3/11/2024 – The 6th Prague International Chess Festival ended on 7 March. Nodirbek Abdusattorov won the Masters and moved up to 4th place on the live Elo list. Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal from ChessBase India accompanied the festival as commentators. In a video they recall nine highlights of the festival on a tour of Prague, one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.

3/11/2024 – Five months after Hamas attacked the Israeli civilian population with hideous atrocities, 100 hostages are still being held captive by Hamas. At the invitation of German MP Marlene Schönberger, Judit and Zsofia Polgar will play a solidarity simul in the German Parliament. All chess fans are invited to take part, as spectators or players. Press release.

3/11/2024 – This week we are once again offering you a free sample from the current ChessBase Magazine #218 in ChessBase book format: strategy expert Mihail Marin looks back on the 1992 Linares tournament - one of the strongest tournaments in chess history, which also marked an important historical moment: the end of the dominance of the two "Ks" - Kasparov and Karpov. In his article, Mihail Marin analyses games by Kasparov, Karpov, Ivanchuk, Short, Anand, Timman and others. Including many training exercises and two interactive training videos. Have fun!

3/11/2024 – The Jubilee Tournament of the Werder sports club in Bremen’s “Werder-Halle” came to an end on Sunday with a victory for India’s Aditya Mittal. For the 17-year-old, who is also a member of the Werder Bremen team in the Bundesliga, a draw against Czech GM Vojtech Plat was enough to win the tournament with a full-point advantage over Polish GM Pawel Teclaf. | Photos: Werder Bremen Sports Club

3/10/2024 – From 12 to 21 March, the American Cup 2024 will be held in Saint Louis, this time in the World Chess Hall of Fame, with an open and a women’s tournament. Most of the chess elite from the United States will take part in the knockout tournaments with a double-elimination format. | Photo: Austin Fuller

3/10/2024 – The Carlsbad Pawn structure, or formation, is normally deriving from the Queen's Gambit declined, London System, or the Caro-Kann. A common structure, which actually has some ideas, and plans to accomplish. Svitlana tells us, what the major plans are for White, and Black, by showing us two example games. One of them is Garry Kasparov vs. Nigel Short!

3/7/2024 – Magnus Carlsen has been the World #1, since 2011! Apart from his tremendous chess talent, he also has a relatively higher HRV: his heart rate is typically between 75 bpm – 95 bpm, which enables him to balance alertness (for tactical danger and opportunities) and calmness (to optimize logical thinking and decision-making)! Calm heartbeats during critical moments lead to better decisions!

3/7/2024 – Nodirbek Abdusattorov is the sixth champion of the prestigious chess festival. In the process the the 19-year-old Usbek grandmaster rose to the fourth position in the world live ranking, ahead of the reigning world champion Ding Liren. All games of the final round were drawn, and can be replayed, with engine commentary, in this report. You can also watch the live commentary by ChessBase India, if you missed it.

3/7/2024 – Greek grandmaster Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis is on the verge of victory at the Karel Janecek Open, which is being held as part of the Prague Chess Festival. With one round to go, he has 7.5 out of 8, and is one point ahead of six players with 6.5 out of 8. In round 8, Kourkoulos-Arditis scored an important win with Black in a theoretically interesting and tactically rich game. | Photo: Johannes Fischer

3/7/2024 – The Philidor Defence is celebrated for its historical significance and varied tactical approaches, including the aggressive early f5 push and the more dubious line involving an early d4 pawn exchange and fianchetto. This video course, by GM Christian Bauer, shows the Philidor Defence's main positions and White's significant deviations, highlighting the nuanced manoeuvres in a semi-closed middlegame that challenge White's comfort.

3/7/2024 – In his new Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft delves into the depths of modern theory and looks at a Grünfeld line that Daniil Dubov and Anish Giri discussed at the Shenzhen tournament. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

3/7/2024 – Nodirbek Abdusattorov claimed overall victory at the Prague Masters with a round to spare after prevailing in a wild encounter against Parham Maghsoodloo. The Uzbek GM’s 6/8 score in the Czech capital allowed him to gain 15.5 Elo points and climb to fourth place in the live ratings list. Round 8 also saw Gukesh beating Vincent Keymer. Meanwhile, in the Challengers, Jaime Santos defeated Anton Korobov and is now sharing the lead with Ediz Gurel. Gurel’s draw with Erwin l’Ami secured him a third and final GM norm. | Photo: Anezka Kruzikova / Prague Chess Festival