In the early rounds of the major international team tournaments, the top teams will play against nominally weaker teams in the middle of the seedings. However, it is important to get off to the best possible start in order to build up a good position for the next rounds and to build up spirit....
The grand opening of the 45th Chess Olympiad took place at the Dr. Jeno Koltai Sports Center in Budapest, bringing together thousands of people: players from 194 countries (an absolute record), team captains, FIDE Congress delegates, officials, tournament guests, and media. Here's a big report...
The biennial Chess Olympiad is the biggest team event in the chess calendar. This year, the 45th edition will take place in Budapest, the capital of Hungary, a city with a rich and longstanding chess tradition. Find here general information about the event: format, schedule, relevant regulations...
In an hour-long interview for New in Chess, Judit Polgar, the strongest female chess player of all time, spoke with Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam about a number of topics, focusing on the upcoming Chess Olympiad and the Global Chess Festival organised by her foundation. Polgar also discussed women's...
Today, Tuesday 10 September, at 18:00, the 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest will begin with the Opening Ceremony. To get in the mood for this Olympiad, it might be worth looking back at another Olympiad - the one held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1988. The English comedian, writer, actor and chess...
The Sicilian Taimanov is very popular with the top pros because of its great flexibility. For a while it was Karpov's main weapon against 1.e4 and Kasparov followed in his predecessor's footsteps. In two courses Robert Ris now presents a complete repertoire for Black based on the Taimanov. In the...
The Ciudad de Gáldar Open took place on 2-9 September in Gáldar, a Spanish town located on the Canary Islands near Las Palmas. Top seed Vignir Vatnar Stefansson from Iceland obtained outright victory after collecting 7½ points in the 9-round Swiss open. Thomas Beerdsen from the Netherlands and...
With a crushing 23½-7½ victory over Alireza Firouzja, Magnus Carlsen became the winner of the 2024 Speed Chess Championship. This is Carlsen's fourth SCC title, as only he and Hikaru Nakamura have ever won the tournament organised by chess.com. Carlsen outscored Firouzja in all 3 sections of the...
To celebrate its 100th anniversary, the SK Troisdorf in Germany came up with a very special tournament: a diving chess championship. 22 participants played five rounds Swiss under water. Watches were not needed as hardly anyone could think about their move for long. The winner was Oleg Parashenko...
ChessBase Magazine regularly focuses on a current top tournament and offers an exclusive review of the event with analyses from the participants. In the new issue #221, we take a look back at the Biel 2024 Chess Festival, which - among others - included two grandmaster tournaments in a triathlon...
The Women's Chess Olympiad will set a participation record this year with 184 teams registered. Teams like Liechtenstein, Guernsey and Grenada will make their debut. According to the average rating of their rosters, the top teams are India (2467), Georgia (2462), Poland (2422), China (2416), and...
Alireza Firouzja and Magnus Carlsen reached the final match of the Speed Chess Championship after obtaining clear victories over Hikaru Nakamura and Hans Niemann respectively. Firouzja's play was impressive and left Nakamura out of an SCC final for the first time in history, while Carlsen was...
The semifinals of the Speed Chess Championship are taking place on 6 September at Espot in Paris. In the first semi, Hikaru Nakamura faces Alireza Firouzja. Each match consists of 5-minute games (90 minutes), 3-minute games (60 minutes) and 1-minute games (30 minutes), all with 1-second...
Vladimir Tukmakov faced Viktor Korchnoi in the USSR Championship, 1970, and played a famously brilliant game, in the Nimzo-Indian, Bronstein variation. While the Black King tries to escape a devastating attack, Korchnoi still finds the time for counterattacks, and builds up some intense threats....
The new issue of ChessBase Magazine is bursting with interesting topics: Ju Wenjun's career and style of play is just one of them. The often interactive format also deals with fortresses, the principle of bad pieces, current tournament games, endgames and much more.
Ju Wenjun was among the 10 players who received invitations to participate in the main event of the Women's Speed Chess Championship. The tournament was a 16-player knockout tournament, also featuring participants who had prevailed in the qualification process. In the final, Ju faced Polina...
Musician and chess fan Jason Kouchak was inspired by the beautiful summer to write a chess song. Together with his friend Stephen Johnstone, he celebrates the anniversary of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Starlight Express' with a fast-paced game of chess and a skate ride, and looks forward to the...
The final stages of the Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship are taking place on 2-5 September. In the match for the title, women's world champion Ju Wenjun faces Polina Shuvalova in a confrontation consisting of 5-minute, 3-minute and 1-minute games. | Follow the action live starting at...
One hundred ninety-seven teams have registered for the open section of the 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest. With FIDE currently encompassing 201 national federations, the registration numbers fall short by just four federations. As is often the case, not every registered team will make it to...
Surya Shekhar Ganguly defeated Sam Shankland in their 8-game online match with the unique scoring system devised by Venceslav Rutar - which changes the scoring of draws into three categories based on the material disparity. Surya won the match by a 26-11 score, after grabbing 5 wins. Shankland...
Note that GM Giri is calling chess players athletes.
On Friday 6th September at 20:00 CEST in Paris an explosive duel that the chess world has been waiting for for weeks will begin: Hans Niemann will face Magnus Carlsen in the semi-finals of the chess.com Speedchess Championship. After his defeat against Niemann in the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, Carlsen...
In the final round of a Dutch tournament (in Waddingxveen 1979) World Champion Anatoly Karpov beat the second-placed GM Vlastimil Hort. But could the world-class Czech grandmaster have prevented this happening? This was the question we asked in our last Riddle. Today we provide you with the answer.
Ju Wenjun will face Kateryna Lagno in the second semifinal of the Women's Speed Chess Championship. Ju and Lagno knocked out Alice Lee and Valentina Gunina in Tuesday's quarterfinals, respectively. The women's world champion got a clear victory over Lee in the 5-minute and 3-minute sections,...
Ernst Cassirer was a prominent and important German philosopher, who was born 150 years ago on July 28, 1874, in Breslau. In 1919, he was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the newly founded University of Hamburg, but after the Nazis rose to power, Cassirer emigrated to England, where he...