5/24/2024 – In the 1971 Candidate Matches Bobby Fischer faced Mark Taimanov In Vancouver, Canada. The American defeated his opponent from the Soviet Union with a "dry" 6-0 score. But matters could have started differently. In the first game it was Taimanov who put on the pressure, and even had winning chances. He played 27.h3, which nobody considered a bad move – until Kasparov pointed out its defect in 2004. Today's riddle deals with the position before White's 27th move. Computers find it devilishly difficult to find the best continuation. Can you?

5/24/2024 – The Candidates Tournament 2024 took place last month in Toronto, Canada. The tournament turned out to be quite exciting, with many twists and turns. Sanket Nawle lives in Toronto, and is an excellent photographer. He tried to capture a few moments outside the playing hall — and managed to take some beautiful photos! In this article, he takes you through some of his most favourite photos from the Candidates, shortly describing why he likes them. | Photos: Sanket Nawle

5/24/2024 – After four rounds of rapid games, Kirill Alekseenko and Eduardo Iturrizaga are tied for first place at the Salamanca Masters. The co-leaders have collected 3 points each and stand a half point ahead of Ruslan Ponomariov. Thursday’s rounds saw all eight games ending decisively, as tactical, hard-fought chess has been the rule at the age-old University of Salamanca. | Photos: Official website

5/23/2024 – The Norway Chess super-tournament will start on Monday, with a stellar 6-player field including world champion Ding Liren and world number one Magnus Carlsen. In a recent interview conducted by The Indian Express, Ding talked about his expectations for the event in Stavanger, the pressures connected to having become the world champion and his preparation for the World Championship match against D Gukesh. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

5/23/2024 – In his new Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft takes a look at an interesting endgame, which helped German IM Julian Kramer to score a crucial win in an important game. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

5/23/2024 – Four players finished the Sharjah Masters atop the standings with 6½ points — and it was 17-year-old Bardiya Daneshvar who was declared the winner on tiebreak criteria. Volodar Murzin and Sam Shankland completed the podium, while Shamsiddin Vokhidov grabbed fourth place after scoring a full point in Thursday’s ninth round. In the Challengers, 18-year-old Divya Deshmukh emerged victorious, as she finished the event with a better tiebreak score than Leya Garifullina and Sina Movahed. Pictured on the right is Agshin Alizada, who won the Futures section. | Photo: Aditya Sur Roy

5/20/2024 – In every issue of ChessBase Magazine, Robert Ris invites you to replay a recent top-class game with him “Move by Move”. In this interactive session with video feedback, you have the opportunity to find out the right moves yourself and enter them on the board. For CBM #219, Ris chose Nodirbek Abdusattorov's win against world champion Ju Wenjun from the Tata Steel Masters 2024. In the Italian Game with the rare 4...Be7 completely unknown territory was already entered after 5.0-0 0-0 6.Bb3 a5 7.c4. Use this week's CBM reading sample and take your game to the next level with the help of Robert Ris! Now also available for iPad, smartphone, Mac et

5/20/2024 – Draws on the top three boards in round 6 of the Sharjah Masters allowed Aravindh Chithambaram to keep the sole lead in the standings. Arjun Erigaisi and Alexey Sarana grabbed full points to join the chasing pack, which now includes six players. Meanwhile, fourth seed Teimour Radjabov obtained a remarkable win over Arseniy Nesterov, his first of the event. | Photo: Aditya Sur Roy

5/19/2024 – Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Viswanathan Anand and Bassem Amin are testing the Casablanca Chess Variant in Morocco, as they play rapid games (15+10) starting from carefully selected positions derived from historical games. Rounds 1-3 take place on Saturday, while rounds 4-6 take place on Sunday. | Follow the games live starting from 20.15 CEST (14.15 ET, 23.45 IST)

5/19/2024 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books on chess training and strategy. In the 178th episode of his ChessBase show "Understanding before moving" Herman continues his series "Chess history in a nutshell" and continues to take a look at the career and games of Bobby Fischer, World Champion from 1972 to 1975. | Photo: Pascal Simon

5/19/2024 – Casablanca Chess made a strong impression on the first day of play in Morocco. The innovative format, where games start in positions selected from historical encounters, brought excitement to both participants and spectators. Following three rounds, Magnus Carlsen is leading with 2½ points after grabbing wins over Viswanathan Anand and Hikaru Nakamura. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

5/19/2024 – The Sicilian Dragon is full of options for White, after the first 8-12 moves have been played. One of them is, to place the Knight on e4. But is this a good idea for White? Chris Ward doesn't think so, and shows us a couple of ideas for Black to deal with this unusual progression. Luckily, a Dragon player is in for some fun because some tactics are rolling in. | Photo: John Upham