12/17/2023 – Arjun Erigaisi scored his first win of the event against Alexandr Predke in the third round of the Chennai Grand Masters 2023. After losing the first round against Harikrishna, Arjun was virtually in a must-win situation to stay in the championship hunt and keep his chances in the FIDE Circuit. Predke made a positional mistake which allowed his opponent to force the queen exchange. Arjun made the most out of his opportunity to trail the leaders — Sanan Sjugirov and Harikrishna — by a half point at 1.5/3 along with Levon Aronian, Pavel Eljanov and D Gukesh. | Photos: Shahid Ahmed

12/15/2023 – The Chennai Grand Masters 2023 got off to a splendid start. Just when it seemed like the first round would end up being victorless, Pentala Harikrishna and Pavel Eljanov proved those predictions wrong. Arjun Erigaisi (Harikrishna’s opponent) made a significant mistake early in the game. It made him defend the better part of the battle. Eventually he missed his final opportunity to salvage a half point, which cost him the game. Parham Maghsoodloo (Eljanov’s opponent) made a huge blunder in a rook and two pawns endgame which was seemingly heading towards a draw. | All photos are by Shahid Ahmed unless specified otherwise.

12/30/2022 – Bundesliga season 22/23: Stars up close - Eljanov, Van Wely, McShane, Jones, Kasimdzhanov, Cheparinov, Meier and many others comment on games from the first rounds - "Special" on Mikhail Tal: exclusive collection of 21 commented games + contributions on strategy and endgame - "The Scotch Gambit": Daniel King presents another gambit idea: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Nf6 5. 0-0 (video) - "How to deal with opening surprises": Jan Markos continues his training series for tournament players (video + collection of exercises) - "Jumping across the centre line":over 50 tactics exercises + three selected combinations in video format with Oliver Reeh - Endgame good, all good: Karsten Mueller's new video series "Fundamental Endgame Knowledge" (Part 1: Rook vs. Pawn) – King’s Gambit: Take it easy! Sergey Grigoriants promotes 1. e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 Ne7!? - Gambit time in the French Advance Variation: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.Bd3 cxd4 7.0-0!? and much more.

7/25/2022 – Dmitrij Kollars, who only joined the tournament after Vladimir Kramnik had to withdraw due to Covid-related issues, was the surprise winner of the No-Castling World Masters. The 22-year-old beat Daniel Fridman in the final round to catch Vishy Anand atop the standings. Kollars was declared champion on tiebreak criteria, as he scored one more win than the Indian star. In the Deutschland Grand Prix, Pavel Eljanov defended his title by remarkably collecting 4½/6 points against a tough field. | Photos: Michelle Lassak

7/19/2021 – Thanks to a final-round win over Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Pavel Eljanov took clear first place at the Deutschland Grand Prix in Dortmund. The Ukrainian grandmaster had been in the sole lead until round 7, when he was beaten by Dmitrij Kollars. Kollars, who lost his penultimate game against Kasimdzhanov, finished in shared second place, together with Daniel Fridman.

12/11/2020 – The Spanish Chess Federation organized a training match in which five of the strongest players from the Iberian country faced an international squad over ten days in La Palma, one of the Canary Islands. The double-round Scheveningen tournament came to an end on Wednesday, with the international team getting a 27:23 victory. | Pictured: Ivan Cheparinov facing Jaime Santos | Photos: Spanish Chess Federation (FEDA)

7/3/2019 – Boris Gelfand turned in a strong second half in Netanya, and put himself in a tie for first with his victory in the eighth round against early-leader Luke McShane. Yesterday, a short draw against co-leader Leinier Dominguez was enough for him to win the tournament thanks to a better tiebreak score. Both finished with 5½ points. Mikhail Antipov won clear first in the Open with 7½/9. | Photos: Yoav Nisenbaum / imt.chess.org.il

6/25/2019 – The Netanya Chess Festival (June 23 to July 2) features a GM round-robin and an open. In the GM tournament, possibly the strongest tournament in Israel ever, five world-class grandmasters take on five Israeli GMs. The prize fund is $100,000, while in the open it is just under $50,000: Luke McShane started with two wins. Watch Round 3 LIVE! | Photos: Yoav Nisenbaum / imt.chess.org.il

3/20/2019 – The European Championship got underway in Skopje on Monday. The defending champion Ivan Saric is back — as the fifth seed — but Russian players are the top three Elo favourites. Being highly rated does not mean an easy time in a tournament like this, however, as Ukrainian GM Pavel Eljanov found out in round one. Two rounds in, 39 players still have a perfect score. | Photos: eicc2019.mk

10/23/2018 – Tuesdays at 18:00 CEST (5:00 pm UK time, Noon EDT) Lawrence Trent brings you the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments. The is streamed live, free for all, and will be available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders. This week Lawrence's focus is the ongoing Chess.com Isle of Man International.

3/8/2018 – Just two days in, already three rounds have already been played in Reykjavik. And only three players remain on a perfect score: Mustafa Yilmaz, Vaibhav Suri and Elshan Moradiabadi. Alina l'Ami, this time in front of the camera, started with two out of two but then lost to Moradiabadi. Gerd Densing reports. Game annotations by GM Daniel Fernandez | Pictured: Alina l'Ami | Photo: Gerd Densing

11/25/2017 – Levon Aronian survived the pressure from Hikaru Nakamura, making a draw that ensured him a share of first place. He was somewhat surprisingly joined by Dmitry Jakovenko, who beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with the black pieces. MVL was in a must win situation, so had to go for broke. All other games ended in draws including the remaining key game for the Candidates qualification: Teimour Radjabov vs. Richard Rapport. In the end Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Alexander Grischuk maintained their lead in the overall Grand Prix standings and secured the final two Candidates tournament spots.

10/24/2017 – Tuesdays at 5pm UK time Lawrence Trent goes on air on Playchess.com. In his show Lawrence Trent will be dealing with the latest trends, games and combinations from the elite chess tournaments. This week Ivanchuk vs. Wei Yi from the Hoogeveen Tournament was undoubtedly the star of the show.

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

9/5/2017 – Every evening at 9 pm CEST we offer you a round-up show of the games played at the World Cup in Tbilisi. Yesterday Daniel King showed the highlights and upsets of round 1.2. Who did qualify and who goes into the tiebreak? Have a look...

4/23/2017 – The opening salvo of rounds at the Gashimov Memorial have certainly been with their fair share of surprises. Winning his second straight game, this time against Pentala Harikrishna, Ukrainian Pavel Eljanov has taken the early lead in round two with a perfect 2.0/2. Still, the crowd-pleaser of the round was unquestionably Veselin Topalov's spectacular win over Radoslaw Wojtaszek with his trademark sacrifices to win a beautiful game. Analysis by GM Aleks Lenderman.

3/24/2017 – Six grandmasters will play in the rejuvenated Sigeman & Co. Tournament. With the arrival of the new partner TePe, the tournament changes its name to TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament. As in previous years, the tournament will be held at the Hipp Theater in Malmo and this year the dates will be 10-14th May at Malmo, Sweden. Meanwhile, can you guess the name of the grandmaster in our cover picture?

2/25/2017 – One interesting aspect of the FIDE Grand Prix in Sharjah has been some of the extreme opening preparation battles in which neither player shirked the opportunity to test the other. In round seven, two such examples that led to fascinating battles were Ding Liren vs Nakamura, as well as Salem vs Riazantsev. The latter saw Salem win that battle as he emerged with the lead and converted. The top standings are unchanged with two rounds to go. Full report with analysis by Alex Yermolinsky.

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.

4/28/2016 – In round seven Magnus Carlsen played against Vladimir Kramnik, one of his predecessors as World Champion. Carlsen seemed well prepared and won a fine strategic game in which he exploited Black's weak square f5 in textbook fashion. Levon Aronian used his space advantage to harass Black's king and to win with a mating attack. The three other games were drawn.

4/15/2016 – Wesley So won his game in 28 moves in the first round of the US Championships 2016 against Gata Kamsky. Was it some amazing bit of home preparation or poor opening play by Gata? After our analysis we have come to the conclusion that Kamsky was unprepared and would have fared much better if he would have had a look at ChessBase's DVD on the Breyer. Pavel Eljanov suggests two antidotes for Black which give the second player a fine position. High quality recommendations.

3/7/2016 – Pavel Eljanov is one of the world's best players and if you ask him what to play against 1.e4 he will have a clear answer: the Breyer Variation - which also happens to be a favorite of Magnus Carlsen. This line of the Spanish leads to interesting, rich and varied positions, in which understanding is crucial. On a ChessBase DVD Eljanov shares his insights.

11/17/2015 – How nice if one of the best players in the world explains an opening to you. Even nicer if it is a strategically rich opening that leads to interesting rich positions, and if it is an opening which you can play for a lifetime. Pavel Eljanov's DVD about the Ruy Lopez Breyer Variation offers all of this. Indian IM Narayanan Srinath felt inspired.

9/24/2015 – Pavel Eljanov's win against Hikaru Nakamura was the only decisive game of the first round of the quarterfinals in Baku. Now Eljanov needs only a draw in his second game with Nakamura to advance to the semifinals. With 8.0/9 from his classical games in Baku Eljanov is also close to a historical record. Daniel King takes a look at this crucial game.