Frank Marshall's 140th Anniversary

8/10/2017 – American Frank Marshall was born 140 years ago today. Marshall was an ingenious chess gentleman who enriched opening theory with gambits and immortalised himself with many splendid combinations.

Exercises in Style (3/4): Solutions

8/10/2017 – Part three of the "Exercises in Style" showed games by Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov, featuring patient maneuvering, tactical brilliance, impressive endgame technique and sophisticated positional play. However, it was not always easy to ascribe the games to the "right" World Champions. Here are the solutions.

British Champions: Gawain Jones and Jovanka Houska

8/10/2017 – The British Championships in Llandudno ended last weekend Sunday in the dead heat — a tiebreak between Luke McShane and Gawain Jones. After two rapid games, Jones emerged the 2017 British Champion. Jovanka Houska was the top scorer among female players and became the woman's champion. | Photo: David Thomas

Sinquefield Cup: Round 6 - Aronian arises

8/9/2017 – Levon Aronian was the sole winner of the sixth round, impressively defeating Wesley So and moving into shared second place with Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen. The latter missed chances to beat Hikaru Nakamura in a long drawn-out rook endgame, but had to settle for a draw after six hours of play. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave remains in the lead. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

Bobby Fischer in Iceland – 45 years ago (8)

8/9/2017 – After ten games in the World Championship match in Reykjavik, 1972, the score was 6½-3½ for Challenger Bobby Fischer. The match seemed virtually over – in the last eight games Boris Spassky had only managed to score 1½ points. "If it had been the best of 12 games, as in the Candidates matches, Spassky would already have been on his way home..." wrote Garry Kasparov in his Great Predessors book. In game 11 Boris took on the Poisoned Pawn variation of the Najdorf Sicilian, even though he had obtained a lost position in game seven. Take a look at what happened.

Tigran Gharamian, unbeaten in Belgium

8/9/2017 – Belgium's biggest open tournament took place in Charleroi from July 29th to August 5th, 2017. A total of 240 players gathered to play, enjoy and celebrate the game of chess. The top seed of the event Tigran Gharamian (2616) emerged as the winner on tiebreak edging out experienced GM Alexandre Dgebuadze. Read on for interesting positions plus a video interview with Tigran showing you some beautiful tactics from one of his games, and his work as a second of Levon Aronian. | Photos: Amruta Mokal

Sinquefield Cup: Round 5 - Carlsen back in the pack

8/8/2017 – Magnus Carlsen is back in the black! It was a day when Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen showcased brilliant calculating skills and self belief in order to win their games against Caruana and So respectively. When your opponent makes a move which you have thought was impossible, it is natural to doubt your own calculation. But great players go beyond that doubt and play confidently if they can find no refutation. Anand did just that, and so did Carlsen to score the only victories of the day. Blow by blow analysis of both the games. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

King stops pawns

8/8/2017 – "The passed Pawn is a criminal, who should be kept under lock and key. Mild measures, such as police surveillance, are not sufficient." That is what Aron Nimzowitsch said about passed pawns. He knew what he was talking about. Karsten Müller also knows it.

USA: Denker Tournament of High School Champions won by 'Virginia'

8/7/2017 – For over 30 years, the GM Arnold Denker Tournament of High School Champions has provided top high school players of each U.S. Chess state the chance to compete nationally for college scholarships. Last week, IM Praveen Balakrishnan won the USD $5,000 first prize and also qualified for the next U.S. World Youth and Junior Closed Championships. Rochelle Wu (below) took the top spot in the National Girls’ Tournament of Champions | Photo: Vannessa Sun

Playing Out Positions on Playchess

8/7/2017 – With the latest update of playchess.com we reintroduced a powerful training tool: playing training games from a given position in the opening, in the middlegame or in the ending. Playing out certain positions can really improve your chess. Here is how to do it.
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CHESS Magazine: Find the Winning Moves

8/7/2017 – Test your tactical ability with these positions grouped in rough order of difficulty. The games come from various recent events, not least the opening Grand Chess Tour events in Paris and Leuven. Don’t forget that whilst sometimes the key move will force mate or the win of material, other times it will just win a pawn. Take your time analysing the positions, on our news page, assisted by a built-in chess engine.

Sinquefield Cup: Round 4 - Vachier-Lagreat!

8/6/2017 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave became "the Frenchman with two names...and three points"! On Saturday he eked out a win with Black over World Champion Magnus Carlsen. He now leads Fabiano Caruana, who drew, and five players with an even score a point back. Hikaru Nakamura slipped to -1 with a loss to Neponiachtchi. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Speelman's Agony #58

8/6/2017 – This week's pair of games are by Rodolfe Prevot a Frenchman in his mid fifties. who is currently rated 1867. Rodolfe writes: “I am 55 years old. After a life as a French teacher, I have decided to become a chess trainer (you can see two of my pupils from Blois on the photo above) and to improve my level of play (that shouldn't be too difficult!). Always in love with chess, I like to play, learn and teach!”

British Championship: Playoff

8/6/2017 – Games and commentary from the 4-way playoff at the 104th British Championship in Llandudno, July 28th – August 6th, 2017 | Photo: Phil Makepeace

Faroes Open – More than a chess tournament

8/6/2017 – Grandmaster Srinath Narayanan needed a change from his routine. When he was invited to play in the Faroes Open 2017, he was thrilled with anticipation, yet a little skeptical. The pictures painted a mesmerising impression. Yet, questions lingered: How would the real thing turn out to be? Will it be like online dating? Breaking through the incertitude, he decided that he had to give it a go. | Photos: Hanna Ólavsdóttir Jacobsen/Jógvan Martin Joensen

Sinquefield Cup: Round 3 - Five Draws

8/5/2017 – It was a calmer day in St. Louis with all games in Round 3 ending in draws. Still plenty of interesting chess, as the tournament heads into the weekend. The main attention was on Anand-Carlsen. | Photo: Austin Fuller

Study of the Month: Dancing queens

8/5/2017 – There is a six-minute long crazy mix of music genres, recorded for fun by a musical idol, which became — against all warnings of the people working at the record labels — a megahit. It was “Bohemian Rhapsody”, the band was Queen. And then there is there is a fast-paced pop song about a 17-year-old girl, providing a great performance. So one has to “see that girl, watch that scene.” ABBA called her the Dancing Queen. Today we are going to watch her on the chessboard.

Sinquefield Cup: Round 2 - Carlsenomics

8/4/2017 – The Sinquefield Cup continues to delight the spectators and chess fans, with its indomitable fighting games and typical drama. The second round too saw three games ending decisively and near-complete effort from all the players. | Photos: Lennart Ootes (Grand Chess Tour)

Bobby Fischer in Iceland – 45 years ago (7)

8/4/2017 – After the first two traumatic games World Champion Boris Spassky was leading 2-0 in the Match of the Century. But then Fischer started to play and struck back: in the next eight games he scored 6½ points, chalking up a 6.5-3.5 lead. Games 8, 9 and 10 were quite spectacular, and are the subject of today's report. Younger players will also learn about "adjournments" and how exactly "sealed moves" were handled. Some were born after these practices were abandoned.

Only move parade

8/4/2017 – In the diagram position Black has just attacked the white queen in the c-file with 26...Nc4-e5, initiating a forced sequence of captures which finally lead to... well, that's for you to work out!

August 2017 FIDE ratings: The rise of the prodigies

8/4/2017 – It was a remarkable month for ratings, with notable results all over. A few standouts are 18-year-old Wei Yi, who is now no. 14, 14-year-old Alireza Firouzja poised to become a GM at 2518 FIDE, and 13-year-old WFM Bibisara Assaubayeva, who flew to 2421 and will get her IM title soon. If that's not enough, Magnus Carlsen has now opened an 80-Elo gap in the Blitz ratings. Still, the nod must go to Teimour Radjabov, the second youngest player ever in the Top 100, for his win at Geneva.

Jobava extraordinary in Xtracon

8/3/2017 – The Xtracon Open and it's forbearer the Politiken Cup is a strong annual open tournament north of Copenhagen. This year fan favorite Baadur Jobava took first place clear with an impressive 8.5 / 10. Krishnan Sasikiran and Marin Bosiocic were second and third. IM David Midema was on the scene in Elsinore | Photo: Sigfred Haubro

Sinquefield Cup: Round 1 - Creativity and Precision

8/3/2017 – Aronian’s creativity, Karjakin’s precision in an advantageous position, and full-fledged fights in all the boards were the talking points of the first round at Sinquefield Cup which started today at Saint Louis, USA, the 4th leg of the Grand Chess Tour. So Wesley fell for the time immemorial classic zeitnot tragedy when he blundered on the 40th move and lost to Vachier-Lagrave from a difficult position. | Photos: Lennart Ootes (Grand Chess Tour)

Exercises in Style: From Wilhelm Steinitz to Magnus Carlsen (3/4)

8/3/2017 – Tigran Petrosian had a unique style. But do you recognize his games if you just see the moves? Have a try! Part 1 and 2 of the "Exercises in Style" presented games by Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Aljechin, Euwe, Botvinnik, Smyslov and Tal, now follow games by Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer and Karpov. Do you know which World Champion played which game?