1/2/2017 – The Fide just published the first rating list of 2017. World Champion Magnus Carlsen starts the year as number one - in classical chess, in rapid and in blitz chess. But in classical chess Fabiano Caruana is only 13 Elo points behind. Hou Yifan continues to dominate the women's ranking list, Wei Yi is best junior, Lei Tingjie the best girl. Lists and statistics...

11/22/2016 – On 26th November the 10th Kings Tournament will start in Medias, Romania. Several rapid tournaments will be played, one of them is a big open tournament. But the main attraction is a rapid and blitz match between Vladimir Kramnik and Hou Yifan.

11/19/2016 – The FIDE Women's Grand Prix in Khanty-Mansiysk, the last tournament of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix series 2015/2016, brought three wins and three draws. Valentina Gunina, who still has chances to win the Grand Prix, defeated Lela Javakhashvili, Nino Batsiashivli won against Bela Khotenashvili, and Olga Girya won against Nataljia Pogonina. Games and results...

11/17/2016 – The last tournament of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix series 2015/2016 will take place from 18th November to 2nd in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. It will decide who wins the Grand Prix series and who will challenge the next Women's World Champion. The best chances to do so has Chinese grandmaster Ju Wenjun.

10/15/2016 – The first round of this prestigeous tournament begin on Sunday. It has a very stong Open, and two amateur groups. But of greatest interest are the Hoogeveen Matches that pit Women's World Champion Hou Yifan against former WCh Challenger Nigel Short, and young Dutch star Jorden van Foreest against Ivan Sokolov. Earlier this week, on her way to Holland, Yifan was in Hamburg and visited ChessBase. Big illustrated report by Frederic Friedel.

10/7/2016 – Alexey Shirov started the Isle of Man tournament with 4.0/4 but in round five surprisingly decided to use the option of a "bye". He did not play the round and took a rest which brought - or cost, according to perspective - him half a point. In round six Shirov was back at the board but all his fire seemed gone. He played with Black against Pavel Eljanov and found no recipe against Eljanov's cool and creative positional play and was convincingly outplayed. After six rounds Eljanov is now sole leader with 5.5/6.

7/13/2016 – The sixth round of the 7. Hainan Danzhou tournament was a round of draws. No game had a winner. For tournament leader Ian Nepomniachtchi, who played against Wang Hao, it was his first draw after winning four and losing one game. The table, of course, did not change much: Nepomniachtchi now leads with 4.5/6 but is still one point ahead of Bu Xiangzhi and Wang Yue.

7/12/2016 – Ian Nepomniachtchi continues to dominate the Hainan-Danzhou tournament in China. In round five he played against Women's World Champion Hou Yifan, demonstrated good technique in a knight endgame four vs three on one wing and scored his fourth win. All other games were drawn. Nepomniachtchi now leads with 4.0/5, one point ahead of Yu Yangyi, Bu Xiangzhi and Wang Yue.

4/2/2016 – In March Hou Yifan, number one on the women's ranking list, regained the world title, which she had lost when she did not take part in the knock-out World Championship the year before. In an interview with Dagobert Kohlmeyer the World Champion criticises the mode of the Women's World Championship and reveals that her proposals for a different system were made in vain.

3/8/2016 – On Monday Mariya Muzychuk and Hou Yifan had a rest day which they probably mostly spent preparing for the remainder of the match. But in game five on Tuesday neither Hou Yifan who was playing with White nor Mariya Muyzchuk who defended with Black came up with anything exciting and the game quickly petered out to a draw. After five of ten games Hou Yifan now leads by 3-2.

12/3/2015 – In the second part of her in-depth interview Dronavalli Harika, India's number two women player, who recently became the first Women World Champion in Online-Blitz, talks about her repertoire, her love of chess books, psychology in chess, how she would pay tribute to her coach, and her ambition to become number one on the women's ranking list.

7/16/2015 – Hou Yifan is currently the world's best women player and extremely popular with the public. Inviting her to the Sparkassen-Chess Meeting in Dortmund was definitely a good move by the organisers. German chess journalist Dagobert Kohlmeyer used the chance to talk with the Chinese about the World Championship, the young Chinese players, and much more.

10/22/2014 – The 2014 Corsican Circuit Rapid started and as always brings a mixture of some elite guests with opportunities for anyone to qualify for the sixteen-player knockout phase. The two guests, multiple World Champion Vishy Anand and Women World Champion Hou Yifan, were then joined by the fourteen qualifiers from the Open held before. The tournament has not been without surprises.

7/31/2014 – The month of August saw a few historic moments. The first and most visible is Fabiano Caruana finally breaking into the 2800 club once and for all with 2801. Still, this was overshadowed by Hou Yifan breaking into the Top 100 players at 87th, only the second female in history. However, see the summaries to find out who scored 200 Elo or 300 Elo in a year and even 134 Elo in one month!

6/10/2014 – Leon has been a stepping stone in the career of many elite grandmasters. The event has been a battle ground for Karjakin, Carlsen, Leko and many others. Today a new star joins that prestigious group as Wei Yi emerges victorious in the Leon rapid tournament by narrowly defeating Vallejo. The win came despite Wei Yi finding himself several times with less than one second on the clock.

6/8/2014 – The Chinese prodigy Wei Yi, who turned 15 last week, is the second finalist in Leon. He vanquished Ivan Salgado in a match where the Spanish player never had any real winning chances. Setting the tone on game one Wei Yi was able to push his advantage until the end taking the match 2.5-1.5. Festivities in Leon conclude with the match between Wei Yi and Paco Vallejo.

6/7/2014 – The XXVII Master's City of Leon has commenced. The tournament features four players in a unique weekend event. A knock-out system is being used and the games are being played on a rapid time control. Hou Yifan faced Vallejo in the first semi-final and the Spanish player emerged victorious with the narrow margin of 2.5-1.5 He awaits thte results of Wei Yi vs. Salgado.

1/5/2014 – In the last episodes of the BBC Radio program “Across the Board”, Dominic Lawson interviews the only professional player in the series, Hou Yifan, as well as Natan Sharansky, a prominent Israeli politician, human rights activist and author. Nathan Sharansky was sent by the Soviets to a Siberian Gulag where he survived by playing endless games of chess in his mind. Life imitates fiction.

12/19/2013 – "Your discussion of 'Kosteniuk, Kosintseva, and Yifan' in recent articles sounds as dissonant to a Chinese reader as 'Clinton, Bush, and Barack'", writes Fabien Simonis from Dongguan, China – and goes on to give us a primer on the correct use of Chinese names. To his very useful instructions we add a reprint of a 2004 article explaining Indian, Russian and other names.

9/24/2013 – At the age of 12 this extraordinary Chinese chess talent became the youngest player ever to participate in a FIDE Women's World Championship. At 16 she actually won the title, defended it once and then lost it in a knockout tournament, regaining it again last week. "It’s time to look for new things in chess, in studies, in other parts of life," the 19-year-old says in this indepth interview.

6/14/2013 – The second round of the match between David Navara and Hou Yifan has not seen either player pulling ahead, and thus far three draws have ensued. Navara has chosen to avoid Yifan’s tactical strength, and attempt to impose his positional skills. but has been unable to break the Chinese teenager’s resistance, and has seen his chances evaporate one after the other. Illustrated report.

6/11/2013 – It is a special CEZ event, pitting former women's world champion Hou Yifan against top Czech GM David Navara. Before the start of the four-game match the 19-year-old Chinese GM took a tour of Prague with her mother and gave a simultaneous exhibition against 20 opponents – which she won with a 19:1 score, conceding just two (diplomatic?) draws. Big pictorial report.

4/27/2013 – After a very close first half it seemed that the tournament would not see any player catapult himself away from the rest. But that is precisely what Wang Yue did, as he won the tournament with a round to go. In the women's section things went down to the wire as Ding Xiyin took first place after holding in a crazy Najdorf. Games, standings and many pictures here.