David R. Sands

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

Online or in the mail, chess stays in the game

It's going to take more than a deadly global pandemic to shut down the game we love. While over-the-board tournaments may be on hold, there's still plenty of chess being played, whether by humans over the internet or by coronavirus-immune machines.

April 14, 2020

Trump offers to cut U.S. oil production on behalf of Mexico to reach deal to stabilize prices

President Trump offered to cut U.S. oil production Friday to "pick up some of the slack" for Mexico in an attempt to broker global production cuts by oil-producing nations to stabilize energy prices.

April 10, 2020

Larry Hogan, Maryland governor, declares Easter Bunny ‘essential worker’ despite statewide shutdown

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, saying he had some "reassuring news" for the children of his state, said he was designating the Easter Bunny as an "essential worker" who can still carry out his duties this weekend despite the statewide shutdown in the face of the coronavirus.

April 10, 2020

Europeans reach tentative coronavirus economic rescue deal after acrimonious week

European Union finance ministers have reached agreement on a tentative $590 billion deal to shore up economies across the continent devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, capping a week of sometimes bitter and divisive debate.

April 10, 2020

Saudis, Russians reach deal to ease oil price wars

Oil-producing nations, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, agreed Thursday to an unexpectedly large cut in global production, an effort to address a vast market oversupply spurred by the recent global economic turndown and end a nasty price war between Riyadh and Moscow.

April 9, 2020

Chess a casualty and a consolation in time of coronavirus lockdown

The chess world has not been spared from the ravages of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

April 7, 2020

Chess officials (finally) shut down ill-fated Candidates tourney

Savor this column. It may be the last choice morsel of over-the-board chess greatness we get for a while.

March 31, 2020

Chess title qualifier tournament shut down at midpoint

Bowing to the inevitable, world chess officials on Thursday suspended play halfway through the elite tournament meant to pick a challenger to world chess champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway because of the mounting coronavirus crisis in host nation Russia.

March 26, 2020