3/17/2026 – Frederick Waldhausen Gordon of Scotland produced a striking late surge to win the 2026 British Rapidplay Championship in Peterborough, defeating top seed Gawain Maroroa Jones in the decisive final-round encounter. The two-day Swiss event attracted 228 participants, including seven grandmasters. Maroroa Jones and Shreyas Royal shared second place, while Trisha Kanyamarala, Harriet Hunt and Bodhana Sivanandan were declared co-winners of the British Women's Rapidplay title. | Photo: Ife Olayinka

3/17/2026 – Black knight's knightmare: In the fight bishop against knight the bishop often wants dynamics: White to move and win.

3/16/2026 – With the Candidates Tournament set to begin later this month, FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky has addressed concerns about security, travel logistics and organisational preparations in an interview with Sagar Shah. While acknowledging regional tensions, Sutovsky stressed that plans for the event in Cyprus remain unchanged, with contingency measures in place and close coordination with local authorities. | Pictured: Sutovsky at the 2024 World Corporate Chess Championship in New York. | Photo: FIDE / Rafal Oleksiewicz

3/16/2026 – In the latest episode of his Power Play Show, GM Daniel King looks at Anish Giri v. Yaaz Kaan Erdogmus. | Watch Power Play on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer.

3/16/2026 – Hikaru Nakamura was defeated 6–4 by Awonder Liang in a three-day training match in Saint Louis held as preparation for the Candidates Tournament. After two drawn classical games, all eight encounters in the rapid and blitz sessions ended decisively, with Liang ultimately prevailing. The match provided Nakamura with competitive practice ahead of a demanding event, for which several of his future rivals have recently been active. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

3/16/2026 – The Prague Chess Festival produced such a nice collection of fascinating games that we are returning to this tournament once more. Jorden van Foreest was well on his way to win the tournament, but crashed in the final rounds, leaving Nodirbek Abdusattorov as the convincing winner and the new number four in the world rankings. Today's Game of the Week is the wildly entertaining attacking game David Navara produced after Nodirbek Yakubboev grabbed a poisoned pawn. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

3/16/2026 – In the current ChessBase Magazine #230, Nico Zwirs analyses the game between his compatriots Jorden Van Foreest and Anish Giri from the Tata Steel Masters 2026 in the video. The focus is on the opening, as Van Foreest had clearly prepared something special against the Najdorf Variation – known to be one of Giri's specialities. After 11...Qc7, he continued with 12.a3 – ‘A Karpovian move!’. White's idea is to move the b3 knight via c1 and a2 to b4 and from there to target the light squares d5 (and c6). Van Foreest thus invested four moves in improving his knight and securing his king's position. A new concept that paid off in full in this game! Take a look at this week's CBM reading sample!

3/16/2026 – Were you able to solve the challenge positions we gave you last week? Were you able find the way to promote the pawns to win? Today we bring you all solutions, with very instructive video explanations by Jared Modica, a chess content creator from Austin, Texas. He shows us how to solve tatical lines of play, and how to handle pawns in endgames.

3/15/2026 – Ulviyya Fataliyeva claimed clear first place at the IV International Women's Chess Championship in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, finishing strongly to score 6½/9 and a 2590 performance rating. The Azerbaijani representative secured the title with three consecutive wins in the closing rounds, overtaking Nana Dzagnidze, who remained unbeaten and finished second on 6 points. Harika Dronavalli took sole third place with 5½/9 in a compact, high-level round-robin event. | Photo: OSF via Women's Chess Coverage on X

3/15/2026 – Hikaru Nakamura is playing a training match against Awonder Liang in Saint Louis as he fine-tunes his form ahead of the Candidates Tournament, which begins in two weeks' time. The three-day encounter, running from 13 to 15 March, combines classical, rapid and blitz games. Liang, ranked 25th in the world, provides strong opposition in a match broadcast live on Nakamura's Kick channel. | Follow the games live starting at 18.00 CET (13.00 ET, 22.30 IST)

3/15/2026 – Two million Swedes play chess online, but only a few thousand are involved in traditional chess activities. This new category of players wants to have fun, be entertained and experience chess in a different way than in a quiet playing hall where competition and results are the focus. On 17-18 April 2026, Swedish chess history will be made when Chessparty Stockholm kicks off at Avicii Arena - a two-day festival that will be the country's biggest chess event ever.

3/15/2026 – In this episode, Svitlana and Arne kick off a Candidates-themed tactics series by exploring beautiful combinations from the careers of several contenders, including Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giri, Matthias Blübaum, and Wei Yi. Each player is represented by an easier and a harder puzzle, and the lesson highlights recurring tactical themes such as queen deflections, mating nets, forcing moves, and precise attacking calculation. Along the way, they also discuss their Candidates favourites, with Arne backing Matthias Blübaum as a dark horse, while Svitlana expects a fiercely contested tournament full of surprises.