Reality Intervenes (Candidates Postponed)

March 26, 2020

This morning FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich announced that he was suspending the 2020 Candidates Tournament, which had just reached the halfway mark. As most or all of my readers probably know already, this was the tournament to select a challenger to Magnus Carlsen for the world title. It’s been going on for the last two […]

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Halfway! (Candidates, Round 7)

March 25, 2020

The only significant sports event in the world got a little bit more interesting today! In the seventh round of the 2020 FIDE Candidates tournament, the two leaders faced off against each other, and chess fans were rewarded with an exciting and decisive game. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi to catch up with the latter […]

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It’s All About Nepo Now (Candidates, Round 6)

March 23, 2020

It was a good news, bad news kind of day for Ian Nepomniachtchi and for chess fans everywhere. On one hand, he won his second straight game and put more distance between himself and his pursuers. He beat Ding Liren in a very solid Ruy Lopez where Ding’s position just spiraled downhill. This gives Nepo […]

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One Chessboard, Two Games (Candidates, Round 5)

March 22, 2020

The big story in round 5 of the FIDE Candidates Tournament is that we have a single leader for the first time. In a matchup of two of the leaders, Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia and Wang Hao of China, Nepo took advantage of a subtle mistake by Wang and won. It was an impressive game […]

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Caruana Comes a Cropper (Candidates, Day 3)

March 19, 2020

The Candidates Tournament hit the “reset” button today as a result of Fabiano Caruana’s unexpected loss to Ding Liren. Caruana, at 1.5 points in 2 rounds, was tied for first; Ding, with 0 points in 2 rounds, was alone in last place. But all of that changed over the course of three dramatic hours. The […]

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Four-Way Tie (Candidates, Round 2)

March 18, 2020

I wrote in yesterday’s post that Fabiano Caruana should be very pleased with the results of round one of the FIDE Candidates Tournament, which will determine who will challenge Magnus Carlsen for the world chess championship later this year. If so, he should be even happier today. Caruana scored his first win in convincing fashion […]

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Newbies Rule! (2020 Candidates Tournament Day 1)

March 17, 2020

This year’s Candidates Tournament, which will select the next challenger to Magnus Carlsen for the World Chess Championship, started with a bang. Although some might argue that it was unwise for FIDE and the Russian Chess Federation to proceed with the tournament in spite of the COVID-19 epidemic, what’s done is done. Here we are, […]

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Caruana-virus Comes to Russia?

March 15, 2020

For anyone with even a passing interest in sports, this is a pretty weird time. You open the sports page of the newspaper… and there are no games. NBA, NHL, golf, soccer, … all canceled. Which makes this an even more remarkable time for chess fans, because we are practically the only sport whose signature […]

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Chess and Coronavirus

March 11, 2020

“Without a plan, you are lost.” This is something that my college Russian teacher (who was also a chess player) once told me. He was a spy during World War II, and he said that once he was on a train when the police came on and started checking people’s documents. He proceeded to explain […]

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No More Magic for California Unicorns

March 4, 2020

This week the playoffs got started in the PRO Chess League. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, the California Unicorns had a strong finish to the regular season and just barely sneaked past the New York Marshalls for third place in the Western Division. Ordinarily you would think that this might give the Unicorns […]

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