by scribe | Mar 26, 2020 | 2020 world championship, current news, ruminations, tournaments
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...
by scribe | Mar 25, 2020 | 2020 world championship, Chess Lecture, current news, games, positions, tournaments
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...
by scribe | Mar 23, 2020 | 2020 world championship, current news, positions, ruminations, tournaments
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...
by scribe | Mar 22, 2020 | 2020 world championship, current news, games, positions, tournaments
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...
by scribe | Mar 19, 2020 | 2020 world championship, current news, openings, tournaments
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...
by scribe | Mar 18, 2020 | 2020 world championship, current news, games, tournaments
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...
by scribe | Mar 17, 2020 | 2020 world championship, current news, endings, games, positions, tournaments
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...
by scribe | Mar 15, 2020 | 2020 world championship, current news, people, ruminations, tournaments
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...
by scribe | Mar 11, 2020 | current news, off-topic, people, ruminations, tournaments
“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...
by scribe | Mar 4, 2020 | current news, PRO Chess League, tournaments
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...
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