David R. Sands

Iran’s loss is America’s gain in Dorsa Derakhshani’s headscarf fight

Chess is a global game, and top players deciding to switch their national federation is not uncommon. At least six of the top-rated players in the U.S., including No. 1 GM Fabiano Caruana (Italy) and No. 2 GM Wesley So (Philippines), once competed under a flag other than the Stars and Stripes.

October 24, 2017

35th Anniversary: Creating ‘America’s Newspaper’

Starting a newspaper "is worth doing, and we make our first public appearance with a heady sense that we can do it. Our confidence rests in part on the zest and skills of the staff we have recruited. Just as importantly, it rests on the need we find expressed all over Washington for a new perspective on local, national and world events."

October 19, 2017

Donald Trump says world is adjusting to his leadership

President Trump acknowledged Tuesday that some countries were "a little bit nervous" when he took office, but they are now accepting his leadership in foreign affairs.

October 17, 2017

‘Father Bill’ Lombardy, Bobby Fischer’s great contemporary, dies at 79

He was the greatest chess-playing Catholic priest since Ruy Lopez but only the second-greatest player in his own hometown, but we still honor the legacy of GM William Lombardy, who passed away from a suspected heart attack last week at the age of 79.

October 17, 2017

James Tarjan, unretired, shines at Isle of Man event

Our story last week on ex-world champ Garry Kasparov coming briefly out of retirement this year got us to thinking about other players who took long "vacations" from the game only to come back and enjoy fresh success.

October 10, 2017

Garry Kasparov on the Hill to honor U.S. Chess Center

We start with a world exclusive today -- a brand new, unpublished Garry Kasparov game that no other column, website or blogger can offer. I say that with some certainty since I was the only one in the room writing down the moves.

October 3, 2017

James Harkins, Cleveland’s chess ‘Hawk,’ dies at the age of 87

Minerva, Kentucky-born Jackson Showalter was the "Kentucky Lion." Bostonians still raise a glass of Sam Adams to the memory of local-boy-made-good Harry Nelson Pillsbury. Chess fans in New Orleans honor the memory of Paul Morphy, the nation's first great player, and Jude Acers, a talented and colorful master still going strong taking on all challengers from his gazebo in the French Quarter at the age of 73.

September 26, 2017

Angling for a win — the chess player as fisherman

Google "chess and fishing" and you get, well, not a whole heckuva a lot. Both are nonaerobic activities that entail a lot of waiting around, but athletically inclined grandmasters tend to favor tennis or soccer. "Fish" was a term of derision for weaker players favored by Bobby Fischer and other players of his era. There is something called the "Fishing Pole Trap" in the Ruy Lopez that looks nothing like a fishing pole.

September 19, 2017

Top seeds continue to fall in FIDE’s World Cup chess cage matches

The biggest crapshoot in chess is living up to its reputation. The FIDE World Cup, a 128-player free-for-all where top grandmasters play two-game elimination matches, is the most unpredictable format in the game.

September 14, 2017

Timur Gareyev rebounds to rule the Atlantic in chess

Reader Ken Thomas was a little exercised over our characterization of how things went down at last month's 49th annual Atlantic Open in Crystal City, and I'd like to state for the record here no disrespect was intended.

September 6, 2017

Donald Trump retaliates by closing Russian diplomatic outposts in U.S.

The Trump administration ordered Russia to close diplomatic offices in San Francisco, New York and Washington in retaliation for Moscow throwing U.S. diplomats out of Russia, the State Department announced Thursday.

August 31, 2017

‘Swiss Gambit’ pays off for winners in local chess events

Strictly speaking, the Swiss Gambit is a rare offshoot of Bird's Opening (1. f4 f5 2. e4!?), but it's the other "Swiss Gambit" that has helped many a player to the winner's circle.

August 29, 2017

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave captures strong Sinquefield Cup in chess

VL was the MVP in St. Louis. With the best result of his career, French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave topped a world-class field to win the 5th Sinquefield Cup, with an undefeated score of 6-3 at the St. Louis Chess Club and Scholastic Center.

August 15, 2017

Virginia puts on a show as Alex Lenderman takes U.S. Open Chess Championship

The first U.S. Open to be held in Virginia in 20 years proved a well-run affair that produced a worthy chess champion. With wins in the last two rounds over 2016 Open champ GM Alex Shabalov and rising Texas junior star GM Li Ruifeng over the weekend, New York GM Alex Lenderman captured his third Open title (he was co-champ in 2009 and outright winner six years ago in Orlando) with an undefeated 8-1 score at the Sheraton Norfolk Waterside Hotel.

August 9, 2017

Natalia Veselnitskaya, Russian lawyer, gives her account of fateful Donald Trump Jr. meeting

The Russian lawyer whose June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and other top Trump campaign officials has become a prime focus of the Russian election collusion probe is denying the meeting involved Hillary Clinton or the U.S. campaign, adding the congressional probes into the scandal are not interested in hearing her side of the story.

August 4, 2017

Millennial meltdown: Young U.S. chess stars suffer beatdown

They won't be "liking" this on Facebook or boasting about it on Snapchat. We'll keep the fuddy-duddy jokes to a minimum, but there could be some real soul-searching after the disappointing performance of a team of top young American stars at the just-completed "Match of the Millennials" at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis.

August 1, 2017

Magnus Carlsen to play knockout; Awonder Liang a wonder in U.S. chess juniors

This could be fun. The news broke Monday that world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway has agreed to play in September's FIDE World Cup in Tbilisi, Georgia, the 128-player knockout scrum in which players must win two-game minimatches to advance.

July 25, 2017

Chess in Philly at the World Open — a July 4 tradition

What better way to celebrate the nation's birthday and show one's patriotic spirit than to stare at a chessboard deep into the evening in the ballroom of the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown hotel?

July 12, 2017

Raymond Tshibanda, Congo envoy, sees election hurdles

Congolese President Joseph Kabila wants to organize overdue elections to pick a successor by the end of the year, but outsiders should not underestimate the logistical hurdles the country faces in trying to secure a fair vote, a top adviser to Mr. Kabila said in an interview.

July 9, 2017

Daniel Yanofsky was a pioneer for chess in Canada

Happy Independence Day -- Canada! As America marked its 241st birthday Tuesday, our neighbors to the north are celebrated a much bigger milestone. It was the sesquicentennial of the founding of Canada, marking that memorable day on July 1, 1867, when (um, according to Wikipedia) the British Parliament voted to sweep the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario into the newly formed Dominion of Canada.

July 6, 2017