term commercial partner of FIDE, is conducting a survey in the UK and USA to find out how many people know the name of the current World Champion and where he is from. 7% know the name of the Champion, and 6% know that he was born in Norway. Here’s the breakdown provided by World Chess. | Photo World Chess

7/23/2022 – Vishy Anand continues to lead the standings in the No-Castling World Masters after drawing Dmitrij Kollars on Friday. In the Sparkassen Open-A, one of many tournaments taking place as part of the Dortmund Chess Festival, Dutch GM Max Warmerdam has scored 7 points in as many games. Warmerdam beat Thomas Beerdsen in style and analysed his victory in the post-game interview. | Photos: Michelle Lassak

7/23/2022 – Jorden van Foreest enters the blitz section of the SuperUnited Grand Chess Tour event in the sole lead, after having collected 12 points in the rapid. Van Foreest lost to Magnus Carlsen on Friday, but managed to defeat Alireza Firouzja, who lost the lead he had after six rounds. Nine rounds of blitz will be played both on Saturday and Sunday to decide who wins the third event of the GCT. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

7/23/2022 – Thanks to a draw against direct rival Andrey Esipenko, Le Quang Liem grabbed the Grandmaster Triathlon title at the Biel Chess Festival. Le came from winning three games in a row in the classical section, and got a well-deserved first place as he was also the top scorer in the rapid section. Yongzhe Zhuang from Switzerland won the Ladies’ Quadriathlon, while Mahammad Muradli from Azerbaijan was the surprise winner in the Masters Open Tournament. | Photos: Biel Chess Festival

7/22/2022 – Years back, when the first iteration of the Fritz Online app came out, it was a barebones deal: Attractive, and good for a game, but not the most compelling option to train against. A bit problematic as this was its purpose, but it has undergone many revisions since, and revisiting it you will be surprised at how interesting and fun it can be.

7/22/2022 – In the third episode of the series "Olympiad stories with Saravanan", IM Sagar Shah and IM Venkata Saravanan discuss Judit Polgar's flabbergasting 12½/13 performance in the 1988 Thessaloniki Olympiad. Judit was rated 2365 FIDE at the time, with rating lists coming out every six months. Not only did Hungary sweep the championship to take gold and defeat the all-powerful Soviet chess team, but Judit had an incredible 2694 performance, and she was barely twelve years old. To better put this in perspective, you need to realize that, in 1988, only two players in the world had 2700+ ratings: Kasparov and Karpov. | Photo: Abhyudaya Ram

7/22/2022 – Le Quang Liem drew Andrey Esipenko in the final round to clinch first place in the Grandmaster Triathlon. Esipenko and Gukesh reached the podium. | The Triathlon included classical, rapid and blitz chess. | Photos: Biel Chess Festival

7/22/2022 – Both the Grandmaster Triathlon and the Women’s Quadriathlon in Biel will feature direct encounters between the first and second placed participants in final-round battles for the respective titles. Le Quang Liem has a 3-point lead over Andrey Esipenko (a win is worth 4 points) in the GM Triatholn, while Iris Ciarletta has a 1-point lead over Zhuang Yongzhe in the ladies’ Quadriathlon. | The final round kicks off four hours earlier than usual, at 10.00 CEST. | Photos: Biel Chess Festival

7/21/2022 – On Thursday, there was only one game on stage in the Golden Hall: the two winners from the previous round, Dmitrij Kollars and Viswanathan Anand, met in the NC World Masters. Kollars had a slight advantage in a rook endgame, but Anand managed to keep things under control and drew his younger opponent to keep the lead. Lara Schulze and Max Warmerdam won and are still leading the Women’s Sportland NRW Cup and the A-Open respectively. | Photos: Michelle Lassak

7/21/2022 – This week Robert Ris discusses a sharp variation of the Sicilian Defence, explored this week by none others than Magnus Carlsen and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Sometimes short draws can be very exciting! | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

7/21/2022 – In what can be only described as a wonderfully inspiring 'comeback' story, the 2022 Fields Medal was awarded, among others, to June Huh for his work in chromatic polynomials, stemming from a chess puzzle involving four knights. The Fields Medal is one of the most prestigious awards in Mathematics, given out only once every four years, to the brightest minds in the field. | Photo: Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

7/21/2022 – Ending months of speculation, Magnus Carlsen has officially announced he will not be defending his title in a rematch against Ian Nepomniachtchi come the end of 2022. As a result, the second-place winner of the 2022 Candidates Tournament, Ding Liren, will face the Russian to determine the new World Champion. (Photo: Albert Silver)