6/23/2020 – In Group A of the Chessable Masters preliminary round-robin, Daniil Dubov was sharing the lead after 8 (out of 10) rounds, but back-to-back losses against Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura left him out of the competition. Pentala Harikrishna was also eliminated, as Vladislav Artemiev, Carlsen, Nakamura and Alexander Grischuk moved on to the quarterfinals. | Photo: Abu Dhabi Masters Tournament

6/22/2020 – On the occasion of its 100th anniversary, the SC Bamberg, founded in 1868, has organized a large international chess tournament. The best German players meet top players from all over the world, among them Paul Keres and World Champion Tigran Petrosian. Transmission of the games start at 18.00 local time (14:00 UTC, 10:00 EDT).

6/22/2020 – In this "Simon Says" Simon looks at the latest games from the Chessable Masters. He takes a look at the highlights and lowlights from the first six rounds and throws a glance at a curious case of "Chess Blindness", an illness most chess players know, and for which Dr. Tarrasch even coined a Latin term. | Watch "Simon Says" for free and on-demand (for a limited time, or forever with a ChessBase Premium account). (Normally 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST / 12 Noon EST). | Photo: Lennart Ootes

6/22/2020 – In 2014 she married Anvesh, in 2017 she gave birth to baby Ahana. Then, after protracted maternity leave, Indian grandmaster Humpy returned to chess with a vengeance and has risen back to second place in the world women's rankings. Now she is poised to qualify for the Candidates. Elisabeth Pähtz portrays this extraordinary player, analyzing her games and telling us how Humpy is dealing with the strict lockdown in her country.

6/22/2020 – The first half of the Chessable Masters Group B preliminary round-robin was played on Sunday. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Anish Giri are sharing first place after five rounds, with 3 points each. Three players stand a half point behind on fifty percent, while Teimour Radjabov is in desperate need of wins in the second half if he wants to reach the quarterfinals. Four out of six players will move on to the knockout phase. | Photo: Justin Kellar

6/21/2020 – Jonathan Speelman explores an overriding aim in most endgames — the promotion of passed pawns. He explains: “One could see this as a form of parthenogenesis, as the piece (like Athena from Zeus's head) springs fully formed onto the board, sadly and inevitably killing the pawn in the process”.

6/21/2020 – Vladislav Artemiev kicked off the first day of the preliminaries with two whites and two wins at the Chessable Masters. He drew the remaining three games of the day to finish in the sole lead with 3½ points. The winner of the previous event of the ‘Magnus Carlsen Tour’, Daniil Dubov, is in sole second place a half point behind — the Russian defeated Magnus Carlsen in round 4. | Photo: Patricia Claros Aguilar

6/20/2020 – As the Chessable Masters is about to begin, Anish Giri talked to the Times of India about the future of online chess. The Dutch star thinks that "all the positive things that happened to chess online (like the tournament and twitch and youtube streamers) are there to stay". | Photo: FIDE

6/20/2020 – Earlier this week, former world champion Vladimir Kramnik was interviewed by Tania Sachdev for Red Bull's series ‘The Mind Behind’. Among other subjects, the Russian talked about how he is coping with the lockdown, his biggest chess influence as a kid, his main strength as a competitor and his favourite world championship match to date. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

6/19/2020 – In this Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King will present an interesting endgame and a problem by Sam Loyd. But he will also look at the current form of Hikaru Nakamura who hopes to win the Chessable Masters, the next Magnus Carlsen Tour event will start tomorrow, Saturday, June 20. | 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: Lennart Ootes

6/19/2020 – Some players have difficulties to find a solid repertoire against 1.d4. IM Sagar Shah, founder and CEO of ChessBase India, has some advice. In his series "Improve your chess openings" on the YouTube channel of ChessBase India, he takes a look at a number of different openings. Here's an example you can replay in full: A repertoire for Black against 1.d4, based on the Nimzo-Indian. The session is an hour and a half long, and completely free. Try it and get better!

6/19/2020 – In the diagram position, pinning Black's knight on c6 with 29.Rc1 must be a good move for White. Really? Really - but White has to calculate precisely!