The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament, organized by the Association Max Euwe in Monaco, takes place from March 13 (first round) to March 25 (last round) at the Palais de la Mediterranée, splendidly located on the famous Promenade des Anglais in Nice. The total prize-fund is € 216,000.

Deep's third GM-norm came after he drew with Frenchman Christian Bauer in the ninth round and final round to tally seven points that made him part of the three-way tie for the title. Arghyadip finished in a remarkable fashion when he scored the much-needed victory over top seeded Kazakh Murtas Kazhgaleyev.

Today in Rijeka's Town Hall an Agreement was signed between the City of Rijeka and the International Chess Federation (FIDE) in which the City of Rijeke obliges itself to give the proposal for including the chess, within its own quota, into the list of sports making part of the Mediterranean Games sports list, while FIDE will support the Rijeka’s candidature for the Mediterranean Games in 2017 or later.

The second expanded edition of the book "Commentary on the Laws of Chess" by IA, FM and IO Mihajlo Savic is out of print. With 304 pages, this edition is almost three times larger than the previous one, as it includes comments on many practical examples. As extra content, the book includes FIDE Title Regulations and FIDE Rating Regulations.

Promo-Echecs has been organising the Val-Thorens chess festival for 33 years. In 2010, our chess festival leaves Val-Thorens and will move to Vaujany, still in the heart of French Alps but now in the Oisans range, located about 50 kilometers south of Grenoble. The 2010 festival will occur from July 10 to July 18th.

GM Baadur Jobava and GM Zahar Efimenko are top of the table after round 4 of the European Individual Chess Championship. They have perfect 4,0/4 after today's game and are half a point ahead of the chasing pack.

The XI Torneio Festa da Uva with 9 rounds Swiss and rapid time control was held on 6-7th March in Caxias do Sul, the second largest city in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The tournament had a colossal turnout of 292 participants, and among them special stars Vassily Ivanchuk from Ukraine and legendary Ulf Andersson from Sweden.

Silvio Danailov, executive director of the Grand Slam Chess Association and manager of Veselin Topalov, will run for ECU President. The candidacy of a Bulgarian representative has been a rumor since December, when President Georgi Parvanov announced after his meeting with the FIDE President Kirsan Ilymzhinov that Bulgaria will have its own candidate for ECU. Now the news is official via announcement on the EICC Rijeka page.

The XI Torneio Festa da Uva with 9 rounds Swiss and rapid time control was held in Caxias do Sul, the second largest city in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The tournament had a colossal turnout of 292 participants, and among them special stars Vassily Ivanchuk from Ukraine and legendary Ulf Andersson from Sweden.

Results, information, photos, and details from round 2 of EICC 2010 in Rijeka, Croatia.

Three tournaments from Australia and Thailand have joined forces to establish a common schedule and allow interested players to combine participation in consecutive events. The tour opens with the Doeberl Cup which is taking place on 1-5th April in Canberra, Australia.

"I have been playing chess since childhood. Most of the time I work on my own, but I do have a few trainers. About a year ago I began to collaborate with GM Evgeny Bareev, and I believe that my good results arrived mostly thanks to him."

Iranian Chess Championship Finals for Men and Women are taking place 3-14 March, 2010. Three rounds have already been played, results and photos by Reza Mahdipour are bellow.

Many favorites were stopped at the first day of the European Individual Chess Championship, that is taking place in Rijeka, Croatia, from 5th to 19th of March 2010. Top board GM Zoltan Almasi could not overcome the Italian GM Lexy Ortega, the same fate had the top seeded in the women section GM Stefanova, as well as GM Michael Roiz, GM Gabriel Sargissian, GM Emanuel Berg, GM Tomashevsky, GM Erwin L'ami and many others.