3/1/2020 – This Agony and Ecstasy features some English games from an experienced club player from Wales, which GM JON SPEELMAN gives his usual pedagogic attention. As a bonus, Jon recorded a video version of his analysis. | 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!

3/1/2020 – With the 2020 Candidates looming, there were few tournaments held in February to attract the world's top grandmasters, with two notable exceptions in Prague and Saint Louis. Alireze Firouzja (pictured) was the winner at the Prague Masters and Humpy Koneru took the second annual Cairns Cup. Gibraltar was also rated in February and provides the only change to the top 10: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave notched up one spot back to number eight, while Shakhriyar Mamedyarov slips to the tenth position after withdrawing prematurely due to illness. | Photo: Vladimir Jagr

3/1/2020 – There will be plenty of action to keep chess enthusiasts entertained in March. The month will kick off with the third leg of the Women's Grand Prix in Lausanne, and four days after that event comes to an end the long-awaited Candidates Tournament will begin in Yekaterinburg. Team tournaments (Nutcracker and Senior Teams), strong opens (HD Bank and Dubai) and a couple of invitational events in Saint Louis will serve as first-rate complements. | You'll find all of these events and more covered in our live games broadcast area Live.ChessBase.com and we'll also be providing News coverage.

2/29/2020 – This Study of the Month column concentrates on the “Maestro of Practical Studies” (as he is called by Sergey N. Tkachenko), Tigran B. Gorgiev. SIEGFRIED HORNECKER takes you on a tour of the life of this microbiologist and composer, whose beautiful studies are described as "a perpetual adornment to the treasury of world composition.”

2/29/2020 – During the 90th FIDE Congress in Abu Dhabi, the President of the Federation Arkady Dvorkovich mentioned that this year's World Championship match will almost certainly take place in Dubai as part of the 2020 World Expo, clarifying that this is not yet a formal announcement. Dvorkovich also hinted that the match might be delayed until the end of December in order to better fit within the Expo's schedule. | Photo: Ahlawe, via Wikimedia Commons

2/29/2020 – CM Alex Averbukh of Japan, scored a perfect 5.0/5 to win Tachikawa Chess Open 2020. He finished a full point ahead of the competition. Wang Hao was on hand to give the winner his trophy (pictured)! Four players finished at 4.0/5. Koji Noguchi and top seed Atsuhiko Kobayashi secured second and third place respectively according to their tie-break score. The tournament was organized by Tachikawa Chess Club at two different venues in Tokyo, Japan on February 8th and 9th, 2020. Two rounds were played at Hamamatsucho on the first day and on second day the final three rounds were played in Tachikawa. Photos and Tournament report by one of the participants, Seiji Nakagawa.

2/25/2020 – Dutch grandmaster Jan Werle returns to Hamburg, and joins Karsten in the ChessBase Studio. Live at 14:00 UTC (15:00 CET; 9:00 AM EST) and on-demand for ChessBase account holders. Don't have an account yet? You can register a free 90-day account to watch!

2/25/2020 – Rauf Mamedov is alone atop the standings of the annual Aeroflot Open after six rounds. In round five, Mamedov defeated 12-year-old Indian IM Bharath Subramaniyamin, who came from defeating three strong grandmasters in the first four rounds. Sanan Sjugirov, Mustafa Yilmaz and Manuel Petrosyan are sharing second place, half a point behind Mamedov. | Photo: Boris Dolmatovsky

2/24/2020 – The annual Bunratty Chess Festival was held for the 27th time over the weekend, at the Bunratty Castle Hotel in western Ireland, and ended with GM Nigel Short as the winner of the Masters. The top seed finished undefeated with two draws for a final tally of 5.0/6. GERRY GRAHAM is the tournament director and sent his post-tournament reflections.

2/24/2020 – A subplot of the recent Women's World Championship in Shanghai and Vladivostok was the plight of accomplished arbiter Shohreh Bayat from Iran. She was the target of political and religiously-motivated media critiques in her home country when she was photographed, while working as the chief arbiter in Shanghai, wearing a loose-fitting hijab — too loose for conservative observers in the Islamic Republic. That led her to fear for her safety and forgo her return ticket home in favour of a detour to the U.K. In a tearful interview, she recently recounted her story for the BBC.

2/23/2020 – Traps, tricks, pattern recognition, all in one FritzTrainer! And of course a deeper understanding of the London system! Finding the right ideas for each position starts with knowledge of the typical tactical patterns. But equally important is to anticipate Black's plans and be able to neutralize them! DAVIDE NASTASIO takes a first look at a FritzTrainer on his iPad!

2/23/2020 – Just under twenty-three years ago Garry Kasparov made history by losing a match against a computer named Deep Blue. Today smartphones are capable of running chess engines as powerful as IBM's giant mainframe in 1997. More significantly, thanks to recent progress in artificial intelligence, machines are learning and exploring the game for themselves. So what does the legendary World Champion think about the progress of AI in chess, and its effect on humanity in general? He told Wired Magazine that he has made his peace with AI.