10/6/2018 – The excitement levels had gone off the charts for the final round of the Batumi Olympiad 2018. The strongest teams were fighting against each other to decide who would take gold. USA and China were pitted against each other in the open section and China and Russia faced off against each other in the women's. The matches ended in 2-2 draws with a lot of drama surrounding them. The tiebreaks favoured China in both the sections and they went home with a double gold! In the Open, the USA took the silver and Russia the bronze while in the Women's Ukraine had to be content with silver, and bronze went to Georgia's first team. Full report from Batumi by Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal.

9/27/2018 – The third round of the Batumi Chess Olympiad 2018 saw no real problems for the top seeds. Almost all of them won their games and it seems as if the real battles between strong teams will begin from the fourth round, the most interesting being India versus USA. In the women's section too, there were some draws, but no loss for the higher seeded team. This report is broken into four parts. The first part gives you the idea of the results of round three, second part are positions and analysis selected by GM Ganguly, third part are photos by Amruta Mokal and fourth is videos by Sagar Shah!

9/21/2018 – It was none other than Vladimir Putin, who dropped in at the training camp in Sochi. There he spoke to the men and women team members, about the importance of Russia regaining their dominating role in chess, about young talents and talent schools — like the one initiated by former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik. "Sirius" has already produced a number of children's champions. Watch this 1TV report — it is in Russian, but we provide a rough transcript for you to read.

9/6/2018 – The extremely competitive Russian Superfinals finished on Wednesday in Satka. Both the open and the women's sections were decided on two-game rapid playoffs — Dmitry Andreikin and Natalija Pogonina won their games with White and drew with Black, against Dmitry Jakovenko and Olga Girya, to become the 2018 Russian champions. ALEX YERMOLINSKY sent a report with no less than ten games analysed. | Photos: Eteri Kublashvili / Russian Chess Federation

8/31/2018 – Halftime and a rest day at the Russian Championships, after six of eleven rounds. In the open tournament, six players are in the lead each with 3½ out of 6 points, but the Elo favourites are not among them. Even in the women's tournament, the nominal favorites have had a hard time. Olga Girya and Alina Kashlinskaya lead with 4 out of 6, while Alexandra Kosteniuk (pictured) has scored just 3 out of 6 or fifty percent. JULIAN WNUK breaks down the action so far. | Photo: Russian Chess Federation

8/1/2018 – July was relatively quiet, with the annual super tournament in Dortmund exerting the most influence on FIDE's classical ratings. It was a good month for Ian Nepomniachtchi who is now number 11 in the world in both classical and rapid chess. | Photo: Ritvo Photography

7/23/2018 – The 2018 Sparkassen Chess Meeting finished on Sunday. Ian Nepomniachtchi took clear first place after beating Georg Meier with a dazzling attack. Vladislav Kovalev could have finished in clear second place had he been able to defeat Vladimir Kramnik in a winning but difficult endgame — the former world champion defended until a draw was agreed on move 104. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

7/22/2018 – Dortmund Round 7 is at 13:15 CEST (7:15 AM EDT) Saturday with a sole leader in Ian Nepomniachtchi. Trailing by a half point with two rounds to play are Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Vladislav Kovalev, Georg Meier and Anish Giri each with 3½ out of 6. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

7/22/2018 – With one round to go, no less than four players are half a point behind sole leader Ian Nepomniachtchi at the Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund. Giri and Meier beat Kramnik and Nisipeanu, respectively, to join Kovalev and Duda on 3½/6. LAWRENCE TRENT analysed both decisive games and the final stage of Duda-Nepomniachtchi, where the young Polish star missed his chance to defeat the leader. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

7/21/2018 – The fifth round of the Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund had only one decisive result, but it was a big one: Ian Nepomniachtchi took down Vladimir Kramnik in the only match-up that faced two of the previous co-leaders. Nepo is now in front on 3½/5, half a point ahead of Vladislav Kovalev and Jan-Krzysztof Duda. The final two rounds of the tournament will be played this weekend. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

7/19/2018 – Jan-Krzysztof Duda had a great start at the Sparkassen ChessMeeting in Dortmund, but fell victim to Vladimir Kramnik in the fourth round. Anish Giri also got a full point on Wednesday, as he beat Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu. These results left four players tied in first place. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

7/18/2018 – All four games in Dortmund's third round could have easily finished with decisive results. Ian Nepomniacthchi and Vladislav Kovalev obtained their first victories, while Jan-Krzysztof Duda beat his compatriot Radek Wojtaszek to stay at the top of the standings. Vladimir Kramnik pushed for a win once again, but was stopped by Georg Meier's solid defence. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

7/16/2018 – Seven out of eight games finished drawn in the first two rounds of the Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund. The only player who managed to win was Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who beat Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu in Sunday's round and now is the sole leader of the tournament. Despite the big number of draws, we saw a lot of fighting spirit and some very long battles. | Photo: Macauley Peterson

7/15/2018 – At the Sparkassen Chess-Meeting in Dortmund the four games of the first round ended drawn. However, if you think about symmetrical structures and a lot of early exchanges, you are completely wrong, because all boards were struggling hard for the full point. The only player with significant chances to win probably was the birthday boy Ian Nepomniachtchi (against Giri), but the position was pretty tricky. There was also a draw between Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Vladislav Kovalev that went almost the full seven hours possible. The ceremonial first move was made by the mayor of Dortmund, Birgit Jörder. | Photo: sparkassen-chess-meeting.de

7/13/2018 – Starting Saturday, Vladimir Kramnik and Anish Giri top the field of players providing a nice mix of old and new this year. Since 1984, the tournament has been made possible by the commitment of the Dortmund Sparkasse regional bank. | Pictured (L to R): Gerd Kolbe, Klaus Steenweg, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Vladislav Kovalev, Georg Meier, Andreas Jagodzinsky, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Stefan Koth, Vladimir Kramnik, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, Anish Giri, | Photos: Macauley Peterson

7/10/2018 – The "Gideon Japhet Cup" ended in Jerusalem on Friday, July 6th. Grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi slipped into the lead in the double-round rapid tournament finishing ahead by a full point over four other protagonists with equally well-known names: Peter Svidler (Russia), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine), Boris Gelfand (Israel) and Georg Meier (Germany) finished with 5 points each. The Ukrainian Anna Muzychuk came sixth with 4.0 / 10. In the parallel open Arkadij Naiditsch won with 6.0 / 7 in front of five players with 5½ points respectively. | Pictured: Gelfand and Ivanchuk relax after the tournament | Photo: Ritvo Photography

7/5/2018 – Fierce chess battles at the Gideon Japhet Memorial rapid cup have led to the first place being up for grabs going into the last two rounds on Friday. Not only are Ian Nepomniachtchi and Georg Meier currently ahead by half a point, they face each other in the final two games! In the ACP Open group, Arkadij Naiditsch conceded his first draw but has 5½ out of 6 with one round to play, and is poised to win the tournament. | Photo: Ritvo Photography

6/6/2018 – Having taken sole lead in the seventh round, Dmitry Jakovenko inched slowly but steadily towards the towards the title. Securing short and safe draws against Vladislav Kovalev and Ian Nepomniachtchi in rounds eight and nine, he finished clear first with a score of 6½/9. In the interim, Vidit Gujrathi, Boris Gelfand and Victor Bologan also scored some fine wins. An illustrated report with games and analysis. | Photo: ruchess.ru

6/4/2018 – Only two players remain in contention for the title at the Karpov Poikovsky International: Dmitry Jakovenko and Ian Nepomniachtchi. Scoring back to back wins in the sixth and seventh rounds, Jakovenko emerged as the tournament's sole leader. Ian Nepomniachtchi, after his quick draw in round seven, is half-a-point behind with 5/7. Besides the two, Gelfand might have an outside chance of catching up for the first place if some results work in his favour. | Photo: Vasily Papin

6/1/2018 – Downfalls, comebacks, blunders and brilliancies, all was witnessed in the Siberian town of Poikovsky which is playing host to the Karpov Poikovsky International. Ian Nepomniachtchi had been leading the tournament for the most part but by the time the dust of the battles of round five had settled, he was not only joined by two co-leaders but had also suffered his first defeat of the tournament. Vidit Gujrathi also came very close to defeating Gelfand in the fifth round but the Israeli GM found a stunning stalemate tactic to save the day. A report on all the action at Poikovsky.

5/28/2018 – The Karpov Poikovsky tournament went off to a flying start on Sunday as a decisive game was witnessed on every board: Vidit Gujrathi won in Karpovian style in his very first appearance in Poikovsky; Emil Sutovsky ground down Vladislav Kovalev in an 80 move marathon; Ian Nepomniachtchi and Dmitry Jakovenko won after winning a pawn a piece out of the opening; while Anton Korobov crushed Fedoseev's dubious opening. Here's an illustrated report with analysis. | Pictured: Anatoly Karpov | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

3/6/2018 – 13 rounds of blitz is tiring. If you are not playing well you want to get over with it as soon as possible. But if you are winning like Sergey Karjakin was at the Tal Memorial Blitz 2018, you would want to keep playing forever! Sergey was in top-notch form as he mustered up 10.0/13 (+8,=4,-1) and finished 1½ points ahead of second-placed Nakamura. The American tried hard but couldn't keep up with Karjakin's pace. Third place was won by Ian Nepomniachtchi. We have the full coverage with interesting games, positions and lot of videos!

3/5/2018 – In memory of Mikhail Tal, the 11th Tal Memorial takes place in Moscow from March 2nd-4th, with a blitz tournament on March 5th. The venue is the Museum of Russian Impressionists in Moscow. Participants are Mamedyarov, Kramnik, Svidler, Nepomniachtchi, Anand, Dubov, Nakamura, Gelfand, Karjakin and Grishuk. Watch live with video updates and more from the venue by Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal

3/5/2018 – Chess is considered as a young man's game, but a 48-year-old gentleman from India is changing that perception! Vishy Anand seems to be on a mission - to win just about every rapid event that he plays. Gold at the World Rapid Championship 2017 was difficult, but winning the Tal Memorial Rapid was tougher. The field had some of the best rapid players on the globe and Vishy simply cruised to the finish line with 6.0/9, one point ahead of the rest. In this article we try to analyze the reason for his spectacular performance. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili