4/2/2020 – The ten best players of the Soviet Union play against the ten best players from the "Rest of the World". Today we will see the decisive fourth and last round. After three rounds the Soviet team leads 15.5-14.5. Live transmission of the games starts at 17.00 pm CEST (11.00 EDT, 15.00 UTC). With commentary by IM Merijn van Delft.

4/2/2020 – The "Match of the Century" between the Soviet Union and the "Rest of the World" in Belgrade is close. After three rounds the USSR narrowly leads 15.5:14.5. In round two Bent Larsen had suffered a devastating defeat against Boris Spassky on board one, but in round three Larsen bounced back and won with Black against the World Champion. Samuel Reshevsky and Lajos Portisch also scored for the "World" but in the Soviet team Mihail Tal was the only one who could win.

4/2/2020 – Exciting chess is the reason some of us love it as a sport and look forward to fighting weekend after weekend in the tournament arena. Many come out from such arena to never enter again, because they cannot stand the pressure and the pain when they lose. But for those who are on the fence, and for those gladiators who fight endlessly during the year, there is nothing better than preparing one's own weapons, and sharpening them as much as possible. This can be aided by the right choice of openings, and reviewer DAVIDE NASTASIO thinks the Najdorf is definitely one of them. Pelletier introduces us to the magical world of the Sicilian Najdorf in his recent FritzTrainer!

4/2/2020 – Amid the Coronavirus crisis, chess players have turned to online tournaments to practice, compete and keep their spirits high. In this context, ChessBase India organized a five-event series to take place every Saturday since the 21st of March. Two tourneys have already been played. Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and Arjun Erigaisi were the winners, but Diptayan Ghosh is leading the overall standings table. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

4/1/2020 – The new monthly list of the FIDE is a bit weird. Only a few players had the opportunity to play before tournaments came to a halt. Magnus Carlsen is still number one and Fabiano Caruana is still the world's number two, but there are a few small changes in the current rankings.

4/1/2020 – The Candidates was pretty much the last tournament running, and has been cancelled halfway. The entire chess community has moved online by now and many new initiatives appear. This week Merijn van Delft looks at an interesting game he played before the (semi-)lockdown. | The show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!).

4/1/2020 – Although ChessBase is the international standard for top players, it also facilitates teaching chess to groups of children. For the past 15 years, for 10-20 hours per week, US Chess Master Jeff Ashton has taught using ChessBase. Ashton’s Panda Chess Academy transitioned from in-person classes to online instruction, due to his city’s closure of non-essential businesses. WIM ALEXEY ROOT interviews Jeff Ashton.

4/1/2020 – The second round of the "Match of the Century" in Belgrade brought amazing games. Robert "Bobby" Fischer won with Black again former World Champion Tigran Petrosian but the game of the day was World Champion Boris Spassky's spectacular win against Bent Larsen. After 17(!) moves Larsen resigned. But in these 17 moves Spassky had managed to sacrifice a rook and to queen his h-pawn. After two rounds the Soviet Union now leads 11.5-8.5.

4/1/2020 – Currently, the world's best players meet in Belgrade to play the "Match of the Century" and chess makes headlines again. The game also inspires some of the most famous artists and musicians of our time. But not all developments are positive. | Photo source: Booklet of an album by Ringo Starr

4/1/2020 – The April Fool prank has become progressively more difficult over the years. Of course it is easy to fool people with some unverifiable made up report ("Chess banned in North Korea"), but it misses an essential ingredient: the joke should be funny. And if you construct a genuinely funny story, our friends at Google usually make it possible to detect as a hoax within minutes. So we are, once again, restricting ourselves to past pranks – and to some humour to help strengthen our immune systems.

3/31/2020 – The coronavirus forces the whole world to stay at home. Despite all the disadvantages this has, it is a good time to play chess online and to improve your chess online. International Master Sagar Shah helps you to do so. The lockdown in India is expected to last at least three weeks and every day of these three weeks Sagar Shah offers 60 to 90 minutes chess knowledge online. Enjoy!

3/31/2020 – In the 1980s the Hungarian Grandmaster Andras Adorjan was one of the world's best players. He was a renowned opening expert and worked as an author and trainer, assisting Garry Kasparov, Peter Leko and others. However, Adorjan's most famous legacy is the slogan "Black is OK"! Today the Hungarian celebrates his 70th birthday. | Photo: Dutch National Archive

3/31/2020 – IM Lawrence Trent had been enjoying the Candidates, but today he tackles a game from the past. | Puzzle time: In the diagram, find the winning move for White. | Lawrence is live this week from 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST, 12 Noon EDT) and free for a limited time, or forever on-demand with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can always register a free 90-day account to watch.

3/31/2020 – Yesterday the saddest possible news hit us. "I have no words to express my grief over my wife Arianne's death," wrote Levon Aronian. "She was an intelligent, hard working and joyous person that lived a beautiful life. I love you, honeybun, sleep tight..." An unspeakable tragedy. Arianne was a strong WIM, but also a visionary, social worker, political advisor, MD, dancer, boxer, mountain climber, biker and excelled at just about everything she did. Her death at the age of 33 comes as a huge shock.

3/31/2020 – With only a few pawns remaining it is often surprisingly difficult to win an endgame with a knight up.

3/31/2020 – Chessmates is an organisation for junior players that uses chess to encourage young people to visit other countries to see the world and to broaden their horizon. However, when visiting Murmansk in Russia to play in a junior tournament the French team had more adventures than they really wanted. Stefan Löffler talked to Jurriaan Kien, president and founder of Chessmates. | Photo: Mvestnik.ru

3/31/2020 – The first round of the match between the USSR and the "Rest of the World" is over and the USSR leads with 5.5:4.5. A detailed report with analyses of key games will follow shortly but Vlastimil Hort was ready to share first impressions about the mood in his team, the atmosphere in Belgrade, and the difficulties to find the best line-up. | Picture: Hort's telegram to the German editors

3/30/2020 – There are very few individuals in the chess world who have met and known the many legends of the royal game as closely as the ChessBase co-founder Frederic Friedel. As editor of the ChessBase newspage he rubbed shoulders with greats like Kasparov, Karpov, Korchnoi, became friend and mentor to talents like Anand and Short, who often stayed in his home. Knowing also that Frederic is an unmatched raconteur, IM Sagar Shah always pesters him to tell a story or two every time they meet. The Knowing the Chess Greats series is an effort to bring some of these priceless conversations with Frederic to the general chess audience!