9/15/2020 – The online presence of chess has only increased throughout the years, and more so during the pandemic. A great medium for an abstract game, the web does not only serve as a place to share moves played in tournaments all over the world but also for people to share their passion for the game. Ben Johnson’s “Perpetual Chess Podcast” serves for the latter purpose, having shared in-depth interviews with top-level players, well-known authors and educators for almost five years — the podcast is now closing on two-hundred episodes!

9/15/2020 – For many years, Germany's premier league, the "Bundesliga", has been one of the world's strongest team events, and players like Karpov, Kramnik, Anand or Carlsen have played in it. But Corona also hit the "Bundesliga" - the season 2019/2020 had to be interrupted and will continue in spring 2021. But now eight teams meet in Karlsruhe to play from September 16 to September 20 "live" for the title of German team champion 2020.

9/15/2020 – Rook endings have drawish tendencies, and sometimes being one or even two pawns up is not enough to win. But despite their drawish tendencies rook endings can be very sharp and full of hidden tactics. Especially, if both sides have far advanced passed pawns.

9/15/2020 – From September 16 to September 2020, the Bundesliga Championship Tournament, an over-the-board round robin with eight teams of eight players, will take place in Karlsruhe, Germany. The winner will be German Team Champion 2020. But which of the many top players, who regularly start in the Bundesliga, will make it to Karlsruhe? Conrad Schormann shares information and insights. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

9/14/2020 – Publishing chess problems on this news site has a long tradition: especially at Christmas time we publish a set of entertaining puzzles for our readers to solve. But over the years – two decades actually – it became progressively more difficult to find problems that chess engines could not solve in seconds. It became pointless to issue a challenge and provide prizes. So we have taken to giving you problems which cannot be solved by computers. Here are some samples from a collection by Burt Hochberg.

9/14/2020 – Ivan Sokolov is well-known for his stunning attacking games. Most of them originate from middlegames, so no wonder he wrote various books about this topic. We are delighted to now present his "Understanding Middlegame Strategies" Fritztrainer series, starting with Vol.1 - "Dynamic Pawns", and Vol.2 - "Practical Play". While Volume 1 concentrates on several ideas and tips for dynamic pawn play, Volume 2 is focusing on decision taking and creating crisis. GM Sokolov coached the Iranian national team (Alireza Firouzja, Parham Maghsoodloo) for many years, so he is capable of guiding you through the topics professionally and interestingly. Those Fritztrainers will take your middlegame to the next level.

9/10/2020 – From Friday on the St. Louis Chess Club will hold its Chess 9LX 2020 tournament, this year as an online tournament. Ten top players - Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Fabiana Caruana, Wesley So, Levon Aronian, Leinier Dominguez, Peter Svidler, Alireza Firouzja and Garry Kasparov(!) - play a Chess960 round robin at rapid time controls.

9/10/2020 – The recent online tournaments led to a huge number of interesting endgames, and it is amazing how often the top players find the right moves in these endgames though they sometimes have only seconds left on the clock. Karsten Müller took a look at the endgame highlights from the Chessable Masters. Thorsten Cmiel helped him.

9/10/2020 – It is already September, the trees are slowly changing colour and the summer is coming to an end, as are our summer offers. This is the last chance to strike again, and to do so properly. Twelve DVDs by Daniel King will lighten up the coming months for every chess player. With over 50 hours of material on the subject of "Attack" and "Strategy", King discusses all the important chess motifs. Every serious chess player should have these classics in their collection. Our final offer once again promises the chance to win a signed DVD for every buyer of the bundle.

9/10/2020 – Modifying the existing rules for chess, attempting to make it more dynamic or decisive, is a non-trivial task: You need years of experience and large numbers of people playing new versions in order to assess the quality and appeal of any new variant. Former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik has proposed nine new variants, and DeepMind has used their AI technology to evaluate them in a much shorter period of time. Here are their findings.

9/9/2020 – On September 9, 2010, ten years ago, the Danish Grandmaster Bent Larsen died in Argentina where he lived with his wife Laura Benediz Benedini, a lawyer, whom he had met in 1980. Larsen was born on March 4, 1935, and in the 1960s he was arguably the most successful tournament player and definitely one of the best players in the world. He is famous for his fighting spirit, his optimism, his original play and his entertaining writing. | Photo: Bent Larsen © Hans Peters

9/9/2020 – In his "Game of the Week" show, Merijn van Delft takes a look at a theoretically interesting win which French Grandmaster Maxime Lagarde scored against the Sicilian Najdorf. | Merijn's show is freely available at 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) for a limited time, and on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Lennart Ootes