8/9/2023 – The 2023 U.S. Open ran from July 29 to August 6 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It offered nine-day, six-day, and four-day schedules, which merged in round 7. The U.S. Open Champion is GM Andrew Tang. WIM Alexey Root attended meetings, visited the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, and interviewed the U.S. Open Champion (and the champ’s father). | Photo: Daniel Day / U.S. Chess Federation

7/8/2020 – This provoking title has some truth in it. Humanbenchmark.com specializes in measuring human brain abilities with games and cognitive tests. One of their exercises states that chimpanzees consistently outperform humans — the Chimpanzee Test. Interestingly enough, some games are strongly related to chess. For pattern recognition, the “Visual Memory Test” is helpful, while for online chess purposes the “Aim Trainer” might do the trick.

11/16/2019 – The 2nd Ivy League Chess Challenge was successfully held in Toronto, Canada from November 8th to 10th. With the tournament held over the course of three days, many exciting games were played, and numerous new friendships were made. QIYU ZHOU reports that this tournament is special because it is played by some of the top universities in the world! | Pictured: (L to R) Joseph Bellissimo, Sean Lei (current Treasurer of the Hart House Chess Club, and also played as a sub for one game on the team!), Mark Plotkin, arbiter Weiwen Leung, Advait Patel, and your author, Qiyu Zhou | Photo: Panagiotis Tsialas

4/15/2019 – Constantin Lupulescu beat Newcomer Alireza Firouzja in the 7th round of the Reykjavik Open with a very double-edged and topical variation in the French Defence and took a full point clear of the rest of the field with two rounds to play. Report on Round 7 plus live games and commentary of Round 8. | Photo: Fiona Steil-Antoni

4/9/2019 – In the Reykjavik Open a young Icelandic kid beat GM Andrew Tang with Black. IM Lawrence Trent shows you the game and what it can teach us about playing much higher rated opponents. Each week, Trent brings you the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments every Tuesday at 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST, 12 Noon EDT). Free to watch on-demand for a limited time with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.