Why do we play chess at all? Why bother? Today is an exceptionally good day to ask yourself that question. You'll probably answer: ' Because I like it!' Well, yes, but that was not the kind of 'why' I meant. Why do people have sex? Because they li...
A brief note that had been on the FIDE website for a few days was followed by an official press release by UEP today: Universal Event Promotion, who were responsible for the Anand-Kramnik World Championship match in October last year, have made an...
UEP are Universal Event Promotions, the organisation behind last year's highly successful World Chess Championship match between Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik. Following FIDE's opening up of the new WCC cycle to bidders, they are the first, an...
25, 26 and 27 February in Turin (Torino - Italy) there will be an international conference on Chess in School. The opening ceremony will be attended by FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and among the speakers there will be many GMs and representat...
After a brief lull following the Corus tournament in Wijk Aan Zee in the Netherlands, chess fans face an embarrassment of riches next week as not one, not two, but THREE major events start at pretty much the same time. One of the biggest and stro...
Many chess exercises focus on improving your tactical awareness by recognizing patterns.There is, however, a book on the market which does something entirely different. The title of this book gives little clue to what's it about: Chess Mazes.I can...
In one week from now the first game of the Challenger's Match between Gata Kamsky (USA) and Veselin Topalov (BUL) is scheduled. The match, officially called "World Chess Challenge Sofia 2009", has a prize find of US $250,000 which will be shared e...
Julio Becerra is the #6 ranked active player in the U.S. and hungry to become #5.Julio grew up in Cuba, where he did not learn chess until the ripe age of 13. He fell in love with the game immediately and, playing constantly, made up for the lost ...
Time flies. It's been a week already since this year's Corus Chess Tournament has finished, with a clear victory for youngsters in all three Grandmaster Groups: Sergei Karjakin, Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So. We'll be looking back once more to thi...
With a ten-move draw against Sergei Tiviakov, American grandmaster Alexander Onischuk won the Moscow Open today. He finished at 7.5/9, ahead of Tiviakov, Inarkiev, Nepomniachtchi, Korotylev and Iordachescu who all collected 7 points. Natalia Pogon...
John Watson is one of the best chess authors around. Currently, he's writing a series of high-quality opening books, focussing (as always) on understanding and framing the opening in its proper context. I will take a look at the latest volume in h...
Every Saturday we present you an endgame study selected by IM Yochanan Afek: player, trainer, endgame study composer and writer. A week later the solution is published. Good luck solving!Y. Bazlov 1994 White to play and win Next week the soluti...
One of chess.com's big plans for the year 2009 is to bring top players into our community, to further improve the quality of our learning materials, and to provide inspiration to all of us pursuing excellence (within the royal game and without). T...
Peter Svidler has won the Masters section of the 7th Gibtelecom Chess Festival by beating Vadim Milov 2-0 in the playoff. The two had finished on 8/10, ahead of Gashimov, Nakamura, Berg and Akobian who scored 7.5 points. Final report with lots of ...
The Pearl Spring Chess Tournament of Nanjing (China) has joined the Grand Slam 2009 next to Corus (Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands), Ciudad de Linares (Spain), Mtel Masters (Sofia, Bulgaria) and the Masters Final (Bilbao, Spain). Representatives fro...
I feel compelled to write today about the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. I'm going to break form though and start with the ugly and end with the good! The Bad Sometimes things are outside of our control. There are weeks where everything on Chess...
Peter Svidler (pictured) has won the 7th Gibtelecom Masters, beating Vadim Milov in a tie-break decider. Svidler defeated Harikrishna in the last round and Milov overcame Avrukh with the black pieces, to take the competition into rapid (10 mins p...
Ex-World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov beat eight Basque players in a blindfold simultaneous chess exhibition that took place during the annual chess tournament organized by Eire tavern, in Gipuzkoa, Spain. Despite being totally unexperienced in this...
ChessVibes Openings #5 is out! Our latest issue of ChessVibes Openings focuses on the most important opening developments from the Corus Chess Tournament, Gibraltar and the Bundesliga, covering the Ruy Lopez Archangelsk Variation, the Sicilian Naj...
Professional chess players need to be true globetrotters to earn their keep, travelling to all parts of the world in search of the next pay-day. The Gibraltar Chess Festival, sponsored by the local telecoms provider Gibtelecom, was inaugurated in...
All successful chess players are alike; every unsuccesful chess player is unsuccessful in his own way. I was eight years old and I was excited as any eight-year-old can be. My excitement was caused not by chess, but by the arrival of a book I had ...
New In Chess 2009/1 is brand new and full of interesting stuff:-- Vladimir Kramnik: My side of the story -- exclusive annotations by Topalov, Kamsky, Aronian, Grischuk, Radjabov, Bu Xiangzhi, Gashimov, Petrosian, and many others -- Chrilly Donning...
In the first round he escaped with a draw against a much weaker opponent, but after seven games Vugar Gashimov is leading the 7th Gibtelecom Chess Festival with six points. Seven follow with 5.5 points, including Peter Svidler and Alexander Beliav...
FIDE's Grand Prix series should have been a good idea; a series of tournaments featuring the world's top players to select a challenger for the World Championship. However, changes to the rules and subsequent withdrawals by players and organisers...
