7/26/2023 – In a study just released, chess was shown to be one of the most useful strategies in helping to prevent dementia. The study followed over 10 thousand senior Australians and their habits, and spanned 10 years. The conclusion was that chess permitted 'higher efficiency in using brain networks'. Read on and watch the video!

3/20/2020 – Vaci, Gula, & Bilalić (2015) found that “the more able players deteriorated more quickly” after their peak, but that their decline started to stabilize earlier in middle adulthood. The authors claimed the validity of Simonton’s (1997) model of career trajectories for chess players, and highlighted the beneficial influence of tournament practice in old age. They doubted the appropriateness of the FIDE database for scientific studies, and instead recommended the German database. It is now shown why Vaci et al.’s model led to drastically incorrect results, and how it has to be changed to work correctly. Chess trajectories are characterized by a long plateau phase and a gradually increasing decline. Playing more or fewer games does not affect the rating in old age.

11/6/2019 – Are strong chess players generally better at logical thinking than people who rarely play the game? Can super-talented youngsters, of GM strength, solve logical puzzles better than amateurs or non-chess kids of the same age? Or are both equally good, or are the chess kids perhaps worse? ChessBase chief editor emeritus Frederic Friedel is conducting an experiment to find out. Today he tells us how his experiments so far have been conducted. Perhaps you can join in and supply your own results. Or at least have fun with his problems!

10/23/2019 – Islam et al’s research paper on “The Effects of Chess Instruction on Academic and Non-Cognitive Outcomes” uses experimental findings to tell us playing chess does, in fact, make one perform better in other academic fields compared to those that do not play chess. However, it is probably not in the way you think. QIYU ZHOU reviews the findings.

9/14/2019 – An ongoing topic of scientific inquire of interest to chess fans is whether and to what extent chess can delay or mitigate the effects of aging. An Australian study aimed to prove that chess champions have a higher life expectancy than the average population. Grandmasters from Eastern Europe should therefore have a life expectancy of up to 14 years. PETER MUENDER dealt critically with the study results.

5/14/2019 – Men in chess have higher ratings then women. Is this due to more male players being involved in serious chess? Or is there an innate difference between the sexes? Bruno Wiesend has a new critique of the "participation rate" hypothesis. VERA SPILLNER summarizes the findings.

1/3/2019 – If you want to work on your openings the reference search is crucial. And in ChessBase 15 the reference search is much faster than before — two to four times faster, depending on your computer. To quote Vishy Anand: "The search booster alone makes life better!" The fast search helps to improve your opening preparation enormously. Our tutorial shows how and why. | Drawing: ChessBase

9/26/2018 – In a deeply thought-out and specific proposal, IM JAN PRZEWOZNIK provides a method to train the way we think while playing a chess game. He unveils nine indicators that push us to reflect on our decisions and interprets them in terms of problem-solving cognitive strategies. In Part 1, we presented an introduction and the first three indicators; now we follow with the final six and an explanation of the "Chunking Theory".

9/17/2018 – Dealing with subjects such as aesthetics and gender is generally prone to criticism. After all, the concepts that are used as bases for analysis tend to compel some degree of subjectivity. Nevertheless, AZLAN IQBAL has been exploring this issue for years. After publishing a controversial article a couple of years ago, he informs us about the improvements made to his original research. The question remains the same: do women play more beautiful chess than men? | Photos: Pascal Simon / Simon Bohnenblust

7/20/2018 – Chess players, chess authors and chess psychologists attempt to teach and explain chess playing and development of chess skills with the concept of pattern and pattern recognition. However, the lack of a precise definition of pattern raises the question of what we are supposed to recognise and if chess may not be too diverse and too complex to be reduced to simplified didactic devices like 'patterns.' This is comprehensively considered in a paper by RUNE VIK-HANSEN.

8/19/2014 – Chess is a widely used model of human expertise. Chess experts can quickly recognize candidate moves and correctly recall a chess position much better than novices: they “see” the board differently. Two Argentinian scientists, Maria Juliana Leone and Mariano Sigman, have hypothesized that the internal representation of the board depends on the chess skill. Academic report.

8/14/2006 – Once again (after a report on Deep Blue) chess has made it to the cover of the periodical Scientific American. An article written by Phil Ross, a 2053 USCF player, describes the research that has gone into explaining such extraordinary cognitive feats of the human mind as grandmasterly play. Not a lot of new material for the expert, but a good summary for a general audience. Read the online version.