American Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura defeated Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the London Chess Classic and Grand Chess Tour Final by the super-slim margin of 15-13 – the win of a single blitz game – after a nail-biting sequence of seven draws. After several rapid and blitz games where the difference between the two players hardly ever [...]

Gawain Jones on Monday ensured his victory in the British Knockout Championship with 2 Rapid wins over fellow English GM Luke McShane, taking him to an insurmountable 17-3 lead without any need for points in the Blitz portion of the match. In the first Rapid game, McShane – desperately needing a win to get back [...]

Accurate defensive play and good endgame technique once again featured in the second Classical Game of the London Chess Classic Final, with Hikaru Nakamura and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave drawing after 53 moves of an evenly-contested Ruy Lopez Berlin Wall variation. As in Game 1, Black demonstrated full equality in a well-trodden main line of the queenless [...]

Gawain Jones on Sunday stormed into a 6-point lead in the British Knockout Championship Final, dispatching Luke McShane with a neat combination starting with 25 Bxf7+ that left his fellow English GM a pawn down with a hopeless position. Out of an equal French Tarrasch, Jones as White banked on a well-placed central bishop to [...]

• France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and American Hikaru Nakamura split the honours in a keenly contested Main Line Grunfeld in Game 1 of the London Chess Classic Final, the concluding event of the Grand Chess Tour, which was played at the Olympia Conference Centre. • The result ratchets up the tension for Game 2, which will [...]

• Hikaru Nakamura and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave qualify for the London Chess Classic Final, the concluding event of the Grand Chess Tour, after a pulsating day of Rapid and Blitz, beating Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian, respectively. • Nakamura and MVL both take the lead in the Rapid games, then clinch their places in the Final [...]

• World Championship challenger Fabiano Caruana is held to a draw by Hikaru Nakamura in the first semi-final game of the London Chess Classic, the final leg of the Grand Chess Tour, despite coming close to a decisive kingside attack on multiple occasions. • The result leaves Caruana still just short of World Champion Magnus [...]

• England top 4 Mickey Adams, David Howell, Gawain Jones and Luke McShane all negotiate their way through a tough quarter-final stage to qualify for the British Knockout Championship semi-finals. • David Howell triumphs eventually over IM Ravi Haria in a rapid playoff, despite almost coming to grief in the first Classical game. • Semi-Finals [...]

• Gawain Jones becomes the first player in the British KO Quarter-Finals to pull ahead with a smooth victory in Game 1 over IM Alan Merry. • England No. 1 Mickey Adams is held to a draw by Simon Williams in a sharp Queen’s Gambit. • David Howell barely escapes defeat at the hands of [...]

The 28th Annual North American Open will be held from 26-30 December, 2018, at Bally’s Casino Resort, 3645 Las Vegas Blvd S, Las Vegas, Nevada. The event has 7 sections: Open, Under 2300, Under 2100, Under 1900, Under 1700, Under 1500 and Under 1250. The Open Section is a 5-day tournament (December 26-30) with FIDE [...]