12/13/2018 – The Kasparov Chess Foundation (KCF) and The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis (CCSCSL) have run the very successful Young Stars program for 'Team USA' for the past six years. Meet the latest crop of talented kids from the recent New York training session. Plus, In a new article, Garry Kasparov reminds us that the recent World Championship match did not represent "a contest between the two strongest chess players on the planet, only the strongest humans." Brute force programs have long exceeded human playing strength. But that does not end the historical role of chess as a laboratory of cognition. A new pure AI system has superseded even those programs. Kasparov evaluates AlphaZero's play in Science Magazine and gives a political interview in the prestigious magazine The New Yorker. | Photo DeepMind Technologies, Igor Khodzinskiy

12/11/2018 – The 10th London Chess Classic is underway with the semifinal played at the headquarters of Google's DeepMind. Demis Hassibis (pictured in the background) joined tournament director Malcolm Pein and a schoolgirl — learning chess under the Chess in Schools and Communities umbrella — on stage at the start of the first classical game. Yesterday, at the London Pro-Biz Cup, chess-loving business people or celebrities joined grandmasters taking turns in a tandem chess team tournament. Garry Kasparov was among the professionals, but it was the team of Roiko Vujatovic and David Howell that won. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

12/7/2018 – It was a long time coming, but the wait is over. After nearly a full year, being ping-ponged from one peer reviewer to the next, the final paper on AlphaZero is out, shedding light on a number of hitherto unknown or misunderstood elements in its construction, not to mention some clarifications and corrections. These include sample code to help implement their work and all the games of the match against Stockfish, of which 20 were specially chosen by GM Matthew Sadler. | Graphic: Deep Mind

12/3/2018 – The match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana was the fourth World Chess Championship which took place in London. The contest was previously played in the English capital in 1986, 1993 and 2000. We take a brief pass through the history of World Championship matches between Kasparov and Karpov, Kasparov vs Short and Kasparov vs Kramnik. | Photo: Ben Bartels

11/27/2018 – Two years after Magnus Carlsen openly went for a draw with White in the last classical game of his match against Sergey Karjakin, the World Champion offered a draw in a playable — slightly superior — position to take the struggle to rapid tiebreaks. Fabiano Caruana understandably agreed to split the point and now everything will be decided on Wednesday, when four rapid games — and blitz and Armageddon if the tie is not broken — will determine the champion. Guest analysis by GM WESLEY SO and GM ERWIN L'AMI. | Photos: World Chess

11/25/2018 – And then there was one! The World Championship match is headed to a dramatic conclusion after Magnus Carlsen could not score a goal in his last White game. Game 11 ended up as one of the shorter and least interesting draws of the match although it started promisingly enough. The previous Challenger Sergey Karjakin was the surprise guest making the ceremonial first move and he got a smile out of both players by starting with 1.b4 for Magnus. Carlsen opted not to take Karjakin's suggestion to heart and played into a critical line from the Petroff preparation of Caruana — a line shown in the training video accidentally leaked before Game 4. Guest analysis by GM BORIS GELFAND and IM LAWRENCE TRENT. | Photos: World Chess

11/17/2018 – On Friday American comedian, talk show host and political agitator had, for the third time at least, former World Champion Garry Kasparov on his show. Kasparov, who lives in quasi-exile in New York, is a ferocious critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and in recent years has been equally critical of the US President Donald Trump. You can watch the Real Time with Bill Maher show on HBO, or catch the section with Kasparov on YouTube.

11/2/2018 – ChessBase Magazine 186: 535 Games, annotations by Ian Nepomniachtchi, Mikhail Golubev, Peter Heine-Nielsen, Michal Krasenkow, Mihail Marin, and a major contribution by Suat Atalik. 10 Opening surveys from the Spanish to the English Opening. Two under the microscope in review by Prof. NAGESH HAVANUR | Pictured: Kasparov, Karpov and Timman in 1987 | Photo: Bart Molendijk / Anefo [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

10/20/2018 – A full century after the Doomsday Worm had erased all the world’s electronic records, British scientists discovered, excarvations in the suburbs of Hamburg, Germany, evidence of the existence of a game that was popular in the 20th century, and of the existence of a legendary champion of the game. We have a transcript of a lecture held in Oxford in 2147 by Prof. Eduard Sommer, which we quote in this spoof article by John Nunn. It also contains two remarkable puzzles.

9/18/2018 – Reflecting on the Champions Showdown in St. Louis, Macauley Peterson pulls a few highlight videos from the commentary webcast and breaks down what appeals to fans of the Chess960 variant, for a look at how the next event like this from the Saint Louis Chess Club could be improved. Chess960 may have its problems gaining traction, but as Peter Svidler notes, there's plenty of space on the chess schedule to try new ideas. | ChessBase via Saint Louis Chess Club YouTube

9/15/2018 – There was almost no intrigue regarding the final results, but the 2018 Champions Showdown was filled with curious highlights and enterprising chess. The main attraction was Garry Kasparov's presence — the 13th World Champion lost his match against Topalov, but finished on a high thanks to a pair of wins in the last rounds. In the other matchups, Nakamura, So, Vachier-Lagrave and Aronian emerged victorious. In terms of entertainment value, the Saint Louis Chess Club hit the mark! | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

9/13/2018 – After two days of Chess960 in St. Louis, Wesley So established the largest lead in his match against Anish Giri. Perhaps that why So says he prefers the variant over "normal chess". Or is it the other way around — preference breeds success? Garry Kasparov, on the other hand, is well behind in his match against Veselin Topalov. Elsewhere the rating favourites all lead, with the exception of Hikaru Nakamura vs Peter Svidler, which is tied at 6 points apiece. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club/ Lennart Ootes, Austin Fuller