3/10/2023 – Anton Korobov regained clear first place in the standings of the European Championship by beating Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis in Thursday’s seventh round. Meanwhile, Benjamin Gledura (pictured) climbed to sole second place with a win over Giga Quparadze. Thirteen players stand a half point behind Gledura with four rounds to go in Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia. | Photos: European Chess Union

3/9/2023 – Today Bobby Fischer, who was born in Chicago on 9 March 1943 and died in Reykjavik on 17 January 2008, would have turned 80 years old. Fischer, world champion from 1972 to 1975, was a man full of contradictions and made headlines time and again — through his brilliant play, but also through his eccentric behaviour. Fischer’s long-time rival Bent Larsen once said: “You can’t understand Robert James Fischer. But why should you want to? Why not just feast your eyes on his games?” To celebrate his 80th birthday, we present a typical victory by the American genius.

3/9/2023 – In his Fast & Furious show, Robert Ris looks at the topical line with 4.h4 h5 in the Advance Variation of the Caro-Kann. The famed trainer analyses a game in which Black tried to cover the g5-square with f7-f6, in vain... | Fast & Furious is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

3/9/2023 – Chess and football might have more in common than first meets the eye, but in fact, there are parallel ideas of visual spatial intelligence in both chess and football. Which is one reason why Jason Kouchak, composer, pianist and avid chess fan supports "The Rooks", a women's football team in Lewes, Sussex, England. | Photo: Magnus Carlsen shows his football skills. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

3/9/2023 – Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis, the 101st seed at the European Championship, is sharing the lead with Anton Korobov after beating Eltaj Safarli with the black pieces. The 25-year-old IM from Greece will again get the black pieces in his seventh-round encounter against Korobov. Eight players, all on 5/6 points, make up the chasing pack. | Photos: European Chess Union

3/9/2023 – Chess was among the topics discussed at the 17th edition of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, which took place on March 3-4 at the Hynes Convention Centre in Boston. The panel brought together some of the biggest names in the game, including Danny Rensch, Jennifer Shahade, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, and Daryl Morey.

3/6/2023 – The current ChessBase Magazine #212 offers three opening videos: Rustam Kasimdzhanov examines the Ruy Lopez with 8.a4 b4 9.a5, which was played twice in the Tata Steel Masters 2023 (So-Keymer and Caruana-Carlsen). Nico Zwirs checks Magnus Carlsen's idea 7...Bg4 in the Queen's Gambit Exchange Variation. And Mihail Marin puts the Evans Gambit from the game Beerdsen-Pechac from the Challengers to the test. You can watch an excerpt from Kasimdzhanov's video analysis here. Have fun!

3/6/2023 – Bobby Fischer is certainly the most famous of the Pisces chess players. But other top players include Bent Larsen, Veselin Topalov, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Teimour Radjabov, Hou Yifan, Anna Muzychuk and David Bronstein. Those who are Pisces can sometimes be as brilliant as Albert Einstein. With the Pisces-born, the circle of the twelve signs of the zodiac has come full circle, making this our final instalment.| Photo: Pixabay

3/6/2023 – After three rounds, eleven players still have the maximum number of points at the European Championship in Vrnjacka Banja. The young Czech player Nguyen Thai Dai Van has the best tiebreak and nominally leads the field. | Photos: Tournament page

3/6/2023 – Referring to Boris Gelfand’s style, Vladimir Kramnik wrote: “What impresses me most is his ability to create games, where all the moves, from the first to the last, are as though links in a single logical chain”. GM Sundararajan Kidambi analyses Gelfand’s win over Vishy Anand at the 2012 World Championship match in Moscow, a perfect example of the Israeli’s brilliant strategic aptitude. | Photo: Rodrigo Fernandez

3/5/2023 – Facing the mighty Baden-Baden in the Bundesliga, Jon Speelman was paired up against Etienne Bacrot (pictured) with black. The English grandmaster thus describes the start of what turned out to be a miniature win for Bacrot: “I then made the mistake of fairly quickly sleepwalking along the moves which you play against the supposed main line 5.g3, and he hit me hard on move 8 with g4!. [...] A move or so later, when I finally awoke from my slumber, I was already lost.” | Photo: Anastasiia Korolkova / FIDE World Cup 2021

3/5/2023 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. In the 115th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to explain why it is good to study and to play the Sicilian. | Photo: Pascal Simon