7/18/2021 – Two matches, one in each section, went the distance in the playoffs of round 2 in Sochi: Ivan Cheparinov and Olga Badelka (pictured, right) scored wins with white in Armageddon to advance to round 3 in the longest matches of the event so far. Alireza Firouzja and Leinier Dominguez were knocked out by two Uzbek players, Javokhir Sindarov and Jakhongir Vakhidov respectively. | Photo: Eric Rosen

7/18/2021 – Vishy Anand is still leading the No Castling chess match against Vladimir Kramnik. The Indian took the lead in game 1 and could have secured match victory in game 3, as he had a much better position with the white pieces. However, Kramnik managed to hold the draw in the end. The last game is set to take place today at 13.00 CEST.

7/17/2021 – Polish grandmaster Mateusz Bartel had a difficult time in the first rounds of the Deutschland Grand Prix, but he could land a nice attacking win with Black against Andreas Heimann. The remaining four games ended drawn, but had a lot to offer, with leader Pavel Eljanov sacrificing a queen against Ruslan Ponomariov. | Pictured: Bartel facing Eljanov in round 4

7/17/2021 – Day 5 of the World Cups in Sochi saw four players withdrawing from the competition due to health-related issues — including third seed Levon Aronian. Plenty of exciting chess was also seen, with eight players winning on demand to take their matches to tiebreaks. | Pictured: An (extremely young) Indian contingent: Nihal, Aravindh and Praggnanandhaa. | Photo: Eric Rosen

7/17/2021 – In the diagram position Black just played 21...Rxd4!, capturing a knight. However, this move looks dangerous because White has 22.Qc3, pinning the rook on the long diagonal and threatening 23.e3. But Black knew exactly what he was doing. Can you follow his thoughts?

7/16/2021 – In this Power Play Show, GM Daniel King takes a look at highlights from the World Cup in Sochi and presents two interesting endgames and a brilliancy with echoes of a famous Fischer victory. | Power Play is on air most Fridays. Watch it on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer.

7/16/2021 – This was an exciting week of chess upsets, and not only because of some lower rated players winning their games in the World Cup. First, chess is being played in Dortmund, with the two veterans Anand, and Kramnik, battling it out, without castling. Second, in the same city, the German Grand Prix takes place, with Pavel Eljanov in top form. Third, the World Cup in Sochi has unfortunate covid cases to deal with. Lawrence Trent also has an anecdote, why he had a hard time to play against a smelly chess opponent, and how he dealt with it.

7/16/2021 – The second round of the World Cups kicked off on Thursday, with the top seeds in both sections starting their campaigns after getting byes in the first round. A couple of health-related issues arose on Thursday, as Levon Aronian showed symptoms of fever and withdrew from his game against Bobby Cheng, while later on, with the games already in play, FIDE announced that another player had tested positive for Covid-19. | Pictured: Irine Sukandar | Photo: Eric Rosen

7/16/2021 – After five rounds Pavel Eljanov leads the Deutschland Grand Prix in Dortmund with 4.0/5. On Thursday he won his morning game against Mateusz Bartel and in the afternoon he drew against Daniel Fridman. Vincent Keymer won a fine endgame against Gata Kamsky and Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik drew the second game of their "No Castling" match. Chess legend Artur Jussupov made the ceremonial first move. | Photo: Christian Lünig

7/15/2021 – This week, well-known Dutch trainer Robert Ris takes a look at the problems Garry Kasparov faced in the Najdorf, when he tried it in his blitz games of the Croatia Grand Chess Tour. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

7/15/2021 – Two matches — out of the 28 that went to playoffs in round 1 — reached the third set of tiebreaker games at the World Cups in Sochi: in the open, Neuris Delgado knocked out Niaz Murshed, while in the women’s section, Gulnar Mammadova eliminated Mai Narva in the longest matches of the inaugural round. Youngsters Volodar Murzin (14 y.o., pictured), Gukesh (15), Nurgyul Salimova (18) and Jennifer Yu (18) also made it through to round 2 on Wednesday. | Photo: Eric Rosen

7/15/2021 – Wednesday afternoon "No Castling" chess premiered at the highest level in Dortmund's Westfalenhalle. In the first game of their "No Castling" match Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik engaged in an uncompromising fight in which Anand eventually had the better of it. In the Deutschland Grand Prix Dmitrij Kollars and Pavel Eljanov share the lead with 2.5/3 each, but the big news of the day was the torrential rain that currently is causing havoc in large parts of Germany and also affected the players in the Westfalenhalle.