5/25/2021 – Svitlana Demchenko is a 17-year-old, Canadian WIM, and chess coach. Here and now, she will teach us plenty of smart moves on the board, ranging from tactics, strategies, openings, and anything else chess related. In the process, I'm happy to be available as a student at club player level, and pester the female international master with questions. Anyone who wants to strengthen their chess skills is welcome to watch, and actively replay the positions from the video, on our chessboard.

5/25/2021 – Fritz & Chesster has been around for 20 years! The chess learning software for children is an absolute classic! It shows how digital learning works and is fun. Now the ChessBase merchandising partner LEMI Consulting is redesigning the program and developing physical pieces and boards for children to enhance their online experience. You can support their Kickstarter project.

5/25/2021 – This is a 12-year-old on a mission: to become the youngest chess grandmaster in history. Abhimanyu Mishra has made two norms, but in his latest tournament suffered a setback: in time trouble refused a draw offer by a GM and discovered that this is not such a great idea. Abhi lost the game, and a second one to boot, but staged a remarkable comeback with four back-to-back wins. He gained nine rating points and is currently just eight points from his goal. Read the messages of encouragement the lad from Englishtown, New Jersey, is getting from well-known personalities from all over the world.

5/25/2021 – Simplifying into a pawn ending must always be calculated carefully. In the diagram position Black is a rook up but White has powerful passed pawns. But how and when to advance them?

5/25/2021 – Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Teimour Radjabov are sharing the lead on 6½/10 points in the preliminaries of the FTX Crypto Cup after two days of action. Out of the 16 participants, those that finish at the top half of the standings table will move on to the knockout stage. World champion Magnus Carlsen is currently sharing 6th-9th place with a 5½/10 score. | Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit

5/24/2021 – The International Chess Federation has published the qualification criteria that will be used to determine who participates in the next Candidates Tournament, scheduled to take place in 2022. Notably, Teimour Radjabov was granted a spot after the Azerbaijani withdrew from the previous edition, rightfully predicting that the sanitary crisis would become a real obstacle for the normal development of the event. FIDE has also eliminated the chance to qualify by rating. | Photo: FIDE

5/24/2021 – You are a very talented young player taking part in a tournament in Budapest. After it is over you learn that your scheduled flight home to Goa, India, is no longer available – the first one to be cancelled due to the outbreak of the pandemic. So you are stuck in the Hungarian capital, and still are, over a year later. So what do you do, how do you manage? Here's one way Leon Mendonca and his father are coping: with a Pentecostal violin performance!

5/24/2021 – The preliminaries of the FTX Crypto Cup, the sixth event of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, started on Sunday. Anish Giri grabbed the sole lead with a 4/5 score, while world champion Magnus Carlsen only managed to get fifty percent of the points. There are ten more preliminary round games to come, so Carlsen is well in time to climb up the standings table. | Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit

5/24/2021 – Zhansaya Abdumalik from Kazakhstan is leading the fourth leg of the Women’s Grand Prix in Gibraltar after two rounds. The 21-year-old is the only player to have won both her games so far, as she got the better of compatriot Dinara Saduakassova and Elisabeth Paehtz in the first rounds of the event. Four players stand a half point behind. | Photo: FIDE

5/23/2021 – 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 28th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman talks about schematic thinking in the endgame and presents a curious endgame. | Photo: Tommy Grooten

5/23/2021 – Today, on 23 May, Anatoly Karpov turns 70! The 12th World Champion is still very active and on 31 May 2021, he will give a simul at the Karpov Children’s Cup, an event supported by FIDE. Which made Alexey Root remember a remarkable Karpov simul in Austin, Texas, back in 1994. | Photo: V. Savostianov, Novosti Press (via D. Griffin)

5/22/2021 – It hasn't been easy working under pandemic stress. Now that things are getting better we need to get ready to re-enter the chess arena. "The only real training tool I found," writes Davide Nastasio, "which was comprehensive, and covered all the phases of the game is ChessBase Magazine, now in its 200th edition. Davide shares some of the positions and games he found especially interesting.