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

Preview: Biel International Chess Festival

On Saturday the 51st Biel Chess Festival begins, and it’s finally time to see Carlsen hit the field after his 2nd place in Norway Chess. Carlsen will play in the closed Accentus Grandmaster Tournament that highlights the festival. Carlsen have been fairly quite the last few months as he turned down the invitation to participate

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

Chess World Cup round 3 & 4

Again it’s time for a summary of the previous two rounds before the players today move on the quarterfinals of the Chess World Cup in Tbilisi. As expected the predictions in the last post bombed  ad the two rounds delivered plenty of upsets and controversies. Let’s take a look at the action in round 3

Sinquefield Cup – at the halfway point

The first five rounds are done and dusted and the players are moving on to the final four rounds of the Sinquefield Cup, the first of only two classical tournaments in this year’s Grand Chess Tour. Let’s take a quick look at the previous rounds, what’s up in the final match-ups, how the players  are

Preview Sinquefield Cup (Grand Chess Tour)

After two blitz & rapid tournaments in Europe, the Grand Chess Tour heads to Saint Louis for the first of two classical chess tournaments on the tour. After winning the two tournaments Magnus Carlsen is of course the clear favourite in the overall standings, but his last classical chess performance was the shaky Altibox Norway