2/6/2024 – In the 15th Penang Heritage City International Chess Open 2023 that concluded on the 22nd of December 2023, the rise of teens of South East Asia was truly apparent. Besides local favourite FM Poh Yu Tian, the other regional juniors that shone during the event included 17-year-old Indonesian IM Arfan Aditya Bagus, 14-year-olds Ivan Travis Cu and Sidabutar Uriel Noah Oloan besides Uzair Shahar of Malaysia. Edwin Lam Choong Wai reports. | Photos: Penang Chess Association’s Facebook page

2/6/2024 – Passed pawns can be dangerous and often lead to tactical opportunities. In the diagram position it is White to move and win. What should he do?

2/6/2024 – Jan Henric Buettner is the man behind the Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge in Weissenhaus, which starts on Friday and sets new standards in terms of the line-up and the presentation of a chess tournament. In an interview with André Schulz, the successful entrepreneur introduces the tournament: “It’s going to be mega fun!”

2/5/2024 – Alireza Firouzja took down Ian Nepomniachtchi and Denis Lazavik in back-to-back matches to reach the Grand Final in Division I of the Chessable Masters. Firouzja will get a rest day before facing Carlsen in Wednesday’s showdown. Tuesday will see the Grand Finals in Division II (Vincent Keymer v. Levon Aronian) and Division III (Alexander Grischuk v. Alexey Sarana). | Photo: Alireza Firouzja’s X account

2/5/2024 – To get active play and fresh positions against the Catalan, you have to come up with something. GM Yago Santiago succeeded in doing just that in his search for his own Black repertoire. Already with the fourth move - 4...Nc6!? - Black steers the game into largely unexplored territory, and after 5.Bg2 Bde6!? 6.0-0 0-0 the starting position of his analysis in ChessBase Magazine #217 is reached. You are invited again this week: Have a look at the article with all our author's analyses as a free reading sample - directly via your web browser in the new ChessBase Books format. CBM #217 is the first issue to include full mobile access. So, you can load it directly in your web browser on your iPad, tablet or Mac. Have fun!

2/5/2024 – Magnus Carlsen advanced to the Grand Final of the Chessable Masters by beating young star Denis Lazavik in a hard-fought match. Lazavik will face either Alireza Firouzja or Ian Nepomniachtchi in the final of the losers’ bracket to decide who gets to challenge Carlsen in Wednesday’s deciding match. | Photo: chess.com / Thomas Tischio

2/2/2024 – The history of the Candidates Tournaments and Candidates Matches dates back to 1950. In its anniversary year, FIDE is looking forward to the Candidates Tournaments in Toronto in April 2024 and provides an overview of the history of these competitions. | Photos: Via FIDE

2/2/2024 – In his new Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft turns his attention to the winner of Wijk: Chinese Grandmaster Wei Yi. Merijn takes a look how Wei Yi used the hidden potential of the seemingly harmless Colle System to win a crucial game against Vidit. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

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!