8/24/2024 – The first event of the 2024/25 Women's Grand Prix series is taking place on 15-24 August in Tbilisi, Georgia. A 10-player single round-robin, the event has the Muzychuk sisters, Nana Dzagnidze and R Vaishali as the top seeds. The top 2 finishers in the series will qualify for the next edition of the Women's Candidates Tournament. | Follow the action live with expert commentary starting at 13.00 CEST (7.00 ET, 16.30 IST)

8/24/2024 – Hans Niemann and Etienne Bacrot scored 2 wins each (and signed 2 draws) in the rapid section of their match in Paris. Saturday will be the final day of action, with 12 blitz games scheduled to take place - each granting 1 point for the overall score of the match. At this point, Niemann has a 9-point lead over his French opponent. | Photo: Frans Peeters

8/24/2024 – After an eventful day of chess at the Tbilisi Women's Grand Prix, 2 players emerged tied for first place going into Saturday's deciding round. Alina Kahslinskaya beat Lela Javakhishvili to join Bibisara Assaubayeva atop the standings. Importantly, both Assaubayeva and Mariya Muzychuk (who remains in the fight for first place) missed big chances to score full points in the penultimate round. | Photo: FIDE / Anna Shtourman

8/23/2024 – Vladimir Kramnik, known for his strong stance on fair play, took the test to address long-standing rumors and cheating allegations dating back to the 2006 World Chess Championship, as well as more recent accusations in online games. The test, conducted by Pinkerton, revealed “No Deception Indicated” on all key questions, including Kramnik’s role in the controversial “Toiletgate” scandal. Inspired by Kramnik’s example, World Chess is now introducing voluntary polygraph testing as an additional tool to combat cheating.

8/23/2024 – Spilimbergo is a pleasant little town of about 12,000 inhabitants, located about 100 kilometres north-east of Venice. The town is most famous for its over 100-year-old mosaic school - and for chess! The festival was held for the 22nd time this year and attracted 450 participants from 31 countries. Among them was Levy 'Gotham Chess' Rozman, who came to the Italian city to take another step on his way to becoming a grandmaster. In the end, however, the winner of the tournament was the Iranian IM Orimi Mahdi Gholami, who won with 7 out of 9 rating points. Bettina Trabert reports. | Photo: Old town centre of Spilimbergo | Photo: Wikipedia

8/23/2024 – Wesley So joined Alireza Firouzja in the lead of the Sinquefield Cup after beating former co-leader Ian Nepomniachtchi in Thursday's fourth round. So grabbed the full point by converting a minute advantage into a win in a pure rook endgame. Meanwhile, D Gukesh played a few astonishing moves to get an advantage out of a Berlin Defence against Firouzja - the French representative, however, managed to escape with a draw. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

8/23/2024 – For a third day in a row, Hans Niemann scored a win (with white) and a draw (with black) in his match against Etienne Bacrot in Paris. These results leave Niemann 9 points ahead on the scoreboard going into the rapid section of the contest - 6 games of 15+10 games will take place on Friday at the Blitz Society Bar in Paris. | Photo: Frans Peeters

8/23/2024 – In his new Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft celebrates the Dortmund tournament victory of his good friend and Chessbase author Nico Zwirs. Since Zwirs' decisive final round win over Christopher Yoo will be covered by Karsten Müller in his Endgame Magic show, Merijn focuses on the tough Korobov-Zwirs battle. White was playing a model game until some rather unusual measures were required to make progress. Then things got rather messy. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

8/23/2024 – In a round full of dynamic, interesting chess only 1 of 5 games ended decisively at the Tbilisi Women's Grand Prix. The one winner of the day was Bibisara Assaubayeva, who defeated Alexandra Kosteniuk to grab the sole lead with two rounds to go. Mariya Muzychuk could have joined the Kazakhstani youngster in the lead, but she missed a win in her game with black against Lela Javakhishvili. | Photo: FIDE / Anna Shtourman

8/22/2024 – All five games in round 3 of the Sinquefield Cup could have easily finished decisively. Three players missed winning chances, though, while Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana did make the most of their opportunities and scored full points. With his win over Anish Giri, Nepo joined Alireza Firouzja in the lead. Caruana, on his part, beat Nodirbek Abdusattorov and now has a 50-percent score. | Photo: Crystal Fuller

8/22/2024 – Two days into the match against Etienne Bacrot in Paris, Hans Niemann already has a 6-point lead, as he scored a win and a draw in Wednesday's classical games. Niemann, who comes from beating Anish Giri and Nikita Vitiugov in similar contests, has now climbed to world number 20 in the live ratings list. | Photo: Frans Peeters

8/22/2024 – Returning from the rest day, round 6 of the Tbilisi Women's Grand Prix saw one game ending decisively, with Alina Kashlinskaya beating R Vaishali to join the leading pack, now consisting of five players. Kashlinskaya is tied for first place with Nana Dzagnidze, Mariya Muzychuk, Bibisara Assaubayeva and Stavroula Tsolakidou. | Photo: FIDE / Anna Shtourman