1/23/2019 – Ideas and strategies in Grandmaster games can be quite instructive. IM Merijn van Delft presents games like these every Wednesday at 19:00 UTC (20:00 CET, 2 pm EST). On this week's show: The Tata Steel Chess Challengers. The live show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows.

1/23/2019 – The road to the Candidates tournament in 2020 is starting to emerge. World Chess / Agon will no longer organise either the Candidates or the 2020 World Championship match. FIDE has launched a new qualification path — the FIDE "Grand Swiss"— a Swiss tournament for which 100 players will be eligible. The winner (and maybe more) qualify for the Candidates Tournament. The Grand Prix series is back too, albeit as a quintet of knockout tournaments. Dates and host cities are still TBA. Here's what we know now...

1/23/2019 – Early leader Ian Nepomniachtchi defeated Vidit Gujrathi's Petroff Defence to join Magnus Carlsen and Vishy Anand at the top of the standings. Round nine also saw Vladimir Fedoseev bouncing back to 50% after tricking Teimour Radjabov in a rook endgame and Jorden van Foreest holding Anish Giri to a draw from a complex middlegame. In the Challengers, Maksim Chigaev is still the sole leader. Expert analysis by GMs DANIEL FERNANDEZ and DANIEL KING. | Pictured: Pia Sprong | Photos: Alina l'Ami / Official site

1/22/2019 – IM Lawrence Trent brings you the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments ever Tuesdays at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, Noon EST). This week he follows the highlights from the Challengers group in Wijk aan Zee. Free to watch on-demand for a limited time with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.

1/22/2019 – Today is the birthday of English Grandmaster Nicholas Pert, whose next video series on a 1.d4 repertoire will be released in a matter of weeks. Today, reviewer DAVIDE NASTASIO takes a look at his most recent opening salvo, in which Pert examines the black side of the Classical Dutch. He presents the key lines, the latest theory, adding his own interpretation, and inserts new moves to refresh old lines. While covering the main tactical and strategic ideas, Pert provides a repertoire which can help us fight against 1.c4 and 1.Nf3.

1/22/2019 – Karsten is joined by Grandmaster Sergei Tiviakov. This week's show is live at 15:00 CEST (13:00 UTC; 9:00 AM EDT) and FREE to watch on-demand (for a limited time)!

1/22/2019 – Some endgames contain surprising possibilities to save seemingly lost positions. And sometimes these possibilities are not difficult to find — because there are hardly any alternatives left. Black to play and draw...

1/22/2019 – The Gibraltar International Chess Festival 2019 kicks off Tuesday at Hotel Caleta on the East coast of Gibraltar. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave leads the starting list along side Top 20 players Levon Aronian, Wesley So, Yu Yangyi and Hikaru Nakamura. Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun is the top female player in the field. | Photo: John Saunders

1/21/2019 – The World Rapid and Blitz Championships in St. Petersburg at the end of 2018 offered interesting insights into the openings. After all, some of the strongest players took part and many games were played over the five-day event. THORSTEN CMIEL had a closer look to see what opening trends may be in store for 2019.

1/21/2019 – Perfect endgame analysis and a much better engine performance: the new Endgame Turbo 5 is more than perfect! It comes on an USB 3.0 flash drive (128 GB), covers the most important six piece endgames, all endgames with less than six pieces, and helps top engines such as Fritz, Komodo Chess and Houdini to play these endgames perfectly. Here's a short tutorial on how to install the Endgame Turbo and set up the tablebases. | Drawing: ChessBase

1/21/2019 – Magnus Carlsen and Vishy Anand defeated Richard Rapport and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov respectively to share the lead on 5½/8 at the Tata Steel Masters. Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Vladimir Fedoseev also won in Sunday's eighth round and received a boost of confidence before the second rest day. In the Challengers, Maksim Chigaev got his third straight win and is the sole leader. GM ADHIBAN BASKARAN sent expert analysis. | Photos: Alina l'Ami / Official site

1/20/2019 – Fittingly, since the Netherlands is the focus of the chess world this week, a Dutchman is featured in this week's Agony/Ecstasy column. Both games feature bishop sacrifices to attack the castled king. Feel free to send in your own games! Jon can always use more material from readers. If your games are selected for the Agony column, not only will you get free detailed commentary of your games by one of chess’s great authors and instructors, and former world no. 4 player, but you also win a free three-month ChessBase Premium Account! | Image: ChessBase 15 Raytracing