3/7/2022 – Richard Rapport and Anish Giri will enter the last round of the preliminaries at the Belgrade Grand Prix with 1-point leads in their respective pools. Rapport scored a crucial win on Sunday, as he got the better of Vidit Gujrathi with the black pieces. In the same group, Alexei Shirov obtained his first win of the series by beating Vladimir Fedoseev in a sharp encounter. | Photos: Mark Livshitz

3/4/2022 – The highlight of day 3 at the FIDE Grand Prix in Belgrade was Richard Rapport’s victory over Vidit Gujrathi. The Hungarian thus caught his round-3 opponent in the lead of pool C. The one other decisive result on Thursday was seen in the same group, as Vladimir Fedoseev got the better of Alexei Shirov. Anish Giri played a remarkable queen sacrifice against Pentala Harikrishna — the game finished in a draw. | Photos: Mark Livshitz

2/11/2022 – The two players who won their round-6 games to force tiebreaks in their respective groups managed to also win their 2-game rapid matches on Friday to reach the semifinals of the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. Leinier Dominguez knocked out Wesley So and will face an in-form Levon Aronian, while Rapport eliminated Radoslaw Wojtaszek and thus gained the right to face Hikaru Nakamura in semis. | Photos: World Chess

2/11/2022 – Frequent evaluation swings in tense-filled encounters made for an exciting sixth round at the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. In the end, the one player who secured a spot in the semifinals on Thursday was Hikaru Nakamura. Naka and Levon Aronian, who qualified after round 5, will face the winners of Friday’s playoffs. In the rapid and blitz tiebreakers, Richard Rapport will face Radoslaw Wojtaszek, and Wesley So will play Leinier Dominguez. | Photos: World Chess

2/6/2022 – In an exciting second round at the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin, three players obtained full points in remarkable style. Hikaru Nakamura and Leinier Dominguez won to take the lead in their respective groups, while Richard Rapport bounced back from a first-round loss by taking down Vladimir Fedoseev in a game that featured a positional piece sacrifice and exceptional tactical accuracy. | Photos: World Chess

1/27/2022 – Round 10 of the Tata Steel Masters tournament saw the two main contenders for first place, Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri, drawing their games, thus keeping the status quo atop the standings table. There was no lack of excitement on the remaining boards, though, as Richard Rapport, Andrey Esipenko, Nils Grandelius and Praggnanandhaa (pictured) all managed to score full points. | Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit

1/21/2022 – Returning from the rest day, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Richard Rapport scored full points to join Vidit Gujrathi in the lead of the Tata Steel Masters tournament. Andrey Esipenko and Magnus Carlsen stand close behind, as the world champion both lived dangerously and got winning chances in his (drawn) game against Nils Grandelius. Meanwhile, Arjun Erigaisi won again in the Challengers, and now has a one-point lead in the standings table. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

12/22/2021 – The rapid tournament at the Vugar Gashimov Memorial ended with an exciting and close finish. In the sixth and penultimate round tournament leader Richard Rapport lost against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, which allowed Fabiano Caruana to catch up. But in the final round Caruana also lost against Mamedyarov while Rapport and Karjakin won their matches. In the end, Rapport and Karjakin shared first place with 16 points each. | Photos: Tournament page

9/22/2021 – This week, Merijn van Delft takes a look at a game from the Dutch Team Championships in which White used a very aggressive approach against the French, which led to amazing complications and crazy tactics. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

9/15/2021 – This week, Merijn van Delft takes another look at the impressive performance of Richard Rapport at the Norway Chess Tournament, focusing on Rapport's fine win against Sergey Karjakin in round 7. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

9/15/2021 – There were three decisive games in the seventh round of the Norway Chess Tournament. Richard Rapport defended his lead with a win over Segery Karjakin. Alireza Firouzja staked a claim as the next world challenger with a win over Ian Nepomniachtchi, while Magnus Carlsen gave another endgame lesson against Aryan Tari. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

9/14/2021 – Richard Rapport has a 3-point lead over Ian Nepomniachtchi with four rounds to go at the Norway Chess Tournament (a win in classical chess is worth 3 points). The Hungarian star beat Aryan Tari with the white pieces in round 6. Magnus Carlsen also won his classical game, while Sergey Karjakin got the better of Nepomniachtchi in Armageddon. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

9/11/2021 – Richard Rapport beat Alireza Firouzja in their round-4 classical encounter to increase his lead atop the standings of the Norway Chess Tournament. In the stellar contest of the day, Magnus Carlsen beat Ian Nepomniachtchi in the Armageddon decider after drawing the classical game out of a Berlin Defence. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

9/8/2021 – The 9th edition of the Norway Chess Tournament kicked off on September 7 at the Clarion Hotel in Stavanger. Richard Rapport grabbed the lead by beating Aryan Tari in their classical encounter. Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen and Alireza Firouzja drew their classical game — the world champion won the Armageddon decider (drew with black) after surviving a dead-lost position. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

3/15/2021 – The Austrian Bundesliga came to an end on Sunday with SV “Das Wien” St. Veit winning the title for the first time. A 3:3 draw in the last round was enough for the team from Carinthia, led by Hungarian star player Richard Rapport, to finish in sole first place, ahead of SV Raika Rapid Feffernitz. The league ran with modifications due to the coronavirus crisis. Instead of the usual twelve, only seven teams participated. All rounds were played on two 3-day meets in Graz. | Photo: Misty Pine / cca.imsa.cn

12/10/2020 – The 11th edition of the Danzhou Tournament took place on December 3-9, with half the participants playing online from the Country Garden Havana Holiday Hotel in Danzhou and the other half playing from home. It was an 8-player double round robin with a time control of 15 minutes for the game and 10-second increments from the start. Hungarian GM Richard Rapport was the clear winner after collecting 8/14 points. Ding Liren got sole second place. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

9/21/2020 – Simon Says: Today, we look at some games the highly original and creative Richard Rapport played in the Bundesliga Team Championship that ended on Sunday. | Watch "Simon Says" for free and on-demand (for a limited time, or forever with a ChessBase Premium account). (Normally 18:00 UTC (20:00 CEST / 14:00). | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

8/16/2019 – Levon Aronian won the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz 2019 despite losing the first and last game on the final day. Aronian managed to score only 5 points out of the last nine rounds but that was enough to beat Vachier-Lagrave. MVL's only consolation is that he beat Aronian in both of their blitz encounters. Caruana got his much awaited revenge against Carlsen in round fourteen. IM VENKATACHALAM SARAVANAN reports from Saint Louis. | Pictured: Aronian on being just informed by fellow Armenian GM Manuel Petrosyan that he has won the tournament. | Photo: Crystal Fuller / Grand Chess Tour

8/14/2019 – IM Merijn van Delft is live this week and will examine Maxime Vachier-Lagrave's win over Richard Rapport from the St. Louis Rapid tournament. The show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows. Merijn is on-demand this week starting at 18:00 UTC (20:00 CEST / 2 PM EDT).

8/14/2019 – IM VENKATACHALAM SARAVANAN reviews the highlights from the St. Louis Rapid in more depth, paired with video interview clips of the players with GM Maurice Ashley (pictured with Vachier-Lagrave) from the official webcast. | Photo: Austin Fuller

8/14/2019 – Ding Liren and Sergey Karjakin were the heroes of the day as both of them scored 6½/9 on Day 1 of Blitz. Wild cards Richard Rapport and Yu Yangyi also had a fantastic start in the Blitz as they scored 6.0/9 and 5½/9 respectively. Magnus only managed to score 50% while Caruana scored a meagre 1½/9 in Blitz. IM VENKATACHALAM SARAVANAN brings you all action from Saint Louis. | Photo: Crystal Fuller / Grand Chess Tour

8/13/2019 – Carlsen started Day 3 of Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz with a loss against Aronian. The World Champion defeated MVL in the final round of the rapid event, however it is MVL who overcame Carlsen in the FIDE rapid ranking according to live ratings. Vachier-Lagrave remained undefeated on the final rapid day by defeating the former World Championship challenger Caruana in the final round. IM VENKATACHALAM SARAVANAN reports from Saint Louis. | Photo: Justin Kellar / Grand Chess Tour

8/12/2019 – Rapid rounds four to six at the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz yielded no change at the top of the leader board, but Levon Aronian is now being closely pursued by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who won all three of his games on Sunday. Perhaps even more surprisingly, World Champion Magnus Carlsen lost two more of his rapid games, including to world number two Fabiano Caruana. IM VENKATACHALAM SARAVANAN reports from Saint Louis. | Photo: Justin Kellar / Grand Chess Tour

7/22/2019 – Leinier Dominguez Perez won the Grandmaster Tournament at the Sparkassen Chess-Meeting in Dortmund. In the last round, a draw against Radoslaw Wojtaszek gave him the top spot on 4½/ 7. Ian Nepomniachtchi came in second, thanks to his tiebreak score in the four-player chasing group (all on 4/7). Germans Daniel Fridman and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu ended up with 2½/7 at the bottom of the standings table. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis