7/23/2024 – The strongest junior and senior chess players in the United States have returned to Saint Louis. On July 16-26, the top 10 players across three divisions - juniors, girls, and seniors - are competing for more than $135,000 in prizes. Find here all games, standings and the daily recap produced by the Saint Louis Chess Club. | Pictured: Rose Atwell, who is now sharing the lead with Alice Lee in the Girls' Championship | Photo: Lennart Ootes

7/23/2024 – Alireza Firouzja advanced to the Division I Grand Final in the online CrunchLab Masters by beating Ian Nepomniachtchi in the losers' bracket final. On Wednesday, following a rest day, Firouzja will face Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who had already defeated Firouzja in the winners' bracket final. In Division II, Alexander Grischuk and Vidit Gujrathi reached the Grand Final, while Arjun Erigaisi and Evgeny Alekseev will face off in the Grand Final of Division III. | Photo: Tata Steel Chess Tournament / Lennart Ootes

7/23/2024 – Against bishops it is often a good strategy to build a blockade. In the diagram position it is Black to move - how could he have built a blockade and saved the game?

7/22/2024 – In the Endgame Magic Show #276 Karsten Müller takes a close look at two fascinating endgames from the Norway Chess Tournament. | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

7/22/2024 – FIDE has published the official entry and starting lists for the Chess Olympiad in Budapest (11 to 22 September). In the open tournament, the USA, India and China are the top teams in the seeding list according to Elo. The German team is in tenth place. In the Women's Olympiad, Georgia leads the seeding list. The German women are eighth in the seeding list. | Photos: FIDE

7/22/2024 – “Finishing off the opponent's king is, and remains, the ultimate goal of a chess game, and in order to memorise the checkmating patterns and know how to use them successfully in your own games, only one thing helps: practise again and again!”. Oliver Reeh introduces his tactics column in the new ChessBase Magazine #220 with these words. Is there anything to add? Let's go! Take advantage of the CBM reading sample of the week and go king hunting with Oliver Reeh. Here and now and directly via your web browser!

7/19/2024 – All three games finished drawn in round 3 of the Masters Triathlon at the Biel Chess Festival, which means Abhimanyu Mishra remains as the sole leader in the 6-player event. In the Challengers section, the lowest-rated participant, Vaishali R, continues to perform flawlessly, as she won her third classical game in a row. Vaishali thus grabbed the sole lead in the tournament. | Photos: Biel Chess Festival

7/18/2024 – Ziaur Rahman, the second grandmaster of Bangladesh and the player to have reached the highest rating in his country (2570), passed away on 5 July while playing a game of chess at the Bangladeshi National Championships. He suffered a heart attack and collapsed to the ground. Ziaur was just 50 years old. In this article, we look back at his life and remember what a gem of a person he was both on and off the board, and we also share heartfelt messages from some of the top Indian GMs. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

7/18/2024 – The strongest junior and senior chess players in the United States have returned to Saint Louis. On July 16-26, the top 10 players across three divisions - juniors, girls, and seniors - are competing for more than $135,000 in prizes. Find here all games, standings and the daily recap produced by the Saint Louis Chess Club. | Pictured: Jesse Kraai | Photos: Lennart Ootes

7/18/2024 – The first stage of the CrunchLab Masters, the Play-In, took place on Wednesday. Ian Nepomniachtchi, Mikhail Antipov and Hikaru Nakamura were the top scorers in the 9-round Swiss open featuring 118 players. The aforementioned GMs were 3 of the 11 participants who qualified to the Division I Placement stage. Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik was among the 11 qualified participants. | Photo: FIDE

7/17/2024 – Abhimanyu Mishra took the lead at the Masters Triathlon in Biel. Thanks to his victory over Sam Shankland, the youngest GM in history climbed to the top of the standings. He also benefited from the fact that the other games ended in draws, in particular from the fact that Haik Martirosyan was unable to capitalise on a promising position against Vincent Keymer. An underdog is also in impressive form in the Challengers: Vaishali obtained a second victory in a row on Wednesday, as did Saleh Salem, who thus took the lead in this section. | Photos: Biel Chess Festival

7/17/2024 – Daniel Dardha grabbed his fourth national title at the 2024 Belgian Chess Championship, which took place on 6-13 July at the Sint-Gummarus College in Lier. A final-round victory granted the 18-year-old overall victory, as he outscored Stefan Beukema by a mere half point. Mher Hovhannisyan and Sim Maerevoet tied for third place, with Hovhannisyan completing the podium on tiebreak criteria. | Photos: Belgian Chess Federation