r/Chess

Weekly Discussion & Tournament Thread Index - July 20, 2026 [Mod Applications Welcome]

2026-07-20T04:01:08+00:00

r/chess Weekly Discussion Thread

You are welcome to ask here all kinds of chess-related questions that don't warrant their own post. You can also discuss or ask questions about upcoming tournaments that don't have their own thread yet.

Moderation

OPEN CALL for new moderators! Interested in: creating event posts, hosting AMAs, making sure only the finest queen sacrifice puzzles make the front page? Apply Now!

Event Threads

Interested in making threads for tournaments, but don't know where to start? Our Event Template page is a great way to get the basic layout.

An alternative would be to start a subthread directly in the weekly thread.

Announcements

REWORK OF r/chess RULES

UPDATED Oct 30th 2025 - Mod Announcement: New temporary measures to help manage the sub

Recent AMAs

Active Tournament Threads

DATES	EVENT
-	-

Other Active Tournaments Web Links

DATES	EVENT
July 11-24	Biel Chess Festival 2026
July 17-25	German Chess Championship 2026
July 18-26	Dole Open 2026

Upcoming Tournament Schedule

DATES	EVENT	NOTABLE PLAYERS
Aug 2-6	Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz 2026	Caruana, Sindarov, Keymer, So, Pragg
Aug 10-20	Sinquefield Cup 2026	Caruana, Sindarov, Giri, So, Pragg
Aug 11-15	Esports World Cup 2026	Carlsen, Nakamura, Abdusattorov, Erigaisi
Sept 2-13	Global Chess League 2026	Carlsen, Anand, Sindarov, Firouzja

Recently Completed Tournaments

DATES	EVENT	WINNER
July 16-22	2026 Quantbox Chennai Grand Masters	Alireza Firouzja
July 3-5	2026 Naroditsky Memorial Rapid and Blitz	Javokhir Sindarov
July 1-5	2026 Super Rapid & Blitz Croatia	Alireza Firouzja
June 24-27	2026 Bullet Chess Championship	Nihal Sarin
June 17-21	2026 FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Team Chess Championships	Dragon Chilling
June 7-15	2026 UzChess Cup	Mukhiddin Madaminov
May 25 - June 5	2026 Norway Chess	Praggnanandhaa R & Bibisara Assaubayeva
May 14-23	2026 Super Chess Classic Romania	Vincent Keymer
May 5-9	2026 Super Rapid & Blitz Poland	Hans Niemann
May 1-7	2026 TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament	Magnus Carlsen
Mar 29 - Apr 15	2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament	Javokhir Sindarov & Vaishali Rameshbabu
Mar 2-12	2026 American Cup	Wesley So & Alice Lee
Feb 25 - Mar 6	2026 Prague Masters	Nodirbek Abdusattorov
Feb 13-15	2026 FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship	Magnus Carlsen
Jan 16 - Feb 1	2026 Tata Steel Chess Masters	Nodirbek Abdusattorov
Jan 7-11	2026 Tata Steel Chess India Rapid & Blitz	Rapid: Nihal Sarin & Kateryna Lagno; Blitz: Wesley So & Carissa Yip

Some links where to find a list of current (or just completed) tournaments

Other Notable Threads

Coach a Player - Recent Threads

Community Content

Here we'd love to highlight community content to show our appreciation for the energy spent. Content like Game analysis, info-graphics, etc., and we'd love to hear from you what kind of content you'd like to see as well.

Want to post your game to r/chess? - for people who want to solicit feedback on their games

Advice to people asking for advice - for people who want to ask about how to improve

submitted by /u/events_team
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Coach a Player - July 2026

2026-07-02T02:00:15+00:00

Format for this program: Coaches, comment using the template below. Students, reply to or DM the coach of your choice with your skill level and preferred method of contact.

This thread is intended for players of certain experience looking to share their experience and mentor a less experienced player. It can be a way to try out your teaching skills and who knows, might lead to one day you becoming a chess coach.

ALL COACHING MUST BE FREE. If anyone who commented here is trying to offer you paid coaching or there are any kind of strings attached to their offer, please let us know. That includes anyone offering you only one free lesson and further lessons paid. This program is NOT meant as a way to promote paid services.

This post will be pinned for the 1st week of every month (contingent on not having other events occupying our stickies). The program was started by /u/BrianDynasty so if you find it useful, let them know!

Coaches, please use the format below:

Online username:

Rating:

Willing to teach:

Timezone/Schedule:

Method of communication:

The following is an example:

Online username: CSU_Dynasty (for both Lichess and Chess.com)

Rating: 1800 USCF / 1900 Lichess

Willing to teach: 1200 and lower players. opening ideas and transitioning into midgame plans, tactics/pattern recognition. My endgame is weaker than I’d like, so I’m not the best choice for endgame study. Have an annotated game ready for me to review. This way I can look at your thought process and narrow in on your weakness.

Timezone/Schedule: EST/I’m available for lessons on weekends. But you can still send me messages throughout the week

Method of communication: I’m always active on Discord and we’ll have lessons through that. You can also reach me through Reddit DMs.

Previous posts can be found here.

submitted by /u/ChessBotMod
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Advise to World Chess Champion Gukesh by GM Levon Aronian

2026-07-25T10:36:17+00:00

submitted by /u/Radiant-Increase-180
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Before chess reached Scandinavia, the North had its own "Game of Kings" for 700 years. Chess drove it extinct around 1200. I rebuilt it with a Glicko-2 ladder, and I'm curious what chess players make of a game with asymmetric win conditions.

2026-07-25T05:15:04+00:00

Hnefatafl: one side has a king trying to reach a corner while the other has double the material trying to capture him. No draws by agreement, the sides never mirror and serious play is done in paired games (one on each side) because which side is stronger is itself part of the meta.

It's free in the browser at worldtafl.com with the standard tournament ruleset.

What I'd genuinely love from this community: the current world #1 is 18-0 and I don't yet know if that's because they're good or because the player pool is a week old.
If a few strong chess players wandered in before Saturday's first tournament (19:00 UTC), we'd find out fast.

submitted by /u/rantzine
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This was the chess game on Windows Vista that my dad left unfinished 13 years ago

2026-07-25T10:58:21+00:00

My dad used his laptop for the built in games (he had almost 28000 games of FreeCell played) and this was one of his last games before his laptop broke for a different reason.

He was losing in this position and he never finished the game - nor did he ever see the game get finished by anyone 13 years later.

submitted by /u/KrystalInfernus
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3400 Blitz/3300 Bullet? Who the hell could this be?????

2026-07-25T07:29:07+00:00

By having a 3400 Blitz and 3300 Bullet rating, this account is clearly at an incredibly high level. Only a handful of players in the world are capable of performing at this calibre.

After watching his games, I strongly suspect it could be one of: Hikaru, Alireza, MVL, Hans, Duda, or Ediz.

I’ve already ruled out quite a few top players because this account has played Blitz, Bullet, or Chess960 against them - Magnus, Denis, Nihal, Arjun, Pragg(He has played Chess960 only against Pragg if it helps), Sina Movahed, Yagiz Kaan, Sarana, Nepo, Dubov, Faustino, Bortnyk, etc.

Any ideas who it might be?

Account link https://www.chess.com/member/BerserkWerewolf

submitted by /u/Ambitious-Natural904
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My opponent resigned at this position, even though I made a huge blunder

2026-07-25T13:42:46+00:00

Only after analysing the game with Stockfish I realized my blunder. I'm around 1000elo on chess.com and I was kinda flabbergasted seeing this. Black to move and to turn the game around.

submitted by /u/Meless_
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Dubov to Play a 100-Games Bullet Match For $20,000 against amateur. 10,000 as a starting fee for Dubov. If Daniil wins 100-0, he will get a $10,000 sweep bonus.

2026-07-24T16:44:16+00:00

submitted by /u/_DarkStarCrashes_
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“Ding, Alireza, and Hikaru took advantage of the rating spot to qualify for Candidates. Ding had his matches in China against his comrades. Firouzja had his matches against, what do you call, the YMCA Grandmasters. And then Hikaru showed his degree of shame…” -Hans Niemann

2026-07-24T16:21:52+00:00

“Am I happy with the new criteria for Candidates? That is a great improvement. I think the rating spot was taken advantage of by Ding, Alireza, and Hikaru.
All three of them have interesting loopholes. Ding had his matches in China against his comrades. Firouzja had his matches against, what do you call, the YMCA Grandmasters. And then Hikaru showed his degree of shame…
So that’s a great improvement. I think that FIDE is going in the right direction.”

submitted by /u/_DarkStarCrashes_
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I designed a new notation system for online chess that lets you play entirely from the keyboard.

2026-07-25T00:59:01+00:00

Hi everyone! I'm Wang'ombe from Nairobi, Kenya.

A while back, my phone was stolen, and I had to switch to playing chess on my laptop. Until then, I'd always avoided playing on a computer because I never felt as fast or as comfortable using a mouse or touchpad as I did on a touchscreen.

That frustration inspired me to create Home Row Notation (HRN). an input system designed for online chess players using a computer. Its purpose isn't to record moves, but rather to allow players to execute moves using a keyboard instead of a mouse and hopefully reduce misclicks, hand fatigue and equip PC players with the speed and agility to keep up with the fast, intuitive input of touchscreen play.

The idea combines three concepts:

Touch typing, so you never have to look at the keyboard.
The home row keys (A S D F J K L ;), which your fingers naturally rest on.
Coordinate notation, which specifies only the origin and destination squares.

Instead of using files (a–h) and ranks (1–8), HRN maps both to those eight home row keys.

Chess Axis	Traditional Labels	HRN Keys
Files (Columns)	a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h	A, S, D, F, J, K, L, ;
Ranks (Rows)	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8	A, S, D, F, J, K, L, ;

For example, the coordinate e4 becomes JF, h8 becomes ;; and b1c3 becomes SADD

The goal is to keep every coordinate on the home row so your fingers never need to reach for other parts of the keyboard.

Another design choice is that HRN is screen-oriented. The coordinates never flip when you switch between White and Black. The bottom-left square on your screen is always AA, which helps build muscle memory for the physical location of every square.

I also built a browser extension called KBchess that lets you use HRN on Chess.com and Lichess. It doesn't automate gameplay or provide engine assistance—it simply lets you enter moves with your keyboard instead of a mouse.

I'm much more interested in feedback on the notation than the extension itself.

Does the concept make sense?
Would you ever consider using something like this?
Is there a different mapping or approach you think would work better?

I'd genuinely love to hear your thoughts, whether positive or critical.

submitted by /u/Internal-Eye
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10+5 is awesome

2026-07-25T07:13:18+00:00

Recently I got back into chess. Seeing 10+5 as a main option in Chess.com made me smile. Being able to find a game in this time control is great. I don't get into time trouble, but the games don't last over 30 minutes. It's just 👌

This probably isn't news for you guys, but I wanted to share my appreciation. Best time control.

submitted by /u/Markyloko
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White to play and win (By Zakhodyakin)

2026-07-25T09:47:33+00:00

submitted by /u/Either-Case-5930
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Big Result! Youngster Alice Lee knocks Women's World Chess Champion Ju Wenjun out with a dominant score of 9.5-3.5 - WSCC 2026

2026-07-24T16:27:58+00:00

Event Link

submitted by /u/FirstEfficiency7386
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GM Viswanathan Anand is now the Interim President of FIDE

2026-07-24T05:51:38+00:00

submitted by /u/scchess
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How did the elephant turn into the bishop?

2026-07-25T02:07:09+00:00

For an English essay a while back my teachers gave me a personal writing assignment due to my interest in chess and me having nothing else to do. Here is what I wrote:

The beginning

The first version of chess was developed around 1400 years ago within the 6th century. Located within the Gupta Empire, known as India today, chess was called Chaturanga. The pieces were based of real-world armies, and each set included a “Gaja”, meaning elephant.

Within Indian culture, the elephant was a powerful and respected animal, used within wars and royal processions. The elephant in Chaturanga represented the real war elephants used within the ancient Indian armies at the time of origin. Instead of moving like the modern bishop, the elephant, instead of moving fully diagonally, could only jump to the second square diagonally, like a simplified combination of the knight and bishop, or in this case, predecessor.

The Persian and Arabic transformation

One day, the game of chaturanga spread west towards Persia and Arabia, where it developed into a game called Shatranj. Then the “Gaja” became the “Fil” or “Al-Fil”, which also means elephant.

Though the names changed, the piece remained basically the same, keeping it’s second square

diagonal movement. This however meant the piece was very weak, much weaker than todays bishop and even knight.

Medieval Europe

Shatranj spread into Europe, mostly Spain and Sicily at first due to Arabic influences. However, they didn’t quite understand Arabic or Persian. This made it so they misinterpreted the names from, to them, strange sounding words. Different countries started making different guesses to what they meant, making their own versions.

In Italy and Spain they actually kept it very similar. “Alfil” is what they used, keeping the elephant in word-form.

In France they didn’t understand “Al-Fil” however, so they started looking for something else. The pieces that they had as a reference had these tall tops, which to them represented the bishop’s mitre. Thus they started calling it a “Fou” which means fool or jester. This was likely a joke since the hat looked funny.

In England, they borrowed France their idea, seeing the same shape. They decided to call it a Bishop, not for religious reasons, but because of a misunderstanding.

Change in rules

Up till this point, the Elephant or Bishop could still only jump to the second square diagonally. But then around the 15th century, chess underwent big changes in Europe which historians call the “chess revolution”.

Both the Queen and Bishop got new powers to make the game faster and more exciting. Making it so the Bishop could now move diagonally, as far as it pleased. This made it from one of the weakest pieces, to a fast long ranged attacker. So, at around the late 1400’s, the Elephant was gone, and the Bishop was set in place.

The “Loper”

When the game arrived in the Netherlands and Belgium, they also needed a name for it, but instead of looking at it and deciding to go with a Dutch version of Bishop, they decided to look at what the piece does. It runs across the board. So they went with the word “Loper” which literally means runner or walker. This was a practical name, focused on what it does, not on what it looks like, typical Dutch.

submitted by /u/SireValentine
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When will we find out the city/country of the World championship match?

2026-07-25T08:53:16+00:00

Only 4 months from now, the match will be held. But did they announce when they will make the announcement? Last time, I didn't get a chance to attend, but this time, I would really like to go there in person. The flights are already more expensive nowadays, so it would be nice to know in advance.

submitted by /u/dr4urbutt
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Black managed to "defend" f7 , but white forced black to self block.White to play and win(By Gurgenidze)

2026-07-25T13:20:22+00:00

The mainline of this study end in pawn mate

submitted by /u/Either-Case-5930
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Chess: Bodhana Sivanandan, 11, breaks world age record from 38 years ago | Chess

2026-07-24T10:07:59+00:00

She's an FM rated 2374, and it's curious her parents are both engineers but they say they're both bad at chess. And they have no idea where her chess talent came from.

Edit:
Just to be clear, I'm not saying chess is inherent, I made a point of putting this out because of the influences and differences between upbringing with Judit Polgar's environment.

submitted by /u/RogueBromeliad
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Which of Danyas playlists on youtube should I start watching?

2026-07-25T10:07:30+00:00

Hi, Im 865 elo on chess.com (rapid), and I got recommended by a lot of people that Danyas (R.I.P) videos on youtube are the best. But when I took a look on his channel I found a lot of playlists and got pretty confused what I should start with. I heard tha theory isnt important at an early level so openinlab and the theory speedrun are probably not the best for my current level.

So my question is, which of the playlists would u recommend me to start with? If u know anyone on youtube who u think is even better feel free to share those too. And yes im aware that watching alone isnt enough, and that I have to keep playing and doing puzzles.

submitted by /u/IntentionDue3673
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Why are hypermodern openings stronger against 1. d4 than 1. e4?

2026-07-24T17:08:04+00:00

I think the title is pretty self-explanatory. Why does it seem that hypermodern openings are much more popular and objectively stronger against d4 openings than e4 openings. Look, I know that the Alekhine, the Pirc, the modern even *maybe* the Owens are playable at most levels. But they clearly are second rate at best defenses. Every defense that's played frequently against 1. e4 involves directly challenging the white center. Meanwhile against 1. d4, hypermodern openings are just as popular as classical openings if not more. The Nimzo and the Grunfeld are objectively top tier, even the QID is viewed much better by engines than the Alekhine and Pirc.

Is there a conceptual reason for this? Or is it just mostly a coincidence?

submitted by /u/ReputationOk5592
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Kazakh billionaire runs for FIDE presidency

2026-07-24T14:03:44+00:00

submitted by /u/yagami_raito23
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Happy 50th Birthday to Judit Polgar!

2026-07-23T21:02:24+00:00

An absolute legend of the game!

The only woman to ever cross 2700, the only woman to ever be Top 10 and the only woman to ever play at the candidates.

A class act and one of my personal favourite players from a stylistic point. An excellent commentator too.

A nice game: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1111195

submitted by /u/FirstEfficiency7386
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Feels like I'm stuck at 2000

2026-07-25T14:31:13+00:00

What do I do to break past this wall, my dream's to get to 2500 in rapid but I just can't get past 2000, I've been here for over a year and I'm willing to do puzzles and stuff but don't know where to find good puzzles and what to work on, any suggestions or advice for me?(Im 2000 in chess.com not fide🙏)

submitted by /u/Ornery-Big8661
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He makes a queen .... But can you find the mate!

2026-07-25T13:29:43+00:00

Was delighted I found this in bullet 4 seconds to go. Was satisfying seeing him queen thinking I fked it. But yeah I'm only a 1200 player

submitted by /u/Mother_Corgi_2137
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Andy Woodward has passed Abhimanyu Mishra on live rating after winning the US Junior Championship. He's now the world #7 Junior and still #2 U16 behind only Erdogmus

2026-07-24T12:36:04+00:00

Andy Woodward finished undefeated, five draws and four wins, with the last two coming in rounds 8 and 9 when he needed them. 6.5/9 and a 2653 performance against a field averaging 2487, which was worth a grand total of 2.2 rating points (the price you pay for coming in rated 2638 to a US Junior Championship). He drew Mishra in round 6 but passed him on the live ratings anyway, which puts him 7th among juniors and 2nd in the world U16 behind Erdogmus.

https://saintlouischessclub.org/event/2026-us-junior-chess-championship/

submitted by /u/RadarChess
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