1/16/2010 – ... Jan Timman wrote about this encounter between two absolute top grandmasters of the 70s and 80s. Here Black played 21...Bb5 and later succumbed in a remarkable attack. How would you assess the position after 21...Nxc7 instead?
A) The second player maintains his plus pawn without risk;
B) White gets the advantage;
C) the result is a draw by perpetual check.

The solution is here, but first ponder over it with a larger version of the diagram.

1/16/2010 – What if you are a young chess fan – with crooked teeth? Braces is the answer, but now an orthodontic doctor has come up with a way to combine a healthy set of straight teeth with your love for the game. Chessmile offers braces in the form of chess pieces. You can set up endgames, puzzles and even checkmates. And this is the brainchild of? WIM Dr Carolina Blanco, that's who.

1/16/2010 – Loek van Wely, playing in Wijk an Zee for the 19th time is succession, started off with a fine text-book victory over Nigel Short, while Alexei Shirov, playing the black side of Ruy Lopez Moeller, punished Peter Leko's exchange sacrifice in a fine endgame performance. Live coverage with audio commentary is available on the Playchess server. Big pictorial report.

1/15/2010 – Just one more day without top-level chess. On Saturday the action starts, in the Dutch seaside town, with three incredibly strong invitationals. Friday was the opening ceremony and pairings, on Saturday we will see the first round at 13:30h local time. Live coverage is available on Playchess, with audio commentary by GMs Yasser Seirawan and Daniel King. Pictures and video report.

1/15/2010 – Our endgame blog started the New Year on the subject of barriers. Just a week later, we can offer you two more examples on this important theme. In Getz-O'Toole, played in the Masters in Hastings, White won in exemplary fashion with the help of a horizontal barrier. A vertical barrier could be seen in Sasikiran-Aronian, where a draw would have been the correct result. But the world class Armenian GM went wrong, allowing Sasikiran to win with flawless technique. Would you have found the correct move in the diagram? Black to play and draw! The solution is here, but first ponder over it with a larger version of the diagram.

1/15/2010 – A new version of our pocket-sized grandmaster was released in mid December. It contains the chess engine Hiarcs 13, about which you may have read in our Copa Mercosur report. The program, as it is suggested by the DVD cover, is a complete multitask tool for training and enjoying chess. In a new series we introduce you to this Swiss penknife amongst chess programs, starting with the basics.

1/8/2010 – Before the final round of this prestigious Italian tournament seven-time Hungarian champion Zoltan Almasi was a full point ahead. But he had to face his main rival, Gata Kamsky, with the black pieces. The US grandmaster played a dashing exchange sacrifice on move 17 to take the game and the overall tournament victory. Second was Almasi, third Fabiano Caruana. Final report.

1/7/2010 – Professor Kenneth Rogoff is a strong chess grandmaster, who also happens to be one of the world's leading economists. In a Project Syndicate article that appeared this week Ken sees the new decade as one in which "artificial intelligence hits escape velocity," with an economic impact on par with the emergence of India and China. He uses computer chess to illustrated the point.

1/7/2010 – He became a grandmaster at the age of twelve years and seven months – the youngest in history. Sergey Karjakin, who turns twenty next Tuesday, is ten months older than Magnus Carlsen, the current number one in the world rankings. In the magazine Segodnja Sport the former Ukrainian, who is lives in and plays for Russia, tells us about his chess programme, marriage and life in Moscow.

1/6/2010 – With one round to go the seven-time Hungarian champion Zoltan Almasi has scored 6.5/8, a full point ahead of his nearest rival, Gata Kamsky. Almasi has won five of his last six games, including a key game against Viktor Bologan in round six. His performance: 2859. Kamsky and Almasi face each other tomorrow in the final round. Pictorial report.

1/6/2010 – The 2009-10 Hastings Masters ended in a fourway tie for first place, between Mark Hebden of England, British Champion David Howell, Andrei Istratescu of Roumania, and Romain Edouard of France. In the final round Hebden and Istratescu halved out in 11 moves, but Howell had to fight for a black victory. Our report on the last two rounds includes a big pictorial of lesser-known players.

1/6/2010 – In 1910 Emanuel Lasker was World Champion, but the arguably strongest player in the world was the Polish master Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein (1882–1961), a dominant figure in tournament chess who was winning most events and in glorious style. In this week's Playchess lecture Dennis Monokroussos looks at a game or two of his from the 1911 tournament in Karlsbad. 9 p.m. ET