David R. Sands

SANDS: Rematch point: Chess champions, challengers often meet again

Indian GM Viswanathan Anand's easy win in the FIDE Candidates Tournament that wrapped up late last month in Russia took many by surprise.

SANDS: Steady Anand earns rematch with Carlsen for world chess title

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you just might get another shot at being the world champion.

Anand earns rematch against Carlsen for chess title

SANDS: Anand in command as candidates tourney nears chess finale

The chess world may have written off the ex-champ a little too soon.

SANDS: Politics can make for some dicey chess pairings

With more than 170 member nations, the Paris-based chess federation FIDE is one of the largest sporting organizations in the world.

SANDS: A Rocky-like chess bout from the Romantic era

World champion visits Philadelphia. Sportingly agrees to a match with a local star. Gets clocked.

SANDS: Going old school: Big chess milestones for 2014

With the history of organized tournament play dating back to the mid-19th century, we're hitting some pretty significant milestones in the history of the game this year.

SANDS: If you knew Sochi like chess players knew Sochi

Sochi was on the chess players' map long before the lugers, ice dancers and speedskaters showed up.

SANDS: Chess champion Magnus Carlsen finally shows a little imperfection

He can be beaten. Norway's Magnus Carlsen claimed the world title in October without dropping a game in his 10-game match with India's Viswanathan Anand. In his first return to competitive play since then, he breezed through the first half of the Zurich Chess Classic that ended last week with three wins and two draws at classical time controls, against one of the strongest fields ever assembled.

SANDS: Carlsen, Aronian set the pace at Zurich Chess Challenge

The world's very best are squaring off at the Zurich Chess Challenge now underway in the Swiss city, with world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway showing no signs of coasting after capturing the crown in November. Carlsen and world No. 2 Levon Aronian of Armenia dominated the classical portion of the six-grandmaster event, which will feature a separate rapid round-robin event this week.

SANDS: Aronian dominates in Tata kickoff chess tournament

While new world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway was taking a Silicon Valley victory lap, GM Levon Aronian of Armenia was winning the first major tournament of 2014 and in the process making a strong statement that he might be Carlsen's most dangerous challenger in the candidates' cycle ahead.

SANDS: Smith, Huseynov share the chess honors at 40th Eastern Open

He finished alone in third, but Georgian-born New York GM Mikheil Kekelidze wasn't exactly given a warm welcome by the locals at last month's 40th Eastern Open, the traditional year-end giant Swiss event that moved from its longtime home in downtown Washington to the DoubleTree Hotel in suburban Bethesda.

SANDS: Grand milestone: Indispensable ‘Week in Chess’ turns 1,000

The Internet chess community marked a major milestone this month with the publication of TWIC 1000.

The late Ariel Sharon is admired for his unwavering defense of Israel

Israelis great and small lined up to say a final goodbye Sunday to the flag-draped coffin of Ariel Sharon, as the country, the region and the rest of the world struggled to come to grips with the complicated legacy of one of Israel's most towering and divisive figures.

Ariel Sharon, former Israeli prime minister, dies at 85 after long illness

Ariel Sharon, a pivotal figure in Israel's history from his days as a foot soldier in the country's 1948 war for independence to his final years as a prime minister seeking a permanent peace in one of the world's toughest neighborhoods, has died after a lengthy illness. He was 85.

SANDS: Now an underdog, UMBC snares a place in collegiate chess Final Four

It's a measure of how good the college game has become that the University of Maryland-Baltimore County's second-place finish in last month's Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Championship, hosted by Texas Tech in Lubbock, ranked as at least a mild upset.

SANDS: Iran’s Pouya scores breakthrough during World Youth Championship

Young Iranian IM Idani Pouya was the surprise winner of the Under-18 open tournament at the just-concluded World Youth Championships held in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates, becoming in the process the first player from his country to claim a world title.

SANDS: Double-dipping: Winning and losing at chess the Basque way

In Basque chess, revenge apparently is a dish served piping hot. Basque chess — a format I had never heard of before — pits two players against each other in a pair of simultaneous rapid (Game/25) games, with each player playing White in one game and Black in the other.

SANDS: Anand returns, Nakamura shines in London rapid chess battle

Viswanathan Anand made a comeback and Hikaru Nakamura made a statement in the premier event at the 5th London Chess Classic that ended Sunday, a rapid tournament pitting 16 of the world's best players in a star-studded knockout tournament.

SANDS: Nelson Mandela at the chessboard: A prisoner’s solace

It's only a footnote to his monumental legacy, but there's a chess angle to the story of the life of Nelson Mandela, the great South African leader who passed away last week at the age of 95.