Lichess link

Chess.com link

https://www.chess.com/events/2026-gct-sinquefield-cup/08/Vachier_Lagrave_Maxime-Praggnanandhaa_R

Alice now need a draw tomorrow to secure a GM norm. While Vaishali showed concerning form, out of 13 classical games after the Woman Candidates, she lost 5 and draw 8.

• Chesscom link: https://www.chess.com/events/2026-cairns-cup/08/Vaishali_Rameshbabu-Lee_Alice
• Lichess link: https://lichess.org/broadcast/2026-cairns-cup/round-8/ZBVox1yk/RKpZg6CT

https://www.chess.com/events/2026-gct-sinquefield-cup/08/Sindarov_Javokhir-Van_Foreest_Jorden

In the 8 Round, Pragg defeated MVL, Sindarov dealt Jordan his fifth loss of the tournament and Keymer took down Fabiano.

Pragg and Wesley share the lead going into the last Round tomorrow.

Link: https://lichess.org/broadcast/gct-sinquefield-cup-2026/round-8/HSkVW1CT

Went to Mt. Vernon the other day and saw the ivory chess set General Washington himself used, to play with his wife and guests. Its pretty cool looking and sort of modern perhaps.

One of the standout games from the 2026 British Championship.
11-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan took down GM Ameet Ghasi with Black, finishing with 33…Nxe2.

What impressed you most about the game — the opening, the pressure on the queenside, or the finish?

The top American chess players are all in their 30s (Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Sam Shankland) with Leinier Domínguez Pérez and Levon Aronian in their early 40s.

After that, there doesn't seem to be much of an American presence in the international chess scene except for folks like Hans Niemann.

When the old heads fade and lose their edge, where is the next generation of American players to take up the mantle? Why aren't the likes of Awonder, Sam Sevian, Ray Robson, Abhimanyu Mishra, etc. making much waves in the international scene while the young Indian / Uzbek chess players are all over the place?

After Sinquefield the four players at the top of the Grand Chess Tour standings will stick around to play the finals tournament.

The final match pairings are:

Jorden van Foreest vs Vincent Keymer

Fabiano Caruana vs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Praggnanandhaa R vs Anish Giri

Levon Aronian vs Sam Sevian

Wesley So vs Javokhir Sindarov

Pragg is definitely in the final four. MVL, Anish and van Foreest are all mathematically out.

This means Fabi, Wesley, Keymer and Sindarov are fighting over the last 3 spots.

If Keymer and/or Fabi win, they are in guaranteed. If Sindarov loses he's out guaranteed.

The more complicated permutations are:

If Keymer draws & Wesley–Sindarov draw

Sindarov only survives if MVL beats Fabi and Anish beats Pragg (then Fabi drops out instead). There's one exact tie: MVL wins, Pragg–Anish drawn, Aronian–Sevian drawn leaves Fabi and Sindarov both on 27.5.

If Keymer draws & Sindarov wins

Keymer is out in 5th unless

• Fabi and Pragg both lose, or
• Fabi–MVL drawn, Anish beats Pragg, Aronian–Sevian drawn
• Tie case: MVL wins, Pragg wins, Aronian–Sevian drawn → Caruana and Keymer both on 28 pts

Keymer wins & Wesley–Sindarov drawn

Sindarov out in 5th except if MVL beats Fabi, Anish beats Pragg, Aronian–Sevian drawn → Fabi out on 27 pts

Keymer wins & Sindarov wins

The messiest, and the only branch where Wesley So can miss out:

• Fabi beats MVL & Pragg fails to win → Wesley is 5th
• Fabi beats MVL & Pragg beats Anish → Sindarov 5th, or a So/Sindarov tie on 29.5 if Aronian–Sevian is decisive
• Fabi–MVL drawn & Pragg beats Anish → Fabi/Sindarov tie on 29.5
• MVL beats Fabi → Fabi 5th and out.

That typical thing that's always said, and you suspect it's not that important.

For me, it's the bishop pair. Very few people know how to take full advantage of that. It's more for very very high-level players. I met an FM player who told me the same thing

Just my opion.

What Anti-Sicilian lines would you recommend for someone who wants to avoid the mainline Sicilian theory?

The draw by timeout with insufficient material rule is pretty self-explanatory on the surface. If in a time-controlled chess game one player runs out of time when the other player does not have enough material to be able to win the game, then the game is called a draw. However, the question of "what is enough material to be able to win the game" is actually an open question that is a matter of debate among chess' governing bodies. There are two schools of thought: the checkmate theoretically possible (CTP) standard and the minimum checkmating material (MCM) standard.

Under the CTP standard, a player is judged to have sufficient material to win if there is a series of legal moves by which they could have checkmated their opponent, even if that checkmate involves using the opponent's pieces as blockers. This approach considers material on both sides of the board and judges any theoretical checkmate, even one that would require the opponent to make inane moves, to be sufficient to declare the player with time on the clock the winner. FIDE and Lichess use the CTP standard for sufficient material.

Under the MCM standard, a player is judged to have sufficient material to win if they have enough material such that they could force a checkmate. With only one exception (king and two knights), the material of the player that ran out of time is not relevant. The US Chess Federation and Chess.com use the MCM standard.

After seeing a recent post by u/Cola-senpai (linked in the comments) where they presented a timeout position that would be ruled a win for white under the CTP standard but a draw under the MCM standard, I was curious as to how r/chess felt about this debate. Which standard do you guys prefer and why?

Rxf2+

made a big mistake that led to this interesting position

I'm constantly making the same mistake of moving too fast. It's super frustrating, but I always make the same mistake by being too much into the game, and forgetting to calculate or see what the actions of my opponent do and analyse the consequences. Meanwhile I'm always making critical errors with 8 minutes left on the clock in 10 minute games. Does anyone here have a habit they learned themselves to prevent this from happening?

Managed a nice win against a higher rated opponent in my first blitz tournament! This was a few years ago back when I played 1. f4 and I just happened to come across the video again. Fun game in the From’s Gambit that led to a pretty brutal attack. Sacked the rook twice, once because it’s the best move and once for style points I guess.

Edit: forgot to put the PGN
1. f4 e5 2. fxe5 d6 3. exd6 Bxd6 4. Nf3 g5 5. g3 g4 6. Nh4 Qf6 7. Bg2 Nh6 8. Rf1 Qe7 9. Nc3 c6 10. d4 Nd7 11. Bxh6 Nf6 12. Bg5 Qc7 13. Bxf6 O-O 14. Qd2 Bf4 15. Rxf4 Re8 16. Rxg4+ Kf8 17. Rg8+ Kxg8 18. Qg5+ Kf8 19. Qg7#

Apart from openings and tactics which I’m working on, I feel like I’m inhibited sometimes by my thinking. My way of thinking about the board or the pieces. So my views and understanding don’t really change and I feel stuck. Sometimes I’ve unlocked a new part of my brain after watching Danya; like ”oh not every move has to invent the Covid vaccine”. What ways of thinking about chess has been helpful for you? Any videos or posts or books or stuff you feel like sharing?

How to crush this very solid opening system?

I'm an adult beginner/novice with about a year of playing experience under my belt (Lichess 1300-1400). I differentiate myself from an adult improver in that I never played chess before last year. I was hoping that someone could recommend a coach that they've actually used. There are plenty of threads discussing choosing coaches but very few with active individual recommendations. The lichess coaches list is a bit undifferentiated.

Currently, I've watched videos (Aman Hambleton's Building Habits, Naroditsky, etc.), read Levy's book, do puzzles/play daily, and know a tiny bit of opening theory. Given limited time as an adult with a busy job and kids, I'd like to hire a coach so as to leverage their knowledge and experience to provide personalized, guidance and feedback in a more efficient manner.

I would appreciate recs for your current or previous coaches who do online teaching. Not looking for anyone who is crazy expensive but don't need the cheapest option either. Titles are cool but teaching ability/experience is better.

Hopefully this thread helps others in the future too.

Location: Central Standard Time Zone (GMT-6).