3/4/2024 – The Karel Janecek Open, which takes place as part of the Prague Chess Festival, features a number of grandmasters, but after five of nine rounds an IM is in the lead with 5 out of 5: Xiang Zeyu from China. Eight players follow half a point behind with 4.5 out of 5 each. Four of these eight players are Grandmasters, four are International Masters. | Foto: Petr Vrabec

3/4/2024 – The ultimate chess companion bundle: Fritz 19 paired with the Fritz Powerbook 2024. Elevate your game with Fritz 19's advanced AI and deep analysis tools that challenge and teach players of all skill levels. Then, take your strategy to the next level with the Fritz Powerbook 2024, offering over 25 million openings, variations, and patterns derived from real-world games and top-level matches. Together, they provide an unparalleled chess training experience, combining tactical depth with a vast knowledge base to sharpen your skills and strategies like never before. This bundle is now €139.90 instead of €179.90!

3/4/2024 – A battery is a formation that consists of two or more pieces on the same rank, file, or diagonal. In a more detailed way, a battery refers to a configuration of heavy pieces (rooks or queens) that occupy the same file. It can also refer to long-range pieces (queens and bishops) that occupy the same diagonal. Learn more about the strength of the chess battery in part two of a mini-series by chess trainer Efstratios Grivas.

3/4/2024 – Four weeks before the start of the Candidates Tournament in Toronto, almost all the participants and their travelling companions are still waiting for the visas they applied for months ago to be issued. FIDE has now sent an "urgent visa appeal to the Canadian government" and is even considering moving the "most prestigious tournament in the chess world" to another country. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

3/3/2024 – A fortnight ago, I showed a game by Lu Miaoyi, a ferocious 14-year-old Chinese girl. This started me thinking about the best attacking players of all time. I don’t have an ordered list myself, just some names which I think should go very close to the top. Here I analysed three brilliant attacking wins by Rashid Nezhmetdinov (pictured), Paul Keres and Wei Yi. What is your top ten of attacking players? Share your list in the comments section.

3/3/2024 – The Djerba Masters was an 8-player single round-robin featuring a mix of rising stars and experienced grandmasters. In the end, Daniel Dardha and Hans Niemann tied for first place with 4½ points each. Dardha was declared tournament winner thanks to his better tiebreak score. World junior champion Marc’Andria Maurizzi tied for third place with fan favourite Vasyl Ivanchuk. | All photos by Diana Mihajlova

3/1/2024 – Tata Steel 2024: Analyses of the tournament winner Wei Yi as well as Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Alexander Donchenko, Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri, Erwin l'Ami, Praggnanandhaa, Eline Roebers and Vidit Gujrathi - Mihail Marin looks back at Linares 1992: Kasparov vs. the young generation - French à la Erigaisi: Sergey Grigoriants serves up a fresh idea in the Advance Variation: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bd7 6.Be2 f6!? - Inviting Nimzo-Inder: In the fashionable variation 4.f3 d5 5.a3 Be7 6.e4 dxe4 7.fxe4 c5 White gets a protected passed pawn on d5; Jan Werle shows why Black can afford it! - "Fundamental Endgame Knowledge" Part #8: What you need to know in the endgame with bishop and pawn; video course with Karsten Mueller and much more. Enjoy CBM #218 in the new ChessBase book format on any device: iPad, tablet, Mac. Windows PC or laptop!

3/1/2024 – An eventful third round in the Masters section of the Prague Chess Festival saw Nodirbek Abdusattorov beating David Navara to catch Parham Maghsoodloo in the lead of the standings. Richard Rapport and Thai Dai Van Nguyen also scored full points — Rapport inflicted Praggnanandhaa’s second loss in a row after the Indian prodigy blundered twice from a superior position. In the Challengers, Abhimanyu Mishra defeated Vaclav Finek to join Anton Korobov and Ediz Gurel in the lead. | Photo: Petr Vrabec

2/29/2024 – A top grandmaster tournament, the 5th Shenzhen Chess Masters, began today in Longgang, a district of the Chinese metropolis with a population of 17 million. Eight players are taking part, including five players with an Elo rating of over 2700. Anish Giri and Erigaisi started with victories.| Photos: Shenzhen News Network

2/29/2024 – In his new Fast & Furious episode, Robert Ris takes a look how Praggnanandhaa and Vincent Keymer set the board on fire in the first round of the Prague Chess Festival. They started with an Italian and were both willing to enter a complicated and sharp theoretical line. | Fast & Furious is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

2/29/2024 – At 90, you must be the oldest chess grandmaster in the world, or so we thought when we honoured Klaus Darga on his 90th birthday. But that's not true. German chess journalist Stefan Löffler, editor of the "Schachkalender", knows better. There are even older ones. This is also due to the fact that FIDE recently made Andreas Dückstein from Austria (photo: Martin Stichlberger) an honorary grandmaster.

2/29/2024 – In the latest episode of "The Underdog," we have a monumental moment in chess history, where 8-year-old Ashwath Kaushik shattered expectations by defeating a grandmaster in a classical chess game. Despite the crazy rating difference of almost 500 points, Ashwath demonstrated remarkable skill and strategic finesse. IM Robert Ris provides a comprehensive analysis of the game, breaking down the critical moves and strategies that led to this young prodigy's incredible victory.