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In Europe, a Chess Tournament With a Big Payday for Women — The European Women’s Individual Chess Championship, which is being held in Gaziantep, Turkey, has set two precedents: its prize fund is larger than the one for this year’s men’s chess championship, and it is the first tournament to have a dress code of its own. The prize fund for the women’s event is just over $139,000, while the men’s will be about $131,000. The first-place finisher among the women will earn $27,000, while the men’s winner will get a little over $18,000. After the women’s main event ends, there will be rapid and blitz chess championships, each with $13,000 in prizes. There are no similar chess tournaments for the men. The World Chess Federation does not have a dress code. The one ...

Mateusz Bartel managing to strike a balance between playing and writing — It can be hard to combine chess competition with chess journalism. Half a century ago I often had the unpleasant experience of adjourning a British Championship game after a hectic time scramble, then trying to review the other games, write and phone my Guardian report, analyse my adjournment and bolt down some food in a bizarre simultaneous exhibition before play resumed an hour or so later. Since then I have always respected anyone who successfully combined playing with writing, so I really admire the winner of this week's game. Mateusz Bartel, 27, is Polish chess champion and also editor of the national magazine, Mat. He won an individual silver at the 2010 Chess Olympiad but seemed just ...

Chess tourney bans cleavage — Women who wear low-cut blouses to compete in chess tournaments are being put in check. New rules dictate that female chess players in the European Women’s Championship in Turkey cannot reveal “décolletés,” or cleavage. Sava Stoisavljevic, the female European Chess Union General Secretary, told Chessbase News that the change in dress code was due to female players’ appearance causing a ruckus in the peanut gallery. “I heard many comments from spectators and coaches,” Stoisavljevic said. Chess players can keep two buttons on their tops open, but no more. Skirts must be no shorter than 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) above the knee. Stoisavljevic didn’t seem to mind that the female chess players dressed in ...

A full house at U.S. Amateur Team East chess championship — As the politicians will tell you this election year, support is nice, but it’s turnout that’s critical. By that score, this year’s U.S. Amateur Team East chess championship, held again in its familiar Parsippany, N.J., home, surpassed even its high standards. The popular team event, the largest of its kind in the United States and one of the largest chess gatherings of its kind in the world, attracted a record 294 four-player teams this year. As noted here previously, the team Forking With Tebow’s Knights Won’t Lead to Mating” (oddball team names are part of USATE tradition), anchored by Yale GM Robert Hess, took the title and will square off in the playoff in the coming weeks with winners from the other three regions. With chess teams ...

Fabiano Caruana continues rise with virtuoso performance in Reykjavik — It is 40 years since the epic Fischer v Spassky world title match, yet Iceland remains a favourite venue for chess grandmasters. This week's Reykjavik Open, staged in the city's sumptuous new concert hall, Harpa, with a modest €5000 first prize, attracted GMs from the US, western and eastern Europe and China. Fabiano Caruana continued his remarkable recent rise, aided by a slice of luck. The Italian, 19, broke into the world top 10 at Wijk last month where he tied second with world No1 Magnus Carlsen behind world No2 Levon Aronian. Usually when chess players arrive in the super-elite they down tools for open chess tournaments and compete only in all-play-all invitations. Caruana, however, went straight off to the Aeroflot Open in Moscow where ...

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