6/27/2020 – When Bobby Fischer died in 2008, one printed article about him was titled “The lone king has wandered off”. Despite this obscure reference in the title, the topic of this month shall not be a specific composer but rather a curiosity, a subset of endgame studies, called “Rex Solus” — the lone king.

6/27/2020 – A passionate educator, Michael Rahal has spent the last 25 years or so teaching chess to kids and adults of all levels. The International Master lives in Barcelona and collaborates both with the Catalonian and the Spanish Chess Federations. Nowadays, Michael does not play as many classical tournaments as he did in the past, but he still remembers the first time he beat a GM, almost thirty years ago!

6/27/2020 – Seven consecutive draws gave Anish Giri a first-set win over Alexander Grischuk at the Chessable Masters quarterfinals, as he split the point with his Russian opponent while playing black in the Armageddon decider. A little earlier, Ding Liren had beaten Hikaru Nakamura 2½:1½ without needing tiebreaks. The second sets of these matchups will be played on Sunday. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

6/26/2020 – In this Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King takes a look at the King's Gambit and shows how Alexander Morozevich (pictured) defeated Vishy Anand with this old but exciting opening. | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UK (18:00 CEST, 11:00 EST) on playchess.com. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. | Photo: Chess Festival Biel (Archive)

6/26/2020 – Round 4 of the jubilee tournament in Bamberg was a round of short games: Szabo and Keres drew after twelve moves, Petrosian and Donner made two moves more, but the result was the same. Schmid and Westerinen made 17 moves but this game ended with a win for Schmid. Unzicker and Ivkov also scored full points: Unzicker won a fine positional game against Toran and Ivkov defeated Teufel with patience and good technique. | Photo: Lothar Schmid (Gerhard Hund, Archive)

6/26/2020 – In the diagram position, there is hardly a more natural continuation for White than the advance 7.e4 - but in fact the move is an invitation! Are you ready for an adventure?

6/26/2020 – The various ChessBase Fritztrainer DVDs cover all areas of chess - the opening, the middlegame and the endgame - and they help you to improve your chess. In a short video-tutorial Arne Kähler shows how to use the ChessBase program to get the most out of each Fritztrainer.

6/26/2020 – Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi needed no more than three games to defeat Fabiano Caruana and Vladislav Artemiev in the first mini-matches of the Chessable Masters quarterfinals. Carlsen was ruthless against Caruana’s haphazard play in games 1 and 2, while Nepomniachtchi defeated Artemiev twice with the white pieces and showed good technique to hold a draw with black. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

6/25/2020 – This week Robert Ris takes a look at the Van Geet Opening, 1.Nc3!?. This tricky opening is named after the Dutch International Master and Grandmaster of Correspondence chess Dick van Geet (pictured), who played 1.Nc3 regularly and analysed the move in depth. "Fast and Furious" is available from 17:00 UTC (19:00 CEST / 15:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Jac. de Nijs / Anefo / CC BY-SA 3.0 NL

6/25/2020 – Tigran Petrosian and Paul Keres are the favourites at the jubilee tournament of the SC Bamberg and after three rounds the two Soviet players have indeed taken the lead. In round 3 Petrosian won with a fine exchange sacrifice against Andreas Dückstein, while Keres won a long, technical but basically unproblematic game against Jürgen Teufel, who blundered in the opening. Keres and Petrosian thus share first place with 2½/3 each, while Milko Bobotsov, Borislav Ivkov and Jan Hein Donner follow half a point behind with 2.0/0 each. | Photo: Tigran Petrosian (Archive)

6/25/2020 – The Summer Nostos Festival is an international, multidimensional festival that gives us a week bursting with avant-garde art, scintillating conversation, daring ideas, irresistible music, moving dance, delightful performances, participatory entertainment, and lively sports activities for visitors of all ages. And chess: the next edition features chess legends Garry Kasparov and Judit Polgar. Preview.

6/25/2020 – Chess is fun and chess should be fun! But a lot of people do not have particularly fond memories of their first steps in chess. Andy Trattner knows how to teach beginners and he has a few ideas how to make chess fun from the very beginning. | Photos: Andrew Trattner