4/9/2020 – Fans, professionals and anybody who follows the world of professional chess agree on the fact that Magnus Carlsen is on a class of his own. Besides reigning as World Champion in all three formats (classical, rapid and blitz), the Norwegian has managed not to lose a single classical game in over twenty months. Let us recap Carlsen's astounding — and ongoing — streak! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

4/8/2020 – The American master Arthur Dake had an extraordinary talent for chess. He learnt the rules of the games when he was 17 but only four years later, at the age of 21, he won gold with the US team at the Chess Olympiad in Prague 1931. Dake was born 110 years ago, on April 8, 1910, and had a remarkable chess career. | Photo: Arthur Dake, standing, second to the left, watches how Alexander Alekhine (left) and Isaac Kashdan play blitz. On Dake's left is José Araiza, on Dake's right are Reuben Fine and Sammy Reshevsky. | Photo source: 1859 Oregon's Magazine

4/8/2020 – Obviously, there are no top tournaments running at the moment, but the talk of the town this week was an amazing bishop endgame, which looks like chess from another planet. Endgame expert Karsten Müller took and Merijn van Delft takes a close look. | Merijn is on air from 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) and the show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!).

4/8/2020 – Feeling locked up? Are you missing the chess club, tournaments that came fast and furious? In order to combat depression, the sinking feeling that comes with abstinence, we bring you a number of classical chess problems that will doubtlessly brighten up your day. They are from Werner Keym's upcoming book and all share a common feature: they are off-beat and clever, and require thinking outside the box. In addition: you can win a prize!

4/8/2020 – 50 years ago today, on April 8, 1970, Herceg Novi in Yugoslavia hosted a blitz tournament that might well be the best blitz tournament of all time. Twelve of the world's best players competed in a double round-robin. Bobby Fischer won with 19 out of 22. | Photo: Chess Life

4/8/2020 – Whitney Houston sang “I believe that children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way.” With frequent news stories about adult chess cheaters, chess coaches and parents may take a “Do as I say, not as they do” approach to promoting chess honesty in children. WIM ALEXEY ROOT reports. | Photo: Przemek P, via Wikimedia Commons

4/5/2020 – Last month, on March 9 2020, Bobby Fischer would have turned 77. We could have commemorated it with a detailed biography of the 11th World Champion – but who doesn't know all the details of the life of the most charismatic and enigmatic player in the history of the game? So instead I would like to retell one of my favourite stories, a birthday present to Fischer, wherever he might be. It is a lovely story, and has ideas that you can use in your own games.

4/5/2020 – The protagonist of this week's column was defeated by "quite a strong player". JON SPEELMAN finds out who was the mysterious opponent and annotates the game in detail. | Send in your own games! | Jon welcomes submissions from readers. If your games are selected for the Agony column, not only will you get free detailed commentary of your games by one of chess’s great authors and instructors, and former world no. 4 player, but you also win a free three-month ChessBase Premium Account!

4/4/2020 – In the times of corona online chess is more popular than ever and more than 1,100 players took part in the German Internet Chess Championship which was organized by the German Chess Federation and ChessBase. But online or not - the tournament is still affected by the corona pandemic.

4/4/2020 – Are you 27 years old or younger? Then you can take part in a competiton run by "Schwalbe", the German society for problem chess – on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the "German Chess Youth". You get ten (actually very delightful) problems to solve. You mail your answers to the supervisor of the competition, and can win one of many prizes. Comments are welcome. In any case the problems are lots of fun.

4/4/2020 – Murray Chandler is author, chess organizer, philanthropist, New Zealand's only grandmaster and owner of a church in Auckland. Chandler has lived in Europe for many years, was a successful Bundesliga player and has played at Chess Olympiads for England and for New Zealand. Today, April 4, he celebrates his 60th birthday. Congratulations! | Photo: Murray Chandler at the Chess Olympiad 2008 in Dresden | Photo: Frank Hoppe

4/4/2020 – Statistics play a major role in any sport. More so in chess, where FIDE ratings have their weight in gold. FIDE does publish its rating list every month, but in between those 30 days a lot of action happens when some of the top tournaments are taking place. Where do we keep a track of all the live rating changes of top players? That's where the website 2700chess.com comes into the picture. It is the best resource to stay abreast of all the rating fluctuations of players above the rating of 2700. Who founded this website? What was the intention behind it? And how does he manage to keep it so well updated? Here's the interview with the founder of 2700chess.com — IM Artiom Tsepotan. | Photo: Artiom pictured with his wife Julia