8/23/2023 – In mid-August, the Women's Chess Commission hosted its inaugural Online Blitz Tournament on the ChessBase Playchess platform. Under the leadership of Chairperson Regina Pokorna, the event was organized to further spotlight women's chess. Eleven female competitors took part in this intimate online blitz event, where they had the chance to challenge the formidable IM Stavroula Tsolakidou. The top Greek female player clinched the title with a flawless score of 10/10!

6/8/2021 – Train and analyse with video - almost like in a chess club, but simply via the browser! The new training functions in the PlayChess web browser are already being actively used by Stefan Kindermann and the Munich Chess Academy! You can see, hear, analyse, train and of course play! Anyone can create their own virtual room, invite friends and training groups and get started. Martin Fischer explains step-by-step how it works. Online training has never been so much fun!

1/12/2021 – Playing chess with a friend in these weird times is not as easy as it used to be, and nothing compares to a "real" played game over the board. But Playchess still has a beautiful alternative, which every premium member can use in less than a couple of minutes. I wanted to play a friend, and surprised him on Facebook by inviting him to play a game on Playchess to try out the video and audio options.

12/29/2020 – In rapid, blitz or bullet the players have between one minute and one hour to mate or flag their opponents. In Hyperbullet they have only 30 seconds. But why not speed this up a bit? How about Ultrabullet, where each player has only 15 seconds for the entire game? "That's silly and has nothing to do with chess anymore", some might say. Ruben Mantel, Germany's best Ultrabullet player, partly agrees with this statement, but not entirely. In a "Rapid Interview" he talks about the attraction of very fast chess, how he came to like Ultrabullet, and whether this form of blitz destroys the game of chess or might help to improve it.

12/23/2020 – Just a quick reminder! Today GM Elshan Moradiabadi will participate in our video blitz tournament at 15:00 CET. The good news is that we still have two open seats available! If you apply, you will be raffled and might take part in our little tournament.

12/16/2020 – The video and audio function of Playchess is being used more and more often by our premium members. Of course, during the pandemic people are thankful for having an option available to see, hear, and play chess with a single friend, a group of friends, or even the whole chess club. Furthermore, in the second half of December, you will be able to face three VIP players! We will also premiere our very first double-round bullet chess evening. Just sign up to play against Regina Pokorna, Elshan Moradiabadi and Germany’s fastest chess player, Ruben Mantel!

12/6/2020 – In "Rapid Interview" I talk with personalities of chess, in the course of us playing a rapid game. Grandmaster Jonathan Levitt is my first victim, and it turns out not being so easy to answer all questions confidently, while facing the Albin's Countergambit. Levitt has done a lot for chess in the 80s and 90s, reaching his Grandmaster title in 1994. He wrote chess books, invented tricky chess puzzles, and coached successfully. Why did he suddenly stop playing chess? And how come he wrote a brand-new book? This, and other questions will be answered in the Rapid Interview.

11/20/2020 – The ChessBase Playchess server now offers a "Video & Audio" option which allows you to see your opponents and to talk to them. With this function, playing online comes as close as it can get to playing in real life. After successful Playchess tournaments with Elisabeth Pähtz, Vincent Keymer and Simon Williams, Lawrence Trent waits to play against ChessBase readers. If you are a premium member, and if your computer has a microphone and webcam, apply to join the tournament on Monday!

10/20/2020 – Playchess.com offers Premium Members a number of attractive blitz tournaments. The tournaments are played with real names and you will know whether you play a real life GM or IM. The winners receive 90 minutes of online training with world-class coach GM Rustam Kazimdzhanov, GM Sebastian Siebrecht or GM Yannick Pelletier, or they can take part in a virtual chess party (an online blitz tournament with GM Nicholas Pert). Details...

9/3/2020 – It is not clear when we will get to play over-the-board team tournaments again. Online competitions are the only alternative. But where can you play serious team matches using a classical formats? On PlayChess! For example at the DSOL (German Online Chess League), in which 246 teams are participating. You do not need to play at the DSOL to play with your team though — anyone can do it! You can set up a round-robin event with a fixed board order or use the Scheveningen system. As in over-the-board tournaments, the players can concentrate exclusively on their games and do not have to worry about the pairings or how to challenge others. Only the team captains have to put in some more work, just like in “normal” team matches.

7/30/2020 – This Saturday, 1st August, will witness the biggest ever Online Blitz tournament in the history of ChessBase India. The Knighthood Online Blitz will have a total prize fund of ₹1,50,000 and the first prize of ₹40,000! And guess what? All the entry fees will be used for a good cause — to promote and support specially-abled chess players of India. The tournament is sponsored by a chess lover named Sujit Varghese. What's more, India's no.2 GM Vidit Gujrathi is also involved in the event and will play a simul against the age-group winners and specially-abled players on the 2nd of August 2020.

7/27/2020 – Some might say chess is at its peak of popularity due to the coronavirus. People who have never played chess before are thinking, “There is no better time than now to learn how to play chess”. And they are right! I myself have been asked by a lot of friends if I could teach them how to play. Thanks to PlayChess.com I can teach more than one student at a time with ease. I quickly explain the steps needed to set up a coaching session in a short video!

4/27/2020 – On Saturday, Germany's grandmasters won an online team match against Romania on playchess.com 36½:27½. Germany's top scorer was Elisabeth Pähtz who finished with 6½/8. However, Romania won the junior match 9½:6½.

4/15/2020 – Playing online is fun and playing for a club is fun! And if you play your club tournament at playchess.com, ChessBase adds prizes! Every club that plays a tournament of at least 64 games on playchess.com in April wins a ChessBase 15 program, a ChessBase premium annual account and a ChessBase voucher worth €30.

4/14/2020 – With four out of five tournaments completed, the Saturday online blitz series organized by ChessBase India has a clear leader in Diptayan Ghosh. The 21-year-old got back-to-back second places in the first events, but finally scored his first tournament victory on the third Saturday. That was enough to get an eight-point lead over Raunak Sadhwani in the overall standings (tournament victory gives ten points). | Photo: Shahid Ahmed

4/2/2020 – Amid the Coronavirus crisis, chess players have turned to online tournaments to practice, compete and keep their spirits high. In this context, ChessBase India organized a five-event series to take place every Saturday since the 21st of March. Two tourneys have already been played. Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and Arjun Erigaisi were the winners, but Diptayan Ghosh is leading the overall standings table. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

3/30/2020 – In our third tutorial, focusing on our playchess.com virtual rooms, we see how to have an online training session with you as a chess coach. In our tutorial series, we already took a look at how to create a virtual room for your chess club. Furthermore, we had another tutorial about online tournaments in your virtual room. These offers are an excellent option to keep up with your chess activities.

3/28/2020 – With playchess.com you can create a virtual room for your chess club. We recently featured how to do so! The logical follow up is to organize an online tournament in your own club room. It is quite simple: All club members receive a special link, with one click the virtual tournament hall is accessed, the tournament director starts the round and the chessboard game windows open automatically for the participants. Just like in real life, this is a bit more demanding for the tournament director. This tutorial explains how it all works.

3/19/2020 – Every club, school or trainer can open a virtual playing room on the ChessBase server. Everything is possible: casual games, tournaments, online training, simultaneous events, etc. Everything on "your" chess server! The best alternative to keep the club evening running, and a good (virtual) meeting point to play chess together. Creating a virtual club room is easy. Have a look!

7/18/2019 – Playing online is both fun and helps you to improve. ChessBase offers a number of possibilities to do so, including in your web browser. Here's a short and easy introduction to the various ways and possibilities to play online chess with ChessBase for free.

9/1/2018 – In over-the-board games, some people like to note down how much time they spent on each move to be able to analyse their games better and to improve their thinking processes. If you play online the computer does this for you: it automatically records the time you spent on your moves. You can use this information — or you can delete it. | Graphics: ChessBase

7/26/2018 – Summer time is holiday time. But not all chess players use their holidays to play in a summer open. If you pursue other interests but still want to keep in shape you might want to turn to the playchess.com WebApp. It offers a good way to play on your iPhone, smartphone, tablet or IPad, etc.

5/3/2018 – The playchess server is ideal to practice openings. And sometimes you might want to practice openings with White or with Black and with White or with Black only. Here's a short tutorial how to do that. | Drawing: ChessBase

4/13/2018 – Practising to calculate variations quickly keeps your chess mind in shape and helps you to win more games. ChessBase has a whole suite of tools that help you to train your calculation skills. In this overview, you can find a training recipe to suit your taste. Have a look and try it out!