11/28/2023 – Wesley So scored his second victory in this year’s Sinquefield Cup by beating Levon Aronian with the white pieces in Monday’s sixth round. Moreover, wins for Leinier Dominguez (over Anish Giri) and Fabiano Caruana (over Alireza Firouzja) greatly increased So’s chances of qualifying to the Candidates Tournament either by rating or via the FIDE Circuit. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/28/2023 – Creating passed pawns is a strong weapon in the endgame. In the diagram position Black can turn her majority into a passed pawn - a passed pawn on the b-file or a passed pawn on the a-file. What would you play?

11/28/2023 – Grandmaster Kevin Goh Wei Ming is both the CEO of the Singapore Chess Federation and an 8-time national champion at the Southeast Asian city-state. Kevin recently shared a post on X, showing his experience teaching chess at the Singapore Prison Services. IM Sagar Shah interviewed him on the topic. “Most importantly, chess has brought joy to [the inmates] in a way that perhaps serious, competitive players may never understand”. | Photos: Kevin Goh Wei Ming’s X account

11/27/2023 – In the Endgame Magic Show #256 Karsten Müller shows highlights from the European Team Tournament Budva, focusing on rook endgames. | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

11/27/2023 – Teimour Radjabov had a terrible tournament at the European Team Championship, and couldn't win a single game. Robert Ris steps in to the rescue. When Radjabov was just 15 years old, he faced Garry Kasparov, who had an incredible rating of 2847 at that time. In a French Defence game, we can witness several Knight sacrifices, and stunning attacks against Garry's king, by the Underdog.

11/27/2023 – Sofia Polgar's new book is instructive and informative. It is also generously illustrated, with acrylic on canvas paintings by the author. It is published by Russell Enterprises, and makes for an ideal Christmas gift. We have known Sofia since she was a very young girl, and tell you about that in part two of our review 0150 which also includes some of the paintings from the book.

11/26/2023 – ChessBase Magazine offers a window to the world of professional chess. The latest issue, CBM 216, is out. Our columnist Nagesh Havanur takes a look. Included are 968 games (34 annotated), decisive encounters from the World Cup deeply annotated, 11 opening surveys, 3 opening videos, 6 demo lectures and several exercises for training. Annotators include Anish Giri, Peter Heine Nielsen, Nijat Abasov, Vidit Gujrathi and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, among others. The icing on the cake is a feature on Hou Yifan with 22 annotated games. She has just won the Julius Baer Women’s Speed Championship for the second consecutive time. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage

11/26/2023 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books on chess training and strategy. In the 153rd episode of his ChessBase show "Understanding before moving" Herman continues his series "Chess history in a nutshell" and takes a look at the play of Mikhail Botvinnik. | Photo: Pascal Simon

11/26/2023 – Levon Aronian became the second player to grab a win in the Sinquefield Cup, as he beat Alireza Firouzja with the white pieces in round 5. This result allowed Wesley So to overtake Firouzja in the live ratings list, while it also reduced the rating gap between Firouzja and Anish Giri. The three players are fighting to get one of the two remaining spots in the 2024 Candidates — one will be granted via the ratings list and the second via the FIDE Circuit. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/26/2023 – Carissa Yip (pictured) grabbed her second U.S. women’s title last month — at 20 years of age! The youngster scored an incredible 8½/11, leaving the over-performing Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova a half point behind in the final standings. As ever, GM Karsten Müller followed the games closely, looking for interesting setups to analyse. Find here instructive analyses of six outstanding endgame positions! | Photo: Crystal Fuller

11/26/2023 – After eleven exciting rounds, the World Youth Championships — under 14, 16 and 18 — in the open and girls categories concluded in Montesilvano, Italy. A number of honorary guests delivered awards to the newly crowned world champions and the top-finishers. | Photos: Przemek Nikiel

11/25/2023 – At first glance, Fritz 19 is all about fun, with its quirky opponents and trophies. But there's also highly useful new functionality for serious opening training. Now, any database, opening article, or your own opening analysis can be loaded directly as an opening book to play against.