David R. Sands

Opening a path to chess immortality

Winning a world championship is nice, but if you really want to enhance your brand in chess, invent an opening.

July 2, 2019

Aleksandra Goryachkina, a dark horse, gallops to win in women’s chess candidates

If you overlook her Under-10, Under-14 and Under-18 girls' world championships, her two world junior girls' titles and her two Russian women's championship belts, there was no way one would have predicted 20-year-old GM Aleksandra Goryachkina's stunning result in this month's women's candidates' tournament in Kazan, Russia.

June 25, 2019

Iranian commander: Could have shot down manned U.S. plane if we wanted to

A top commander of the hard-line Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps said Friday that his forces could have shot down a U.S. Navy P8 plane with 35 people of board on the same day it downed an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone, but "refrained" from doing so to send a message to Washington.

June 21, 2019

Chess: This Cherry Blossom Classic was a pip

The annual Cherry Blossom Classic last month attracted perhaps the strongest field in its seven-year history.

June 11, 2019

South Korea poll shows falling support for diplomatic outreach to Pyongyang

The number of South Koreans supporting President Moon Jae-in's diplomatic engagement with North Korea has fallen markedly as two summits between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have yet to deliver a major breakthrough, a new poll found Friday.

June 7, 2019

Fierce fighting in tournament to challenge for women’s chess crown

For the second week in a row, we're going to focus on the women. and the Middle East. Today, we move to the Big Girls' Table, where eight of the world's strongest female grandmasters are battling it out this month for the right to challenge Chinese women's world champ GM Ju Wenjun later this year.

June 4, 2019

Shinzo Abe, Japan PM, to head to Iran after Trump summit: Report

Fresh off of hosting President Trump in Tokyo late last month, Japanese Prime Minister ShinzoAbe is planning a three-day trip to U.S. arch-foe Iran next week, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper reported Monday.

June 3, 2019

Netanyahu to face new election after failing to form coalition

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces the prospect of facing a national vote for the second time in a year after his efforts to create a new governing coalition broke down Thursday amid feuding by his right-wing negotiating partners.

May 29, 2019

China amps up threat to curb rare earth exports in U.S. trade clash

Chinese officials have made their most explicit threat to date that they are willing to use their near-monopoly on so-called "rare earth" minerals to force President Trump to back off on his trade war with Beijing.

May 28, 2019

The women’s chess game thrives in unlikely climes

Why chess is such a male-dominated pastime and why more women do not play the world's greatest game are two rabbit holes we haven't the inclination or the space to go down here.

May 28, 2019

Official Iranian inflation rate hits 34 percent for last 12 months

Iran's official inflation rate for the 12 months ending in mid-May reached 34.2 percent, another sign that President Trump's pressure campaign on Tehran is having a major impact on the economy.

May 22, 2019

Magnus Carlsen’s hot chess play ranks with the game’s great streaks

Magnus Carlsen is on a roll. The world's best player is also the world's hottest player, as the Norwegian world champ has run up a spectacular string of top-flight wins this spring, including four straight first-place finishes -- Tata Steel, Shamkir, Grenke and, last week, the rapid/blitz Grand Chess Tour event in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

May 21, 2019

Canada claims victory in U.S. trade clash over tariffs

Canadian political and business leaders claimed victory Friday after President Trump announced the U.S. will roll back hefty year-old tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from its NAFTA partners Canada and Mexico.

May 17, 2019

Chess a tough game for tough times in Venezuela, Syria

Just last month, two countries facing some pretty challenging times -- Syria and Venezuela -- managed not only to hold their national chess title tournaments but to produce some intriguing, dynamic games in the process.

May 15, 2019

Putin’s Crimea adventure proves economic loser

Russian President Vladimir Putin's annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 is proving a loser for the Russian economy, costing at least $30 billion annually in lost business, subsidies and a worsening investment climate, a top analyst said Monday.

May 13, 2019

Fifty-plus is the new No. 1 as U.S. captures senior chess team gold

Our oldies are goodies. Justifying their top seeding, the U.S. 50-and-over squad took clear first in last month's World Senior Teams Championship in Rhodes, Greece. The team won eight of nine matches in the 26-team competition, conceding only one drawn match with Iceland.

May 7, 2019

FIDE’s (latest) updated chess title match rules — there’s a lot to like

For such a supposedly cerebral, analytical game, chess has had the darnedest time over the centuries trying to figure out one basic question: Who's the best player in the world?

April 30, 2019

Maduro denounces ‘coup’ in Venezuela, claims military support

Venezuela's socialist President Nicolas Maduro claimed Tuesday the country's military is sticking with him and vowed to crush what he called a coup attempt by U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido.

April 30, 2019

Vladimir Putin to go stag to World War II celebration as no foreign leader coming

Russia said Monday that none of President Vladimir Putin's peers will be on hand for this year's Victory Day celebration marking the Soviet Union's part in the victory over Nazi Germany.

April 29, 2019

Chessgate debunked: Mueller finds no collusion in Trump-FIDE ‘ties’

Talk about burying the lede -- or at least the footnote. The "mainstream media" may be afraid to report it, but we can reliably pass on here that chess played a major cameo role in special counsel Robert Mueller's magisterial/hopelessly biased report/witch hunt into the Trump-Russiagate scandal/hoax. (Hey, chessplayers watch both Fox and MSNBC.)

April 23, 2019