6/1/2022 – Grandmasters Maxime Lagarde (pictured) and Laurent Fressinet won the Internationaux de France blitz and rapid championships that were played over the weekend at Port-Marly near Paris. Lagarde won the blitz tournament with 11.0/13, and Fressinet won the rapid tournament with 8.0/9. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archive)

6/1/2022 – The claim to be the best ever in chess, in any category, is usually backed up by either hard numbers (Karpov's number of grandmaster tournament wins is not open to debate), or strong opinions such as the best absolute player. But the debate on the greatest prodigy seems to lie somewhere in between, depending on your criteria. Read this article and see if you agree. (photo: Capablanca at age four)

5/31/2022 – The Hamburg Chess Club hosted a GM tournament and an IM tournament last week. Leon Mendonca from India won the GM tournament. Frederick Svane scored a GM norm — 24 hours later Svane's third and last GM norm in the Bundesliga was also official. In the IM tournament, Brandon Clarke was the clear winner. | Photo: Hugo Schulz, Vasilios Kotronias, Leon Mendonca, Frederik Svane and Frank Bracker (Frank Bracker)

5/31/2022 – The new Extra #207 offers, among other things, over an hour of video training with Elisabeth Pähtz and Ivan Sokolov. Germany's best female chess player presents one of her favourite weapons against the Gruenfeld Defence in a short video series. And Sokolov's contribution deals with a topic that should be interesting for many 1.d4 players, especially at club level: The GM from the Netherlands shows a method with which a nice advantage can be comfortably achieved against the Budapest Gambit. This issue's "Brilliancy" comes from Jorden van Foreest, who takes a critical look at his Sicilian experiment (3.Bc4) from the Tata Steel Masters 2022 against Praggnanandhaa. In addition, the "Lucky bag" with 56 annotated games offers a great mix of analyses and surprising ideas. ChessBase Magazine Extra is the perfect complement to ChessBase Magazine. Available as a single issue or by subscription (6 issues per year). Available as a download or on DVD.

5/31/2022 – This year's Norway Chess Tournament in Stavanger started on Monday evening with a blitz tournament. After five rounds Magnus Carlsen led the field but then lost against Wesley So - after trying 1.a4 - and Vishy Anand. So, who had started the tournament with a loss against Wang Hao, used his chance and won the tournament with 6.5/9, one full point ahead of Carlsen who finished second with 5.5/9. | Photos: Norway Chess

5/31/2022 – IM Herman Grooten will offer rules-of-thumb and concepts to give clubchess players the necessary guidance to try and find the right paths in their own games. In this two-part course the emphasis will be on typical pawn-structures, ones that appear quite often in games and that will be very recognisable to club-chess players. Now, you also have the option to watch all of your favourite Fritztrainers in our "Video-Section" as a stream!

5/28/2022 – 75 years ago, on 28 May 1947, the American Grandmaster and renowned writer Andrew "Andy" Soltis was born in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. In an extensive interview Soltis talks about his chess and his writing career, chess in New York, the Marshall Chess Club, playing blitz against Bobby Fischer and about Fabiano Caruana and Magnus Carlsen. | Photo: Marcy Soltis

5/28/2022 – In the diagrammed position Black wins with 22...Nxf4!, this much is revealed - all the rest will be up to you. Enjoy!

5/27/2022 – With the accelerated shift from the written word to video content, some might feel that classic books are noteworthy only as historic footnotes in the evolution of chess. However, to do so is to not only deny yourself a deeper and richer culture, but also to overlook the invaluable lessons of the past. Here is a look at one of the great chess books and what makes it special.

5/27/2022 – In his “Power Play Show” Daniel King looks at some snapshots from the Chessable Masters, focusing on one game in particular, Giri vs Praggnanandhaa, which was a rollercoaster! | 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.

5/27/2022 – Rustam Kasimdzhanov is considered one of the world’s leading opening experts; he has worked as a second for Vishy Anand, Fabiano Caruana and the German national team. In his new Fritztrainer on the French Defence, he passes on his knowledge. Christian Höthe has taken a look at the course and concludes, “The French is a wonderful opening, especially after studying this Fritztrainer!”

5/27/2022 – Ding Liren won the Chessable Masters after beating 16-year-old Praggnanandhaa in the final match’s tiebreaks. The Chinese had won the first set on Wednesday, but saw his opponent bouncing back in the second 4-game mini-match. A clear rating favourite, Ding defeated his prodigious rival in the deciding blitz tiebreaker.