David R. Sands

Chess: ‘Pragg’ impresses in Prague ahead of Candidates’ battles

The men's and women's Candidates tournaments -- after a few dicey visa issues for the Russian and Indian entrants -- are set to begin less than a month from today in Toronto. At stake when the clocks start April 3 are the rights to challenge Chinese world champion Ding Liren and Chinese women's world champ Ju Wenjun later this year.

March 12, 2024

Gligoric Trophy winners display the sporting side of chess

FIDE, the international chess federation, has created the Svetozar Gligoric Prize in honor of the late, great Yugoslavian grandmaster, awarded annually to the player who "who displays exemplary behavior promoting the spirit of fair play and sportsmanship in chess." It's a useful corrective to the stereotype that chess is a game played by unhinged personalities who would sell their mother for a promising kingside attack.

March 5, 2024

Cuba accuses U.S. of inventing spy threat with ex-envoy’s guilty plea

Cuba's foreign minister is accusing the U.S. government of manufacturing an espionage threat in order to justify higher intelligence budgets and "new aggressive steps" against other countries -- just hours after a retired U.S. diplomat agreed to plead guilty of spying for Havana over a long career in public and private service.

March 1, 2024

Hamas, Israel say Biden out of touch with premature cease-fire talk

President Biden has finally managed to unite Israel and Hamas on one point -- both sides say Mr. Biden's prediction of an imminent cease-fire and prisoner-swap deal is wildly optimistic and out of touch with the realities on the ground.

February 27, 2024

In the world of team chess, the East is a beast

As the politicians will tell you this election year, support is nice, but it's turnout that's critical. By that score, this year's U.S. Amateur Team East championship, held again in its familiar Parsippany, New Jersey, home, surpassed even its own high standards.

February 27, 2024

Remembering when the Rooks raged and a chess barrier came down

It might have been the biggest U.S. chess story in the mainstream press since Bobby Fischer's world championship win two decades earlier, and a good one to recall as we mark Black History Month.

February 20, 2024

Outmanned and outgunned, Ukraine retreats from key town on front lines

Russian military officials say they have established near-total control of the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka after an intense and lengthy battle, pushing Ukrainian forces back several miles along what had long been a frozen front line.

February 18, 2024

Alexei Navalny, the fiercest foe of Russia’s Putin, has died, Russian authorities say

Russia's official press has confirmed that Alexei Navalny, the country's best-known dissident and a caustic critic of President Vladimir Putin, had died while serving a sentence at a Siberian penal colony.

February 16, 2024

Russia dismisses ‘unfounded’ Hill speculation over space threat

The Russia "space threat" that has consumed Congress and the Biden White House over the past two days is just a clever ploy to get more money for the Pentagon, the Kremlin's top spokesman told reporters Thursday.

February 15, 2024

A chess bicentennial: Remembering when the Londoners got Scotched

We're big on anniversaries here as a good excuse for a column, but this is the first bicentennial we've had the opportunity to celebrate. Exactly 200 years ago, the Edinburgh Chess Club, formed two years earlier, cheekily challenged the far more established London Chess Club to a correspondence match, with moves transported between the cities by horse and carriage.

February 13, 2024

An expansive Walesa reflects on Ukraine, traffic laws and the new world order

Lech Walesa turned 80 a few months ago and has a few things to get off his chest.

February 11, 2024

Putin: Ukrainian coup put country on collision course with Russia years before invasion

A Ukrainian "coup" in 2015 that ousted the country's pro-Moscow president put Russian and Ukraine on the path to war, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a much-touted interview with conservative pundit Tucker Carlson released Thursday.

February 8, 2024

In Israel, making time for chess in a time of troubles

Chess can be a finicky, demanding pastime, but the game has also proven surprisingly hardy in tough times.

February 6, 2024

Russia joins Iran allies in condemning U.S. airstrikes, warns of escalation

The government of Russian President Vladimir Putin joined with a collection of Iran-allied forces across the Middle East Saturday in denouncing President Biden's decision to target anti-U.S. militia groups in Iraq and Syria with a string of airstrikes.

February 3, 2024

Iraqi military protests U.S. retaliatory strikes targeting militias

Iraq's military sharply criticized the barrage of U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria Friday as a violation of the country's sovereignty, putting further strains on the relationship between Baghdad and Washington.

February 2, 2024

Wei emerges as winner after wild finish at Tata premier chess event

They were racing four-wide around the final turn, and no one was taking his foot off the gas. A chess tournament does not usually draw comparisons to NASCAR, but the wild finish at the just-completed Tata Steel Masters Tournament in the Dutch seaside town of Wijk aan Zee made for one of the most memorable outings in the event's storied 85-year history, featuring a satisfyingly high number of decisive games and an unexpected champion.

January 30, 2024