6/27/2022 – Vera Menchik (1906-44) was the first women's world chess champion, as well as the longest reigning champion, gaining the title at aged 21 and defending it multiple times until her untimely death. The European Chess Federation is staging a high-level ladies norm tournament that will end on the 78th anniversary of Menchik’s death, when she was struck down by a German V1 rocket in Clapham. The event takes place in th MindSports Centre, Dalling Rd, London W6 0JD, from Saturday 18th to Sunday 26th June 2022.

6/27/2022 – Hikaru Nakamura scored a crucial victory over Fabiano Caruana in round 8 of the Candidates Tournament. After getting a small edge in the middlegame, Naka slowly improved his position until getting a seemingly insurmountable advantage. Caruana tried to swindle his way to a draw, but was unable to escape in the end. Much earlier in the day, Richard Rapport had obtained a crashing victory over Jan-Krzysztof Duda. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage

6/26/2022 – 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 85th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to explain why playing the Benko Gambit might be a good choice for club players. | Photo: Pascal Simon

6/25/2022 – In the small Armenian town of Jermuk, a round-robin tournament with a strong field of ten young participants is currently taking place. Among them are Hans Moke Niemann (photo), Nihal Sarin and Alexander Donchenko. After five rounds, these three players are only among the chasers with 2½/5 points each. At the top of the standings is a quartet with 3/5 points each: Armenians Haik Martirosyan, Shant Sargsyan and Samvel Ter-Sahakyan and the Iranian Amin Tabatabaei. Daily rounds will be played until Tuesday. | Photos: Official website

6/25/2022 – Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana have done it again. For a second day in a row, the frontrunners to take the title scored full points in Madrid. Nepo still leads Caruana by a half point, while Hikaru Nakamura now stands 1½ points behind Caruana in sole third place. It has become hugely unlikely for a player other than the tournament’s two protagonists to bounce back and win the whole thing. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage

6/25/2022 – Free association is an interesting mechanism to make up introductions for articles. Let us try: "Music was my first love and it will be my last", John Miles sang many years ago. The "Children" of Caissa rather would see their "Circle of Life" in Chess, where the WCCT-7 theme might have been predicted by Phil Collins in "Against All Odds" (who also performed the song named in the previous quotation): "Take a look at me now! There's just an empty space!", the bishop in the Kozłowski study might say this. | Photos: Pixabay

6/22/2022 – In the June issue of the venerable British Chess Magazine, Macedonian GM Aleksandar Colovic (President and General Secretary of the Association of Chess Professionals) takes a deeper look at the strengths and weaknesses of the eight players fighting for a chance to be the next world champion. In agreement with BCM, ChessBase will publish BCM’s evaluation of the chances of the individual players, concluding today with a discussion of the "unlikely" and the "scarred" candidates – Hikaru Nakamura and Teimour Radjabov. | Photo FIDE official.

6/21/2022 – Ian Nepomniachtchi beat Alireza Firouzja from the white side of a double-edged Sicilian to grab the sole lead at the Candidates Tournament in Madrid. The three remaining games finished drawn, with Ding Liren failing to defeat Fabiano Caruana from a slightly superior position. Thus, former co-leader Caruana is now in sole second place, a half point behind Nepomniachtchi. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage

6/21/2022 – The Dutch GM was one of the strongest chess players in the late 70s, 80s, and early 90s. Timman never feared complicated games, which gave him many opportunities to discover some brilliant tactics against players like Kasparov, Kamsky, Karpov, and Anand. Lawrence dives right into the business, and gives us the chance to find the tactical moves ourselves. Furthermore, can we uphold the rating of 2500 in our tactics section, or will something unexpected mess things up?

6/21/2022 – In the June issue of the venerable British Chess Magazine, Macedonian GM Aleksandar Colovic takes a deeper look at the strengths and weaknesses of the eight players fighting for a chance to be the next world champion. In agreement with BCM, ChessBase is publishing BCM’s evaluation of the chances of the individual players, continuing today with the dark horse from Poland, Jan-Krzysztof Duda (24), and former candidate Ian Nepomniachtchi (31).

6/21/2022 – Watching and following live events from one's phone is nothing new, and there are a myriad of ways to do so, including of course the ChessBase News page. Recently however, a great deal of effort has been invested into making the ChessBase experience that extra bit better and more enjoyable, and you now have much more than just the games and moves at your fingertips.

6/21/2022 – Endgames are often full of tactical possibilities, particularly so if both sides have passed pawns. The diagrammed position occurred in a game between Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri at the Esports Cup in Oslo. It is White to move, and can you find the move the World Champion played?