3/20/2020 – The coronavirus changed the world and has slowed social life down. But the Candidates Tournament still takes place, despite all concerns. A controversial decision. Here's a short collection of twitter posts that show how chess players feel about the Candidates and Corona. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

3/20/2020 – Vaci, Gula, & Bilalić (2015) found that “the more able players deteriorated more quickly” after their peak, but that their decline started to stabilize earlier in middle adulthood. The authors claimed the validity of Simonton’s (1997) model of career trajectories for chess players, and highlighted the beneficial influence of tournament practice in old age. They doubted the appropriateness of the FIDE database for scientific studies, and instead recommended the German database. It is now shown why Vaci et al.’s model led to drastically incorrect results, and how it has to be changed to work correctly. Chess trajectories are characterized by a long plateau phase and a gradually increasing decline. Playing more or fewer games does not affect the rating in old age.

3/20/2020 – White's 48.Rcc8! in the diagram position starts the mate finale even if 48...Qe4 gives the black king an escape square on g6. Enjoy!

3/19/2020 – The battle between pre-tournament favourites Ding Liren and Fabiano Caruana ended up favouring the Chinese, who responded convincingly to Caruana's provocative play in the opening to get his first win of the tournament after back-to-back losses in the first two rounds. The remaining games finished drawn, which means Wang Hao, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave are sharing the lead on 2 out of 3. Expert analysis by GMs STEPHEN GORDON and DANIEL KING. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / FIDE

3/19/2020 – All sports events in the world have been cancelled to contain the spread of COVID-19. The only big event that currently takes place is the Candidates Tournament in Yekaterinburg. Ivan Ljubicic (@theljubicic), the coach of tennis star Roger Federer, wants to follow Caruana & Co. and recommends: "Stay home everyone. Chess keeps us sane." | Photo: Ivan Ljubicic

3/19/2020 – Every club, school or trainer can open a virtual playing room on the ChessBase server. Everything is possible: casual games, tournaments, online training, simultaneous events, etc. Everything on "your" chess server! The best alternative to keep the club evening running, and a good (virtual) meeting point to play chess together. Creating a virtual club room is easy. Have a look!

3/19/2020 – Charlie Storey is an FM from England, English Chess Federation Academy Coach and U18 Team Coach. His second FritzTrainer is a follow-up to the popular release "The Sniper" a club player's weapon for Black. The White Sniper is characterised by three moves against any black setup: 1.g3 2.Bg2 and 3.c4 though not necessarily in that order. Think of The White Sniper as a Hyper-Accelerated Sicilian Dragon against anything that Black plays.

3/18/2020 – The second round of the Candidates Tournament sees top seed Fabiano Caruana defeating Kirill Alekseenko in 34 moves, while Maxime Vachier-Lagrave defeated second seed Ding Liren in 37. Anish Giri was in deep trouble against Wang Hao, but managed to miraculously save a draw in the end. Four players are now sharing the lead, as the tournament goes into the last round before the first scheduled rest day. Expert (and thorough) analysis by GMs STEPHEN GORDON and SIMON WILLIAMS. | Photo: Maria Emelianova / FIDE

3/18/2020 – The biggest sports show on earth at the minute may be the FIDE Candidates Tournament, and it also is the focus of IM Merijn van Delft's attention. | The live show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). Merijn is live this week starting at 19:00 UTC (20:00 CET / 4 PM EST).

3/18/2020 – Covid-19 keeps the world grounded. Uncomfortable as that may be it is a chance to play some chess. To help you cope with the "stay-at-home-challenge" we organised a number of tournaments on Playchess! You can win membership-days on the server. Download the Windows Client, which is included in programs such as Fritz, Komodo or Houdini and ChessBase ! Then check the tournament schedule!

3/18/2020 – The renowned American business magazine "Forbes" is famous for its lists and rankings. Recently, the magazine released its "30 under 30" list, naming 30 people under 30 years of age who have made a significant impact on modern life as entrepreneurs, sport stars, activists, artists or in other fields. Magnus Carlsen is one of them! | Photo: Magnus Carlsen by Alina L'Ami

3/18/2020 – COVID-19 is cancelling or postponing tournaments left and right. The most recent casualty is the U.S. Championship which the Saint Louis Chess Club would be postponed indefinitely on Tuesday. The 2017 U.S. Women's Champion Sabina Foisor was recently profiled along with her fiancée GM Elshan Moradiabadi on their city's local TV news. In the face of adversity, a heart-warming story.

3/18/2020 – The first round of the Candidates Tournament was very exciting: the audience saw four complex games and two of them ended with a win – for Black. Malcolm Pein took a close look. | Photo: FIDE

3/17/2020 – The long-anticipated Candidates Tournament kicked off with two surprising results, as both Ding Liren and Anish Giri lost with the white pieces, against Wang Hao and Ian Nepomniachtchi respectively. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave v Fabiano Caruana and Alexander Grischuk v Kirill Alekseenko were hard-fought games that finished drawn, with Grischuk going into his usual extreme time trouble. Video round-up by GM SIMON WILLIAMS and GM BORIS GELFAND analysed the all-Russian clash. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / FIDE

3/17/2020 – It is St. Patrick's day today, if you didn't know already. This St. Patrick's day is different from all the others we had so far. The coronavirus disease makes us stay home to avoid social contacts as much as possible. So what to do? How about checking out some of our greenest chess trainings?

3/17/2020 – You might not believe it but if you played any competitive chess in your life you probably would have good chances to win should you ever play against Carlsen, Caruana or another top player. Well, sort of! Don't believe us? Try the ChessBase WinChain! | Photo: Public Domain via Pixabay

3/17/2020 – IM Lawrence Trent checks on the recent World Senior Team Championship and offers his thoughts on the Candidates tournament. | Puzzle time: In the diagram, Did Black miss a shot here? | Lawrence is on-demand his week from 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, 12 Noon EST) 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.

3/17/2020 – Pawn endings require precise calculation. White to play and win.