11/8/2018 – Such a strong open with such a unique final result (husband and wife winning, with the main prize decided on Armageddon) deserves a second look. Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Alina Kashlinskaya won the event, but there were so many side-stories that it is hard to cover all of it in daily reports. ALINA l'AMI brings us a behind-the-scenes look into one of the most exciting tournaments of the year. Luckily, a laptop mishap only delayed but did not prevent her from filing her (semi-traditional) photo retrospective. | Photos: Alina l'Ami

10/28/2018 – The next major event on the chess calendar is the Chess.com Isle of Man International which runs from October 20th to 28th and includes ten players from the top 20 and a number of other players over 2700. Live games and commentary from 14:00 CET (12:00 UT) each day. Also this week are the Hoogeveen matches in Holland with three more members of the top 30 in action. | Photo: Chess.com/Maria Emelianova (official site)

10/15/2017 – We look back at IoM one more time, focusing on the many Indian players who performed admirably, first and foremost, Vishy Anand for his second place finish, scoring 7.0 / 9. The second was Vidit Gujrathi, who had a very solid +4 performance. However, his biggest achievement of the event was surely holding Magnus Carlsen to a draw. And the third, rather lesser known, was GM Swapnil Dhopade, with a rating of 2532, but who performed at an Elo of 2768. We got in touch with all the three high performers and try to understand the secrets of their success. Photos: | Alina l'Ami (Anand), Chess.com/Maria Emelianova (Vidit and Swapnil)

10/10/2017 – 13 o'clock Saturday afternoon in the sweeping bay of Douglas, Isle of Man. The out of sorts wind and nagging rain make sure one hurries indoors, into the snug haven of Villa Marina. Excited in anticipation, the chess crowd keeps on chirping and chatting and glancing at the swinging doors. A chilled Viswanathan Anand walks in, and relaxed Fabiano Caruana, a determined, frowning Hikaru Nakamura, Vladimir Kramnik, intimidating and imposing, and then there's Carlsen...Alina l'Ami retells the story of Isle of Man in pictures.

10/2/2017 – It was a much awaited return to form for Magnus Carlsen, who dominated the Chess.com Isle of Man Open from start to finish, defeating his nearest challengers one after the other. His final game against Hikaru Nakamura was expected to be a quick draw, and it was. Among the challengers who might join Nakamura for a share of second was none other than Vishy Anand who played a superb game to beat Hou Yifan in the last round. | Photo: John Saunders

10/1/2017 – Magnus Carlsen has only one obstacle between him and his first tournament victory in over a year: Hikaru Nakamura. Carlsen's a clear favourite with white and a half point edge in Isle of Man. His eighth round win over Caruana, with the black pieces was extremely impressive, and he has only lost a classical game to Nakamura (with any colour) once (in Bilbao, 2016)! Hou Yifan, since taking a bye in round 5 has one three in a row and faces Anand on board 2! Watch games from the ninth and final round live... | Photos: Alina l'Ami

10/1/2017 – It was a much awaited clash, as Magnus Carlsen faced Fabiano Caruana in round eight of the Chess.com Isle of Man Open on the top board. Caruana unleashed the novelty, but then got cold feet and was soon swept away by the Carlsen tsunami. Hikaru Nakamura dispatched Emil Sutovsky and set up a final duel with the World Champion for gold. Hou Yifan scored her third straight win over GMs and is now tied for third. | Photo: Chess.com / Maria Emelianova

9/30/2017 – With so many great players, it is little wonder the tournament has had so many great clashes, and rounds six and seven were that in the spades. The sole leader is now Magnus Carlsen, after smashing Pavel Eljanov in round six, but only by the thinnest of margins, and will meet Fabiano Caruana in round eight. After Hou Yifan returned to action, she scored two convincing wins. Enjoy this report plush with GM analysis and great photos! | Analysis: Elshan Moradiabadi; Photo: Chess.com / Maria Emelianova

9/28/2017 – Thursday at 8pm UK time Daniel King will go on air on playchess.com. You can watch the episode live for free. Daniel King will focus on the Chess.com Isle of Man International which is going on right now. Danny will take a look at Magnus Carlsen's games. Puzzle and the live video...

9/28/2017 – Through rain and snow.. or in this case controversy or duress, the competition proceeded, with few big surprises. Magnus Carlsen overcame Granda Zuniga as expected, and Fabiano Caruana also scored well. Meeting Carlsen next will be Pavel Eljanov, who defeated Rustam Kasimdzhanov and is the only other player with 4½/5. | Photo: Maria Emelianova / Chess.com

9/28/2017 – There is a bit of déjà vu in the current controversy surrounding Hou Yifan's pairings Isle of Man. Readers will recall how Hou resigned her last round game in the Tradewise Gibraltar Masters after just five moves to protest what she felt had been manipulated pairings against women in seven out of nine rounds. Four rounds paired against women in the Chess.com Isle of Man International, was unnerving enough to lead her to take a fifth round bye. To set everyone's mind at ease, we investigated and share the results. | Photo: John Saunders, Gibraltar 2017

9/27/2017 – Since round four ended with the four leaders drawing their respective games, now seven share first with 3.5/4, from Magnus Carlsen to Alexander Lenderman. Hou Yifan, who faced her fourth consecutive female opponent, requested a half point bye in round 5, but contrary to rumour has no intention to withdraw for now. | Analysis by GM Elshan Moradiabadi; Photo: Alina L'Ami

9/26/2017 – James Tarjan is 65 years old and has an Elo rating of 2412, but he was clearly the story of the day at the Chess.com Isle of Man International after beating Vladimir Kramnik in round 3. While the former World Champion stumbled, the current one, Magnus Carlsen, remained in charge. He won against World Junior Champion Jeffrey Xiong and is now tied on a perfect 3.0 / 3 together with three other players. Annotations by GM Tiger Hillarp-Persson | Lead Photo: Chess.com / Maria Emelianova | Other photos: Alina l'Ami

9/24/2017 – Right on the heels of the World Cup, which is now in the Finals, is the Chess.com Isle of Man International bringing a very impressive lineup with several of the world’s best, including Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, and more. Innovating from the Swiss pairings, the organisers decided that the first round would be entirely random, and this led to some very surprising round one match-ups. Report with analysis by GM Tiger Hillarp-Persson. | Photo: John Saunders

10/25/2016 – Observing the top players, our intrepid photographer/report/player Alina L'Ami began to ponder how it was they managed to deal with the stress of performing at the highest level and manage the great stress this can put on the players. After all, it is a constant fight to play as well as possible and bring home the bacon. How do they do it? These were some of the questions asked and speculated upon in this photographic essay with games and positions.

10/22/2016 – The recently finished Isle of Man tournament was one more piece of evidence of how much the professional chess landscape has changed. No longer can one describe Opens as events a top player will shun, and the Isle of Man was one of those 'super' opens where one might find the world's elite playing just a table or two away, toiling at the board no different than the rest of us. Bringing us this retrospective is Alina L'Ami with her photos and comments.

10/10/2016 – Two words really summarize the last round of the Isle of Man International: brilliancies and tragedies, and there were plenty of both to go around. Pavel Eljanov concluded his brilliant campaign with a final draw against Wesley So, securing first place. Fabiano Caruana managed to level with him after beating Michael Adams in a big game, but came second on tiebreak. Read the tales of joy and woe with GM analysis.

10/9/2016 – In the last round of the Isle of Man International 2016 world's youngest IM, R. Praggnanandhaa, was up against Axel Bachmann. The Paraguayan GM started with an offbeat opening that soon turned into an opposite side castling. The 11-year-old was on top of his game has he started playing with great energy and imagination, and the value of each move became very high in this sharp battle. That's when Bachmann went wrong and Praggnandhaa was all over the white king, scoring a win with the black pieces in 18 moves against a 2645 opponent!

10/9/2016 – In this report you will learn how grandmasters above 2700 Elo are able to make short draws which somehow we, normal players, are never able to! You will also see Shirov's attacking flair, Naiditisch's tactical acumen and last but not the least you will learn the technique of how to mate with a bishop and knight. Hou Yifan got that position and the reigning World Champion didn't face any problems! Sagar Shah tells you how it is done – in an important instructional video.

10/8/2016 – This was the 23rd encounter between them and it was the first time that the Indian emerged victorious! Yes, Harika Dronavalli was able to beat the reigning World Champion Hou Yifan at the seventh round of the Isle of Man International 2016. In another positive result for Indians, 18-year-old S.L.Narayanan crushed his Armenian opponent Sergei Movsesian in just 27 moves! Vidit Gujrathi lost on the top board against Pavel Eljanov when he overstretched in what was an equal position. Sagar Shah reports from an Indian perspective.

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.

10/6/2016 – Some days you have quiet rounds where the top seeds do their business without much fuss, most of them win with a few draws but the fifth round of the Isle of Man tournament saw a few big names have a real setback. Second seed Hikaru Nakamura, former world championship challenger Peter Leko and top Paraguayan GM Axel Bachmann were all defeated by lower-rated opponents in very sharp games. Report with games and test positions.

10/5/2016 – Alexei Shirov is famous for his wild tactical play and his intuitive sacrifices. However, in the top encounter of round four in the Isle of Man tournament he defeated the young and tremendously talented Indian Grandmaster Santosh Gujrathi Vidit with dry but strong technical chess to take the sole lead with 4.0/4. Half a point behind follow five players with 3.5/4 each. One of them is Wesley So who won with Black against Julio Granda Zuniga, showing very energetic play.

10/4/2016 – In a large open as strong as the Isle of Man, every round is a feast, every game a meal, with no shortage of exciting positions and exotic play. Round three saw many of the top players already facing stiff grandmaster competition with few of the lopsided pairings from the first two days. This led to some exciting bouts including hard fought draws at the top. Sharing his enthusiasm of all there was to see is Manuel Weeks, highlighting some of the best games with lots of quiz positions.