5/16/2022 – Midsummer is traditionally the time of the Dortmund Chess Days. After last year's relaunch, the festival will be expanded this year with, among other things, a large international open. At the weekend, the pairings have been drawn, which also means that the schedule is fixed. It all starts on 17 July. | Photos: Dortmunder Schachtage

5/16/2022 – One of the fascinating aspects of new iterations of tablebases is submitting known positions to their 'divine' evaluation. The words "better" or "worse" cease to have any meaning and not only are all evaluations perfect and absolute, but so are the solutions. In the following article a share of cooks of studies as well as famous endgames and analyses are placed under the spotlight of the 8-piece tablebases.

5/15/2022 – Unashamed ultra-violence. Jon Speelman continues to share findings from his bookshelf, and today explores Irving Chernev’s “The 1000 best short games of chess”, a collection of miniatures first published in 1957. Speelman adds notes to selected games from the collection of thud and blunder.

5/15/2022 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. In the 79th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to talk about pawn majorities. | Photo: Pascal Simon

5/15/2022 – Yuri Averbakh is no more. Tributes are pouring in from all over the world to the late grandmaster, who had only recently turned 100 and chess fans had celebrated the day. Not many are aware that he wrote his autobiography years before. Our columnist had begun a series on this fascinating work and narrated how it all began. Then came the Ukraine war, and he could not bring himself to write anything in the face of this tragedy. Sadly, the war is continuing, and our columnist has reconciled himself to writing. Importantly, this series is a homage to the life and work of a great player. | Photo: Eric Koch / Anefo

5/15/2022 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won the Superbet Chess Classic after outscoring Wesley So and Levon Aronian in rapid playoffs. MVL had caught up with the co-leaders after beating Alireza Firouzja with black in their classical, round-9 encounter. The Frenchman beat both US grandmasters in the rapid-chess single round-robin that followed to claim the title. | Photo: Lennart Ootes