11/9/2019 – Today, November 9th, 2019, Germany marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, a major geopolitical event in 1989 which set the stage for German reunification. Germany is one of the most important chess countries, cultivating chess culture for about 1000 years. With over 2300 clubs almost 100,000 chess aficionados are actively engaged. The country has 100 grandmasters and some of the most important chess tournaments. Walter Rädler has produced a nice video vignette.

11/9/2019 – The quarter-finals of the Hamburg Grand Prix kicked off at the Theater Kehrwieder on Friday. The only winner of the day was Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who beat Veselin Topalov with the black pieces and only needs a draw in the rematch game to advance once again without needing tiebreaks. Jan-Krzysztof Duda, David Navara and Peter Svidler drew with Black against Yu Yangyi, Alexander Grischuk and Daniil Dubov respectively. | Photo: Nadja Wittmann

11/8/2019 – Russian Grandmaster Alexey Sarana (pictured) won the Karpov Trophy while Algerian GM Bilel Bellahcene emerged victorious in the classical Grand Prix tournament at Cap d’Agde in southern France. Eight Grandmasters participated in Karpov Trophy, a 14-round rapid tournament. The top four finishers qualified for the knockout stage. In the semifinals, Sarana got the better of Indian GM Nihal Sarin while Bassem Amin defeated French GM Etienne Bacrot. In the final, Sarana won both the rapid games against Amin to win the title. | Photo: Pierre Textoris

11/8/2019 – Power Play plays on! On the show today: GM Daniel King takes you through games from the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss. Power Play is live most Fridays at 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST, Noon EDT) on playchess.com. You can watch the episode live for free! All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

11/8/2019 – In the diagram position White had just played 12.Rac1 which didn't really threaten anything ... until Black replied 12...f6?? How would you take advantage of the new situation?

11/8/2019 – A pair of rapid games were enough to decide three out of four tiebreaker match-ups at the third leg of the Grand Prix in Hambrug. Daniil Dubov eliminated Teimour Radjabov only when the blitz phase was reached, while David Navara, Alexander Grischuk and Yu Yangyi dispatched their opponents after playing two 25-minute games. Nikita Vitiugov, Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Dmitry Jakovenko were knocked out of the competition. | Photo: Valeria Gordienko

11/7/2019 – Yesterday we announced the results of an internal 100-game match pitting our new Fat Fritz engine against two versions of Stockfish. Today, further annotated highlights from Grandmaster ELSHAN MORADIABADI along with some of your feedback and questions. Stay tuned for more news next week on Fat Fritz that you won't want to miss!

11/7/2019 – Anish Giri started well among ten world-class players, at the Superbet Rapid Tournament of the Grand Chess Tour in Bucharest: He is in the lead after the first three rapid games with 2½ out of 3, half a point behind them are Vishy Anand, Anton Korobov and Levon Aronian on positions two to four. | Photos: Lennart Ootes, Grand Chess Tour

11/7/2019 – All eight rematch games of round one finished drawn at the Grand Prix in Hamburg. Thus, opening day winners Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Veselin Topalov and Peter Svidler secured a spot at the quarter-finals. Hikaru Nakamura, who was eliminated by Topalov, finished his Grand Prix run this year, as this was his third and last appearance in the series. Four match-ups will be decided in rapid, blitz and potentially Armageddon tiebreakers. | Photo: Nadja Wittmann

11/6/2019 – Are strong chess players generally better at logical thinking than people who rarely play the game? Can super-talented youngsters, of GM strength, solve logical puzzles better than amateurs or non-chess kids of the same age? Or are both equally good, or are the chess kids perhaps worse? ChessBase chief editor emeritus Frederic Friedel is conducting an experiment to find out. Today he tells us how his experiments so far have been conducted. Perhaps you can join in and supply your own results. Or at least have fun with his problems!

11/6/2019 – Our recent article on Fat Fritz elicited some criticism and predictions. In one comment a reader concluded "Stockfish is STILL the champion." While we look forward to testing that proposition in formal competition soon, we have naturally "run the experiment" so to speak, already: We ran two engine vs engine matches, a pre-release build of Fat Fritz against Stockfish 8 and then against Stockfish 10. The result? Fat Fritz won both! Here are some of the games along with grandmaster analysis from GM ELSHAN MORADIABADI.

11/6/2019 – The European Team Championship is a fantastic source of fascinating battles and theoretical developments. Today IM Merijn van Delft highlights the game between GMs Banikas and Meier. The show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). Merijn is on-demand this week starting at 19:00 UTC (20:00 CET / 3 PM EDT).

11/6/2019 – Today Karsten welcomes Indian IM Padmini Rout. Live at 13:00 UTC (14:00 CET, 8:00 AM EST) and on-demand for ChessBase account holders. Don't have an account yet? You can register a free 90-day account to watch!

11/6/2019 – Four players kicked off the third leg of the FIDE Grand Prix Series with a win at the Theater Kehrwieder in Hamburg. The results of the day particularly favoured Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, as he beat Wei Yi with the white pieces, while Ian Nepomniachtchi — another big contender to get one of the two Candidates spots at stake — lost against Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Peter Svidler and Veselin Topalov also won their inaugural encounters. | Photo: Nadja Wittmann

11/5/2019 – This week IM Lawrence Trent examines a fine win from Grandmaster Danny Gormally. | Puzzle time: In the diagram below, it's Black to move! | Lawrence is live for free and on-demand for a limited time, or forever on-demand with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.

11/5/2019 – Twelve universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Moscow State University, have confirmed their participation for the 2019 World Prestigious University Chess Invitational Championship held by Nankai University of China from November 25th to 30th 2019. Watch out for reports by WGM Qiyu Zhou.

11/5/2019 – German chess fans (especially those in Hamburg) can look forward to a nice chess event in the countries second largest city. Today, the opening press conference took place at the Kehrwieder Theater in the "Speicherstadt" district, the venue of the Hamburg Grand Prix tournament which runs from November 5th to November 17th. | Photos: Nadja Wittmann

11/5/2019 – Usually, having material is good. However, sometimes one's own pieces are in the way or prevent stalemate ideas. In the diagram belowm how can Black save the draw?