12/11/2018 – V. Saravanan is a strong chess player, an eloquent speaker and also a fine chess coach. He was also the commentator at the World Junior Championship 2014 and a journalist for many eminent tournaments like the World Championship 2012 and the Sinquefield Cup 2017 and 2018. However, there is one video which made the world see a completely different side of him. Last January, we released a video of Saravanan entitled "Must read books to become a better chess player". It was a one-hour video where the Chennai IM spoke about some of his favourite books of chess. The video became very popular and had over 32,000 views on our YouTube Channel. Now Saravanan is back, this time with part II of his "Must read books to become a better chess player" and this will be premiered LIVE on 11th of December 2018 at 15:00 UTC.

12/11/2018 – YAICP — Yet Another Indian Chess Prodigy! His name is D. Gukesh and he stems from — where else — Tamil Nadu, the home state of Vishy Anand. Gukesh was born on May 29, 2006, which means he is currently twelve and a half years old. On Saturday the lad scored his second GM norm in a closed round-robin in Paraćin, Serbia. Gukesh has a live rating of 2490 and from Thursday onwards will be playing in the next GM Open. Will he be able to break Sergey Karjakin's record? This will be his last chance. | Photo: Nebojsa Radosavljevic

12/11/2018 – In the endgame, far advanced passed pawns are often very dangerous. But in this endgame with dark-squared bishops, the player with the black pieces can navigate the dangerous waters to safety. Can you?

12/11/2018 – There was not much of a breather for Fabiano Caruana after his defeat in the tiebreak at the World Championship. He is back in London joining Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave as the four players qualified for the London Chess Classic, the final leg of the 2018 Grand Chess Tour, from December 11th to 17th. Can Caruana regain his mojo in rapid chess against Nakamura? Meanwhile, the top four players in England fight for the British Knockout Championship in a parallel semifinal and final.

12/10/2018 – In this Simon Says Simon takes a look at some of his recent games. He also delves deeper into some openings ideas when White moves the g-pawn early on. Simon is live this week at 18:00 CET (17:00 UTC). If you miss the show, you can watch it in the archive with a ChessBase Account. Don't have an account? You can register a free 90-day account to watch!

12/10/2018 – A two-day 13-round event finished with the 40th seed as the winner. The European Rapid Championship took place on December 8th and 9th in Skopje and was won by Russian GM Valerij Popov. Three other players scored the same 10½ points, but the 44-year-old took gold on tiebreaks. Andrey Esipenko (Russia) finished second, Vahap Sanal (Turkey) third and Luca Moroni (Italy) fourth. IVA VIDENOVA and PATRICIA CLAROS sent us a report with highlights and plenty of images from the capital of Macedonia. | Photos: Patricia Claros Aguilar

12/10/2018 – The Australian Young Masters has been growing since moving to Adelaide in 2011, and now includes both a GM and IM norm tournament, in addition to an open. IRENE SUKANDAR is there and sends this preview. After four rounds GM Vasily Papin leads the GM tournament with 3½ points. | Pictured: A kangaroo joyfully accepted IM Eric Rosen’s challenge for a match | Photo: Alistair Cameron

12/10/2018 – Chess is often played in isolation, but it can also be a social game. ChessBase 15 helps you to share games on various social media channels with ease. Open a game in ChessBase 15, save it as GIF and share it on Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram or Snapchat. Here's a short tutorial to show how it's done. | Drawing: ChessBase

12/9/2018 – The 2018 European Rapid Championship is being played at the Alexander Palace in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, on December 8th and 9th. The top seed is Vladislav Artimiev, the winner of the European Blitz Championship. | Photos: Patricia Claros Aguilar

12/9/2018 – While Carlsen and Caruana played for the World Championship in London, millions of people all over the world saw them fight in a soundproof glass box. But behind the scenes, the teams of seconds who supported them remained largely hidden. GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov has been the second of Fabiano Caruana since 2015, and in this interview, he shares impressions of the match to date. | Photos: Nikolai Dunaevsky / World Chess

12/9/2018 – The city of Salerno, south of Naples, was the venue for this year's individual championship in Italy. 12 participants fought for the title of Italian Champion in a classical round-robin tournament. The winner was not one of the favourites, but rather IM Lorenzo Lodici, the surprising but not undeserved winner of last year's under-20 national championship. | Photos: FSI

12/8/2018 – Ten days on from the end of the World Championship and the match is still very much in the news. In a previous report, we presented a 31-minute interview with five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand and his take on the games played in London. Sagar Shah of ChessBase India transcribed the highlights of his commentary which we’ve converted to a ChessBase interactive game viewer, so you could easily replay and analyse while listening to Vishy. Today we continue with games 7–12. Learn and enjoy.