I'm the Head of Community for Chess.com. I earned the National Master title in 2012, and in 2014, I returned to my home state of South Carolina to start Strategery: Chess and Games. In late 2015, I began working for Chess.com and haven't looked back since.
You can find my personal content on Twitch , Twitter , and YouTube where I further indulge my love of chess.
In the third largest Titled Tuesday on record, 223 titled players turned out for a giant slugfest. Once the complications had cleared, GMs Rauf Mamedov, Jeffery Xiong, and Grigor Grigorov had each reached 8.5 points and claimed a share of first pl...
After nearly three weeks of play featuring 128 players battling against elimination, the World Cup has been reduced to two players, Levon Aronian and Ding Liren. Today, they drew their first game to kick off their four-game finals match. With thre...
Three victories with White secured semi-final slots for Levon Aronian, Wesley So, and Ding Liren in the World Cup. Aronian was the only player to win yesterday; a draw today (though not quickly achieved) was sufficient for him. Rapport leaves th...
Two Titled Tuesday regulars, GMs Jose Ibarra Jerez and Grigoriy Oparin, employed experienced and steady play to reach 8.5/10 surmount a field of 189 players in September's monthly tournament. It was Ibarra Jerez who had the hot start, racking up...
The closest match featuring a speed chess qualifier turned into a rout in the second half. The world junior champion, Jeffery Xiong, actually took the lead in this tight match as late as game 14, but that seemed to serve only to awaken the "Lyon B...
Ian Nepomniachtchi fended off a fierce comeback from Levon Aronian with skilled trickery in the bullet portion of the match and will advance to face Sergey Karjakin in the quarterfinals. In the early match, Aronian was clearly the more dominant pl...
FIDE has confirmed Awonder Liang's grandmaster title by written resolution. This makes the 14-year-old American the 10th youngest grandmaster of all time and the youngest in the world today. Headline photo from the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Fest...
Both Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand won their games in 29 moves in the fifth round of the Sinquefield Cup, but for once, all eyes weren't on the champ. It was Anand's scintillating takedown of Fabiano Caruana that wowed the spectators and fa...
For 45 moves today, Magnus Carlsen played a model "Carlsen" game in the Sinquefield Cup's round four. Getting little from the opening, he created complex positional problems and was rewarded with subtle errors from Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. However,...
The difference between July 2017 and August 2017 in the context of Titled Tuesday is evidently half of a point. In July, Dmitry Andreikin won clear first with 8.0/10. This month he needed to increase his score to 8.5/10 to claim that $500 first-pl...
Eight months in, Hou Yifan is celebrating her apex in a tumultuous 2017. She began the year with a controversial low; intentionally throwing a game in the Gibraltar Chess Festival to protest the statistically unlikely (but correct) number of women...
Etienne Bacrot had a clear lead in Biel after rounds five and six, but Hou Yifan's defeat of the frenchman in round seven produced a four-way tie for first entering the final two rounds. Bacrot is still among those tied for first, but now he is jo...
Four Titled Tuesday veterans triumphed over 184 other titled contenders in an American Independence Day edition of the internet's largest regular online chess tournament. GM Dmitry Andreikin secured his fifth victory in 4 July's MasterClass T...
Never question the the home team. After round two in the World Team Championship, Russia trailed China and the Poland by one match point. After round five, they have switched places, leapfrogging China and Poland to lead by one point. With all the...
The not-so-surprising leader after two rounds in the World Team Championship held from June 17-26 in Ugra, Russia is the top-seeded China. Sharing first on the leaderboard is the somewhat less expected Poland who won dramatic matches against India...
Three players topped the devilishly strong European Individual Championships which took place May 31 through June 10 in Minsk, Belarus. GMs Maxim Matlakov, Baadur Jobava, and Vladimir Fedoseev each scored 8.5/11 though they did it in quite differe...
GM Hikaru Nakamura started yesterday by claiming the sole lead to open Norway Chess with an excellent victory over Anish Giri. He finished the day with a sole first-place finish in Titled Tuesday. Even for a legendary player like Nakamura, that's ...
Sergey Karjakin and Georg Meier are renowned for their similar python-like style of play. Each has regularly demonstrated the ability to patiently maneuver and press from a superior position until their opponent suffocates for lack of moves. In th...
He's not the world champion for nothing. Magnus Carlsen won the May Titled Tuesday with a huge score of 9.5/10. The second-place finishers, GM Hikaru Nakamura and IM Bilel Bellahcene, were a full 1.5 points back on 8/10. It's hard for grind-it-o...
The winning score in all four Speed Chess qualifiers was 8.5 points. On Tuesday, only GM Gadir Guseinov made that mark. He wins the final qualification spot for the Speed Chess Championships, joining GMs Sergey Grigoriants, Georg Meier, and Jeffer...
Two days ago, Veselin Topalov played a wonderful rook sacrifice in Shamkir that some commented might be a move-of-the-year candidate. Today, Topalov's long-time adversary Vladimir Kramnik one-upped him with a possibly even more astonishing rook sa...
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov has long been renowned for his skill in sharp, complex positions. He drew on his talents today to defeat Pavel Eljanov, but he also needed a bit of luck as Eljanov missed a clear win. Consequently, Mamedyarov passes Eljanov i...
Pavel Eljanov won his second game in a row to start The Gashimov Memorial in Shamkir in clear first place after two rounds, but the main story of the day was Veselin Topalov's beautiful win as Black against Radek Wojtaszek in which a rook sacrific...
The reigning world junior champion, Jeffery Xiong, was the unlikely winner of Chess.com's third Speed Chess Championship qualifier. How could such a noted talent be an unlikely winner? First, he was seeded 25 in the 166 player event, but second, h...
