6/2/2023 – In his new Power Play Show, GM Daniel King discusses a tricky question: what to do when your opponent advances his or her h-pawn early in the game? Block, restrain or ignore? | Power Play is on air most Fridays. Watch it on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer.

6/2/2023 – Once upon a time we all looked quite different - even some famous chess players. Our author has selected some childhood and youth photographs of famous chess grandmasters and invites you to guess. For example, who are the two perky new wave girls? Background singers from A-ha?

6/2/2023 – The advance of the h-pawn on move three is certainly not in line with the basic rules of how to play the opening. But in recent years a number of world-class players have been successful with it, including Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. And just a weeks ago at the Superbet Chess Classic in Bucharest, Fabiano Caruana managed an impressive winning game with it on his way to winning the tournament against MVL. Sipke Ernst recorded a FritzTrainer on 3.h4 against the Grünfeld and King's Indian half a year ago. In the new CBM Extra #213 he provides an update with current material - you can see an excerpt of his analysis here!

6/2/2023 – Fabiano Caruana and Alireza Firouzja (photo) won straight games against Aryan Tari and Nodirbek Abdusattorov in round 3 of the Norway Chess Tournament. Magnus Carlsen, D. Gukesh and Anish Giri picked up an extra half point in Armageddon after their draws. Caruana leads the field. | Photo: Norway Chess/ Lennart Ootes

6/2/2023 – In his Fast & Furious show, Robert Ris takes a look at a modern line of the Taimanov Sicilian, which Anish Giri and Gukesh recently discussed at the Norway Chess Blitz tournament in Stavanger. | Fast & Furious is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

6/1/2023 – From her weekly video series "Svitlana's Smart Moves" we already know what a good teacher Svitlana Demchenko is. She is well prepared, can give clear and understandable instructions, which makes it easier for her students to understand and learn from her, and she is excellent at explaining complex chess concepts in an understandable way, which makes the learning process more enjoyable! Her latest Fritztrainer consists of a whopping 10 hours of great instructional advice on how to play the Leningrad Dutch Defence!

6/1/2023 – FIDE has published its new world ranking list. In June 2023, Magnus Carlsen is the only player with an Elo rating above 2800 and leads the world rankings by almost 70 points. The best young players, Firouzja, Gukesh, Abdusattorov and Erigaisi, are steadily improving.

6/1/2023 – From the 1st to the 6th of June 2023, as a part of the Maharashtra Chess Festival, two matches between world class players will take place in Nagpur, India. The first is between India's no.3 GM Vidit Gujrathi, who will take on the eight-time Russian Champion Peter Svidler. The second is between the top rated junior from the state Raunak Sadhwani and former World Championship Challenger Nigel Short. We have done extensive video interviews with the players.

6/1/2023 – Michael Adams and Katarzyna Toma were the favourites to win the Open and Women's Championships of the English Chess Federation. However, both winners needed a bit of luck in some of their games. The ECF Championship is a very young tournament and many of the participants were youngsters. | Photos: English Chess Federation

6/1/2023 – The second round of the Norway Chess Tournament saw some very competitive games, which didn't always have a deserving winner. Nakamura was lucky to beat Gukesh, Firouzja scored against Mamedyarov and Abdusattorov had the better end against Aryan Tari. Carlsen and Caruana won in Armageddon against So and Giri. | Photos: Lennart Ootes/ Norway Chess

6/1/2023 – In today's episode, Honorata shows us how powerful her favourite chess piece can become, if played correctly - the Knight. The example she chose, is a game played by the world champions Alexander Alekhine and Max Euwe. The harmony of Alekhine's pieces blends in beautifully, as Euwe cannot progress at all. For the Polish WFM, this is one of the most beautiful games!

5/31/2023 – Perfection is fine, but it might cause problems. Performance ratings are also fine, but perfect scores can cause problems in calculating appropriate performance ratings. Matthew Wilson, a chess player, mathematician and economics teacher at the University of Richmond, has found a way to solve these problems. | Pictures: Sinquefield Cup 2014, a top level tournmanent, in which Fabiano Caruana started with 7.0/7. | Photos: Lennart Ootes