David R. Sands

Streaking makes a comeback with Magnus Carlsen’s epic chess run

Streaking is making a comeback. No, not the naked romps through public places, though the idea does sound tempting in this age of quarantine. We're talking competitive marks like Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak or Edwin Moses's nearly 10-year unbeaten streak in the 400-meter hurdles.

August 4, 2020

No generation gap at ‘Legends of Chess’ fight

The old guys are playing with some real youthful verve. The Chess24 Legends of Chess knockout tournament, which wraps up this week, is the last of four online rapid events being played this summer featuring world champion Magnus Carlsen and some other top players. The top finishers from the four events will compete next month in the Grand Final.

July 28, 2020

Sammy Reshevsky’s prodigious chess debut, 100 years ago

It was a century ago that a remarkable American chess career was launched. It was in late 1920 that a diminutive 8-year-old prodigy from Lodz, Poland, named Szmul Rzeszewski made the journey across the Atlantic with his parents.

July 21, 2020

Nothing minor in musicians’ love for chess

At the risk of getting that insanely catchy theme from "The Good, the Bad and The Ugly" stuck in your head again, we can't let the recent passing of Italian film composer Ennio Morricone go by without flagging his intense lifelong love affair with chess.

July 14, 2020

Conservative play nearly backfires for champ in chess final

They say in football that the only thing a "prevent defense" does is prevent you from winning. Sitting on an early lead by playing it safe is as hard to do on the chessboard as on the gridiron. The just-completed rapid online Chessable Masters had a familiar result -- Norwegian GM Magnus Carlsen won -- but the reigning world champ created all kinds of problems for himself trying to hold off Dutch rival GM Anish Giri with conservative play in the finale.

July 7, 2020

The World Open is shut down, but a few venture back to the chessboard

The logic is impeccable but no less melancholy for that: It's hard to hold a World Open when the whole world is closed.

June 30, 2020

There was more than a bind to Geza Maroczy’s chess brilliance

Even the greats can get pigeonholed. Hungarian star Geza Maroczy, born 150 years ago this year, was pegged early on as a defensive wizard who could grind out the wins but one who rarely trafficked in attacking brilliance. In fact, he's perhaps best remembered today for the "Maroczy bind," a dreaded pawn clamp on the center that slowly asphyxiates an unwary opponent.

June 23, 2020

Flimflam and the art of the swindle at the chessboard

For many American chess fans, the history of the chess swindle begins and ends with Frank Marshall. The longtime U.S. champ was famous for his uncanny ability to salvage lost games, bamboozling an overconfident opponent with tactical or psychological tricks.

June 16, 2020

Daniil Dubov wins Lindores Abbey chess tourney

Alvin Clarence "Titanic" Thompson, a fine golfer and an even more legendary hustler, was famed for running a con in which he would torture a poor mark on the golf course by winning several holes and keeping up an insulting line of patter as he did so.

June 9, 2020

Hikaru Nakamura knocks off Magnus Carlsen in knockout chess clash

World champion Magnus Carlsen, for the first time in the post-pandemic lockdown era, fell in the semifinals of the 16-player Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge last week to U.S. GM Hikaru Nakamura. Carlsen, who had won everything in sight since top-level chess migrated online with the coronavirus crisis, did not go down without a fight.

June 2, 2020

Peeling back the legend, Mir Sultan Khan remains an amazing chess story

The amazing chess career of Mir Sultan Khan becomes even more amazing once you get the facts right.

May 26, 2020

Wolf Trap scrubs entire summer concert series for first time in history

Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts said Friday it will go entirely dark this summer, canceling all concerts at its Vienna, Va., site for the first time in its nearly 50-year history.

May 22, 2020

A chess masterpiece that falters at the finish line

Can a work of art be truly great if it has a terrible ending? In chess, too, we search out games that feature brilliant conclusions, with fiery tactics or subtle positional concepts that provide a satisfying finale.

May 19, 2020

China nips U.S. in chess battle royale at Online Nations Cup

In yet more proof that real life is just a metaphor for chess, consider the FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup that ended Sunday.

May 13, 2020

Magnus Carlsen wins inaugural Magnus Carlsen Invitational, first chess event of the lockdown era

Soccer has been described as a sport in which two teams kick a ball around a field for 90 minutes and then Germany wins. Chess is facing a similar dynamic. It's a game in which great players clash over a 64-square battlefield and then Magnus Carlsen wins.

May 5, 2020

Canada bans AR-15s and similar weapons in wake of Nova Scotia shooting spree

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a sweeping nationwide ban on the use and selling of assault-style weapons Friday, acting aggressively in the wake of a killing spree last month in Nova Scotia that left the gunman and 22 people dead.

May 1, 2020

Anish Giri turns chess tables on Magnus Carlsen

Nobody in our quarantined, social distancing world knows what day it is anymore, but the "Any given Sunday" adage apparently still applies to online chess.

April 28, 2020

Top stars RSVP for Magnus Carlsen’s pop-up chess invitational

The world's elite chess players, whose training and competition schedules are often plotted a year or more in advance, are proving to be a surprisingly flexible lot facing the enforced idleness of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

April 21, 2020

Pompeo says China’s virus failings will hurt Huawei

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo predicted Friday that China's failures in dealing with the COVID-19 global pandemic that began within its borders will be a major factor as countries around the world weigh whether to use Chinese high-tech giant Huawei in their next-generation 5G national data networks.

April 17, 2020

Putin postpones giant WWII 75th anniversary celebrations in Red Square

Russian President Vladimir Putin, facing a surging number of COVID-19 cases across the country, said Thursday a planned massive Red Square celebration of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II would have to be postponed.

April 16, 2020