Talks of speed chess finishing early (8)
I believe the answer is:
speeches
'talks' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to communication as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'speed chess finishing early' is the wordplay.
'speed' becomes 'spee' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'finishing early' means to remove the last letter (the word finishes earlier than normal).
'chess' with its last letter taken away is 'ches'.
'spee'+'ches'='SPEECHES'
'of' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for speeches that I've seen before include "Formal communications to audiences" , "Formal words to audiences" , "Formal spoken communications" , "Dialogues" , "Orations" .)