5/16/2022 – One of the fascinating aspects of new iterations of tablebases is submitting known positions to their 'divine' evaluation. The words "better" or "worse" cease to have any meaning and not only are all evaluations perfect and absolute, but so are the solutions. In the following article a share of cooks of studies as well as famous endgames and analyses are placed under the spotlight of the 8-piece tablebases.

5/15/2022 – Unashamed ultra-violence. Jon Speelman continues to share findings from his bookshelf, and today explores Irving Chernev’s “The 1000 best short games of chess”, a collection of miniatures first published in 1957. Speelman adds notes to selected games from the collection of thud and blunder.

5/15/2022 – 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 79th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to talk about pawn majorities. | Photo: Pascal Simon

5/15/2022 – Yuri Averbakh is no more. Tributes are pouring in from all over the world to the late grandmaster, who had only recently turned 100 and chess fans had celebrated the day. Not many are aware that he wrote his autobiography years before. Our columnist had begun a series on this fascinating work and narrated how it all began. Then came the Ukraine war, and he could not bring himself to write anything in the face of this tragedy. Sadly, the war is continuing, and our columnist has reconciled himself to writing. Importantly, this series is a homage to the life and work of a great player. | Photo: Eric Koch / Anefo

5/15/2022 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won the Superbet Chess Classic after outscoring Wesley So and Levon Aronian in rapid playoffs. MVL had caught up with the co-leaders after beating Alireza Firouzja with black in their classical, round-9 encounter. The Frenchman beat both US grandmasters in the rapid-chess single round-robin that followed to claim the title. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

5/14/2022 – The 2022 International Computer Games Association events are fast approaching: the World Computer Chess Championships (Vienna, July 23-29), the 2022 Computer Olympiad (online, July 23-29), and the 2022 Computers and Games conference (online, November 22-24). The ICGA has distributed full information on all upcoming events.

5/14/2022 – This week Robert Ris focuses on the Bayonet Attack in the King’s Indian Defence. He uses model games from elite players to illustrate the potential problems Black faces when White plays 11.a4 and 12.a5. | “Fast and Furious” is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

5/14/2022 – Four French champions will gather at Blitz Society (pictured), the hip new chess meeting point in the heart of Paris, for a rapid match against four champions from Ukraine. The match will take place on Saturday, May 14, starting at 17.30 CEST. Donations for Ukrainian relief efforts are being collected by UNICEF!

5/14/2022 – The Superbet Chess Classic is being held in Bucharest, Romania at the Sheraton Hotel from May 5 to May 14. It includes all nine full tour players and one wildcard player, Romanian grandmaster Bogdan-Daniel Deac. After tying for first place on 5½/9, Wesley So, Levon Aronian and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave are deciding who wins the tournament in a rapid-chess playoff. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

5/14/2022 – In the diagram position White just played 12.Rd1 to attack Black's knight on d5 and to force Black to make a difficult choice: should Black play 12...Qa5 or 12...Be6 - which move gets your okay?

5/14/2022 – Wesley So and Levon Aronian top the standings table with one round to go at the Superbet Chess Classic in Romania. While So had little trouble drawing Alireza Firouzja in round 8, Aronian was inches away from losing against Ian Nepomniachtchi. In the one decisive result of the day, Leinier Dominguez got the better of Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

5/13/2022 – A sceptic regarding the value of ‘learning styles’ approaches, Professor Barry Hymer feared that “The Human Factor in Chess”, a book written by GMs Karsten Müller and Luis Engel, would fall short of expectations. As he states in his review, though, the book “recognises the dynamic evolution of many players’ styles and, for the most part, it avoids assertions that are overly deterministic and mystical”. Moreover, Hymer asserts that the book is both instructive and a pleasurable read.