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David R. Sands

David R. Sands

dsands@washingtontimes.com

David R. Sands covered numerous beats, including international trade, banking, politics and Capitol Hill, and spent eight years on the foreign desk as senior diplomatic correspondent. He has authored The Times' weekly chess column since 1993.

Articles by David R. Sands

Ding-Carlsen after 41...Nd2.

Making the cut: Finalists shine in Chessable Masters knockout rounds

The two finalists may have done their best work just getting to the finals. Chinese No. 1 GM Ding Liren edged rising Indian star Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa in the finals of the online Chessable Masters 2022 rapid tournament, which featured a strong preliminary section followed by a series of rapid knockout matches.

May 31, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Russia's commissioner for entrepreneurs' rights, Boris Titov during their meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, May 26, 2022. (Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Russian foreign minister again denies reports of Putin illness

Russia's top diplomat has again been forced to address persistent reports in the West that President Vladimir Putin is suffering from an undisclosed illness, denying the 69-year-old Mr. Putin faces any serious health issues and accusing those who question his stamina and judgment of having ulterior motives.

May 30, 2022
Kaiser-Steinitz after 25. exd5.

A Rocky-like Philly chess brawl from the Romantic era

World champion visits Philadelphia. Sportingly agrees to a match with a local star. Gets clocked. It sounds like the plot of a "Rocky" movie, but I discovered Sylvester Stallone's screenplay eerily prefigured while perusing some 140-year-old chess columns from the Baltimore Sunday News.

May 24, 2022
This image from a video released by the Department of Defense shows U.S. Marines at Abbey Gate before a suicide bomber struck outside Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 26, 2021, in Kabul Afghanistan. A new report says decisions by Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan were the key factors in the collapse of that nation's military, leading to the Taliban takeover last year. (Department of Defense via AP, File)

Watchdog: U.S. pullout ‘most important factor’ in Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan

The pullout of American forces begun by President Trump and accelerated under President Biden was the "single most important factor" in the rapid collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan and the takeover of the country by the radical Islamist Taliban movement last summer, according to a new report by the chief U.S. watchdog over the failed 20-year American mission in Kabul.

May 18, 2022
Dardha-Salimova after 26. Nd3.

The mating game: Reaching a convincing conclusion

"'Shut up,' he explained." Novelist Ring Lardner's famed, unanswerable riposte has its analog in chess. Many amateurs can't fathom why a grandmaster would resign a game when he's down only a pawn with rooks, bishops and queens still on the board, even when a more experienced player can quickly see the hopelessness of the situation.

May 17, 2022
The Reverand Sun Myung Moon accepts an award from a special committee of clergy after he addressed The Inaugural Prayer Luncheon for Unity and Renewal at The Hyatt regency Hotel in Washington, DC, January 19, 2001. ( J.M. Eddins Jr. / The Washington Times )

Upstart newspaper proves skeptics wrong

If there is a signature image of the impact and influence The Washington Times has had over its four decades chronicling the city, the nation and the world, it came on the night of April 29, 1995, in a Washington ballroom packed with politicos, bureaucrats, journalists and celebrities.

May 16, 2022
Ukrainian servicemen squat during a patrol in a recently retaken village, north of Kharkiv, east Ukraine, Sunday, May 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)

Putin’s troubled war sees battlefield, diplomatic reverses

Russian President Vladimir Putin's nearly 3-month-old invasion of neighboring Ukraine suffered reverses on the battlefield and in the halls of power Sunday as long-neutral Finland said it would apply to join the NATO military alliance and neighboring Sweden signaled it wouldn't be far behind.

May 15, 2022
Magdalena Andersson, Prime Minister of Sweden, speaks during a joint Nordic press conference in Copenhagen on Wednesday, May 4, 2022. (Martin Sylvest/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)

Sweden takes big step toward bid for NATO

Sweden took a major step toward ending its longstanding policy of neutrality Sunday as the ruling Social Democratic Party said it now favored applying for membership in the NATO military alliance.

May 15, 2022
Finland's President Sauli Niinisto attends the press conference on Finland's security policy decisions at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, Sunday May 15, 2022. Finlands president and government have announced that the Nordic country intends to apply for membership in NATO, paving the way for the 30-member Western military alliance to expand amid Russias war in Ukraine. (Heikki Saukkomaa/Lehtiuva via AP)

Finnish leader holds his ground on NATO in talk with Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to ratchet up the pressure on Finland over its plans to apply for NATO membership, but Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said Russia's own actions were the reason Helsinki decided to change course.

May 15, 2022
Larsen-Fischer after 36...exf5.

Fischer was a model of sanity and realism — at the chessboard

Incredibly for those of us who were first drawn to the game by the excitement and spectacle of the time, this year marks the 50th anniversary -- a full half-century -- of Bobby Fischer's epic run to the world chess title, culminating in the on- and off-board drama of Bobby's defeat of star-crossed Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland.

May 10, 2022
Quesada Perez-Niemann after 43. Re2.

Channeling a champ at his own chess tournament

The great Cuban world champion Jose Raul Capablanca had a trademark touch that propelled some of his greatest victories -- the petite combinaison, the little tactical flourish designed not to mate a king or win a queen but to secure the tiniest of positional advantages such as control of a vital square or the trade of a bad bishop for a good knight.

May 3, 2022
French President Emmanuel Macron, left, greets German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during arrivals for an EU summit at the Chateau de Versailles, in Versailles, west of Paris, Thursday, March 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

Macron talks to Putin as Germany’s Scholz shuns trip to Kyiv

French President Emmanuel Macron held a two-hour telephone conversation Tuesday morning with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid reports the Kremlin could be ready to declare breakaway parts of eastern Ukraine as part of Russia's sovereign territory.

May 3, 2022
In this image released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office on Sunday, May 1, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, awards the Order of Princess Olga, the third grade, to U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. Pelosi, second in line to the presidency after the vice president, is the highest-ranking American leader to visit Ukraine since the start of the war, and her visit marks a major show of continuing support for the country's struggle against Russia.  (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

Battle for Mariupol back on after civilian convoy finally allowed out

Russian forces renewed their assault on the key Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on Sunday just hours after a convoy of civilian refugees was finally allowed to leave, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy greeted a U.S. congressional delegation headed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and accused the Kremlin of pursuing a "war of extermination."

May 1, 2022