4/14/2021 – 14 points out of 15 games and an Elo-performance of 2843 - Parham Maghsoodloo won the Iranian Championship 2021, a 16-player round-robin tournament, in impressive fashion. However, Maghsoodloo was also pushed by his rival Pouya Idani, who scored 13.0/15 and finished second. | Photo: Iranian Chess Federation

4/14/2021 – Recently we showed you a unique theme in chess endings: the defending side puts his king into a stalemate position, after which the remaining piece – a rook or even a queen – becomes suicidal, offering itself for capture. Many readers found that fascinating, and asked for more. Today we look at two other pieces that can do the same. Have fun with some astonishing new examples.

4/13/2021 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent will be taking a look at the finale of the Polgar Challenge which the young Indian talent Praggnanandhaa won convincingly. Lawrence will particularly focus on Praggnanandhaa's nice win against Bjerre in round 13. | Lawrence's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

4/13/2021 – Nature or nurture? Much more men play chess than women and with a rating of 2658 Hou Yifan is the world's number one women player but on the world ranking list she is on place 85. The numbers alone suggest that there is a gender gap in chess. But why? And how should the chess world deal with this situation? Amanda Chen, chess fan and a student of Political Science and Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University shares a few observations and ideas.

4/13/2021 – 13 April 2021, six days before the resumption of the FIDE Candidates Tournament in Yekaterinburg, the FIDE organised a press conference on the FIDE Candidates Tournament in Moscow, at the Rossiyskaya Gazeta Media Center. The speakers answered questions of journalists from all parts of the world, who were attending the event online. A press release by the FIDE has some details.

4/13/2021 – Probably the Candidates Tournament 2020-21 will go down in history as the longest over-the-board chess tournament of all time. It started on 17 March 2020 and was interrupted for more than a year after the outbreak of the Corona pandemic. Now, it is scheduled to resume next Monday, 19 April 2021, in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

4/13/2021 – The new Opening Encyclopaedia 2021 is a collection of all the opening articles from all the issues of ChessBase Magazine and with more than 1,200 articles it covers the whole range of openings. An enormous treasure trove of ideas and high-level analysis! In the new edition, as usual the number of articles has increased – compared to the previous year 66 new opening articles as well as 349 new opening surveys have been added. The menu structure offers comfortable access to all tutorials and articles. Under the main categories “Open games”, “Semi-open games”, “Closed openings”, “Semi closed openings”, “English Opening and Reti” and “Flank openings” you will find all the recommendations and analyses classified according to the names of the openings.

4/13/2021 – The Iranian National Championship is currently being held in Tehran. 16 mostly young players are competing in a round-robin and after 13 of 15 rounds Elo-favourite Parham Maghsoodloo is leading the field with 12.0/13. But Pouya Idani (11.5/13) is only half a point behind and still has chances to catch the leader. | Photo: David Llada

4/13/2021 – The diagram position is very sharp as both sides have dangerous passed pawns. It's White to move but should White take the pawn on g5 or should White play Rg3+ to win the pawn on h3?

4/12/2021 – On his Twitter account, Scottish chess fan Douglas Griffin regularly publishes historical photos of famous chess players. Photographs that awaken memories and keep them alive, pictures that allow views into the past. On 28 May 2019, Griffin published a photo that shows Max Blümich and Alexander Alekhine playing against each other in the 1941/1942 Krakow/Warsaw tournament. A picture that raises questions: How did the game go, who won, who was Max Blümich and who else is in the photo? | Photo: audiovis.nac.gov.pl

4/12/2021 – Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu kicked off the final day of action in the Polgar Challenge with three consecutive wins to secure first place with a round to spare. Four players finished 1½ points behind — Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Gukesh D, Nihal Sarin and Volodar Murzin. | Photo: Alina l’Ami

4/11/2021 – The Kader-Challenge came to an end on Sunday. Draws were seen on all boards in the men’s section. At the top of the table finished Alexander Donchenko, Dmitrij Kollars, Matthias Bluebaum and Daniel Fridman, each with 5½ points, with Donchenko getting tournament victory on tiebreak criteria. Meanwhile, in the women’s tournament, Jana Schneider drew Elisabeth Paehtz with the black pieces and thus remained half a point ahead of her last-round opponent in the final standings. | Photos: Sandra Schmidt, Frank Hoppe