2/1/2024 – In the second instalment, we see some more compositions submitted to the Christmas Contest that are worthy of a mention but missed out on the prizes by a whisker! Though some are by beginners, others are by well-seasoned experts. But all problems were evaluated through economy, harmony and aesthetics. Hope you have fun reading these!

2/1/2024 – The 2024 Chess Olympiad will be held in Budapest from 10 to 23 September. By their very nature, Chess Olympiads are chess festivals that bring together nations, amateurs, professionals, men and women. Hungary is a country with a long and rich chess tradition and the Chess Olympiad 2024 promises to be a chess highlight of 2024.

2/1/2024 – It is 1 February and FIDE has published their new World Ranking List. There have been some changes in the rankings, mainly due to the results of the tournaments in Wijk aan Zee, but Carlsen, Caruana and Nakamura continue to lead the world rankings despite not having played a FIDE rated game in January. Ju Wenjun has moved back into second place behind Hou Yifan in the women's rankings.

2/1/2024 – ChessBase Magazine Extra is the ideal supplement to ChessBase Magazine. The new Extra #217 starts the new video series "Mikhalchishin's Miniatures" - the first part focusses on the Queen's Gambit Accepted. In addition, Nico Zwirs examines the Najdorf Variation with 6.h3 e5 7.Nf3 Be7 8.g4 b5 in his video contribution. The “Lucky bag” this time contains 48 analyses by Anish Giri, Ivan Saric, Samvel Ter-Sahakyan, Romain Edouard, Michal Krasenkow and many others!

2/1/2024 – The first event of the Champions Chess Tour kicked off on Wednesday. A 9-round Swiss open featuring over 200 players saw Peruvian GM Jose Martinez claiming first place on tiebreaks after scoring as many points as Spanish GM David Anton. Remarkably, Martinez, an online-chess specialist, outscored the likes of Hikaru Nakamura and Alireza Firouzja on his 25th birthday.

2/1/2024 – ChessBase media manager Arne Kaehler comes up with amusing ideas daily. One of these has now been brought to life: The challenge is to study chess using all ChessBase products for at least two hours daily over a month, and to win a tournament as the group's lowest-rated player. Sounds crazy? Perhaps. But what could possibly go wrong when chess is such a delightful activity? In the forthcoming video series, Arne invites you to join his adventure, looking into nearly everything ChessBase offers, learning from chess experts, experiencing ups and downs, and, most importantly, addressing the ultimate question: Will he actually succeed? | Photo: (right) Sandra Schmidt

1/31/2024 – Fritz 19 has opened a whole new area, the ChessBase Cards Exchange. There are now trading cards with motifs and information from many areas of the chess world. Cards can be acquired in various ways and traded on the market: "Trade corld champion for a stamp..."

1/31/2024 – Today is the 100th anniversary of the death of Curt von Bardeleben. A wealthy privateer, he was one of the best German chess players in the 1880s and 1890s. He lost his fortune during the First World War and fell seriously ill. On 31 January 1924 he fell to his death from a window.

1/31/2024 – Last week we asked you to help us solve a historical riddle. Game 3 of the 1972 match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky left many open questions and new discoveries to be made. Charles Sullivan, Wolfram Schön, Zoran Petronijevic helped Karsten Müller resolve the riddles — and it turns out that Spassky could have held a draw!

1/30/2024 – In the final instalment of the problem-solving experiment, we invited Prof. Dr Vera Spillner to solve the unorthodox chess puzzles, present in the Dec. 31 article! We have already seen a grandmaster, and a former world problem champion solving the problems, so how about a chess amateur and enthusiast? Read on more to find out!

1/30/2024 – Boris Spassky, world champion from 1969 to 1972, celebrates his 87th birthday on 30 January. Spassky is regarded as a universal player and played numerous fantastic attacking games during his career. One of his favourite openings with White was the King's Gambit, which he used to beat players such as David Bronstein, Bobby Fischer, Yasser Seirawan and Anatoly Karpov. | Photo: Boris Spassky, Chess Olympiad Saloniki 1984 | Photo: Gerhard Hund

1/30/2024 – From 24 to 30 January 2024, Jeddah is hosting a highly competitive U18 youth tournament. The ninth and final round will be played on Tuesday, January 30 starting at 14.00 CET (08.00 ET, 18.30 IST)