Race to the FIDE Candidates 2020

In the autumn of 2020 Magnus Carlsen is again set to defend his World Chess Champion title, but for we get there, the chess world will need to find the next challengers. As usual this is done via a candidates tournament with 8 players playing in a double round robin tournament with the winner getting

FIDE Grand Prix Moscow – round 1

The first leg of this candidates cycle FIDE Grand Prix kicked off on Friday. Today (Sunday) the first tiebreaks begin, but out of 8 mini-matches just 2 return for the tiebreak day. Here’s a short recap of what has happened so far and my initial impressions. Round 1 – game 1 One big question going

Chess news: Carlsen, Kramnik & Artemiev

As both Tata Steel Chess 2019 and Gibraltar Chess Festival 2019 has finished it’s time for another little update on what has been happening in the world of chess. Tata Steel Chess: Carlsen get’s win no. 7 Heading into the final rounds Carlsen was already in the lead and was a big favourite to extend

PREVIEW: TATA STEEL CHESS 2019 (PART 3 OF 3)

In the final part of the 3-part preview of the upcoming Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee (January 12-27) we take a look at the top ranked players, a bit history and I try to make some predictions. Please check out part I and part II for the complete preview. History In it’s

Upcoming events in chess: U.S. Championship & Shamkir Chess

The top chess players continue having a busy schedule. Caruana  pulled  off an impressive win at Grenke Chess beating Carlsen and the rest of the field by a full point after 9 rounds. An extremely strong result after the grueling candidate tournament – can he keep that form up to November and  Carlsen is in 

Carlsen wins TATA STEEL Chess

The 80th edition of Tata Steel Chess ended on Sunday with Magnus Carlsen winning the playoff against Anish Giri. With that win Carlsen is off to a great start in 2018, a very important year with everything to play for in November when he again will have to defend his WC title. The event has

TATA STEEL Chess summary after 10 rounds

The final leg of the tournament begins after the Thursday’s rest day. Basically 5 players have still a legitimate shot at winning the tournament, but out in front three players are running very hot; Giri, Carlsen and Mamedyarov. Here’s a quick summary of the previous  two rounds before a look at what we can expect

Tata Steel Chess summary after 8 rounds

Things are heating up in Tata Steel Chess and going into the second rest day there are many games that  have drawn attention these previous rounds. As usual I’ll start with the Master Group before moving on the Challenger group, with a quick look at the games played,  the current standing and what to look

Tata Steel Chess – a quick summary after 5 rounds

We’re five rounds into the 80th edition of Tata Steel Chess, but we’re not even half-way through the tournament. Let’s  take a quick look  on how the tournament  is shaping up, both for the Masters and Challengers group. THE MASTERS GROUP After five rounds most of the players are still fairly closely bunched together. Three

Preview Tata Steel Chess 2018

2018 starts with one of the highlights  of  anyone’s chess calendar, namely the 80th edition of Tata Steel Chess. Besides being one of the the tournaments with the longest history, it’s a13 round-robin format is pretty unique among the top tournaments. It’s also well-known to get some of the biggest stars (Magnus Carslen is playing