4/25/2020 – The proposal to have the 4th of January named as International Day for Chess Composition was made by Valentin Rudenko, who would have turned 82 a couple of months ago. One of Rudenko's problems reached outer space, as cosmonaut Andrian Nikolaev brought one of his compositions — from the publication Suomen Shakki, 1957 — to a mission. Study of the Month columnist Siegfried Hornecker shares this story and a series of assorted compositions.

4/25/2020 – After 15 of 17 rounds Bobby Fischer was certain to win the 2. Tournament of Peace but he still had to fight in round 16 when Viktor Kortschnoi put pressure on him. But after a long and tenacious defense the game ended in a draw. But some of the players seemed to be tired after the long tournament and committed uncharacteristic blunders.

4/25/2020 – Going to the movies is fun! In this article we therefore take a look at four more or less famous films ("Casablanca", "The Killing", "The Seventh Seal" and "Brainwashed") in which chess plays a major or minor role. But we would also like to invite you to a little film quiz and ask you to "Guess the movie"!

4/25/2020 – World numbers one and two, Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana, won their round-four matches without needing tiebreaks, thus collecting three points each. Carlsen has won all his confrontations so far and is the clear leader with eleven points. He defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, while Caruana inflicted Alireza Firouzja's fourth straight loss. | Photo: Official site

4/24/2020 – In today's Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King takes a look at the games of Tony Miles, England's first grandmaster and a very original player. | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UK (18:00 CEST, Noon EST) on playchess.com. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

4/24/2020 – The World Senior Team Championships 2020 in Prague took place in March but due to the coronavirus it ended prematurely after seven of the nine rounds initially planned had been played. The USA won, the third year in a row. But the winning team with its grandmaster line-up was not the only team from the USA. Bruce Leverett who played for USA Too, an amateur team, looks back to this remarkable event. | Pictured: Spring outside the US Embassy in Prague. | Photo: Alex Yermolinsky

4/24/2020 – In the diagram position White played 25.f6 (opening the diagonal g4-d7) and after 25...Rxf6 26.Nxe5 an interesting position appeared on the board. But who do you favour here (White or Black) and why?

4/24/2020 – Bobby Fischer, who has dominated the 2. Tournament of Peace in Rovinj/Zagreb from the beginning, seems to be tired. In round 15 he was close to a loss against Walter Browne (pictured) but miraculously saved a draw. However, Viktor Kortschnoi fared even worse against Mario Bertok. But tired or not, with his draw against Browne Fischer is now certain to win the tournament. With two rounds to go he leads with 12.0/15 and is two and a half points ahead of Kortschnoi, Vassily Smyslov, Svetozar Gligoric and Vlastimil Hort who all have 9.5/15.

4/24/2020 – On Saturday, April 25, Germany and Romania will play an international match on playchess.com, and both federations start with almost all of their best players. At noon CEST the junior teams will kick off the event and three hours later, at 15.00 CEST, the A-teams will start to battle it out.

4/24/2020 – At the end of 2006, the capital city of Navarre in Spain organized the 16th edition of the "Magistral Ciudad de Pamplona". The eight-player single round-robin featured a mix of fearless tacticians and rising stars. Top seed Alexander Morozevich — number five in the world at the time — won the event after scoring five wins and two draws. Dmitry Jakovenko and Alexei Shirov finished second and third in a tournament filled with exciting tactical battles. | Pictured: Morozevich in Biel, 2017. | Photo: Pascal Simon

4/24/2020 – The third round of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational concluded on Thursday. Ian Nepomniachtchi inflicted Anish Giri's third straight match loss without tiebreaks, while Ding Liren took down Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in Armageddon after their four rapid encounters ended drawn. With four rounds to go, Magnus Carlsen is the sole leader of the event. Round-up show by IM Lawrence Trent. | Photo: Official site

4/23/2020 – Want to join a strong grandmaster in supporting a good cause? Iran has one of the highest casualty rates for doctors and nurses due to CoVID-19. It is mainly due to the lack of access to necessary medical equipment, sometimes basic ones. GM Elshan Moradiabadi will stream from 1-10 pm on Friday April 24th, on this twitch page, raising money for those who are fighting to save lives in Iran. This is a global problem! Thank you for your support in advance!