12/16/2018 – The final match of the Grand Chess Tour kicked off on Saturday. Hikaru Nakamura held Maxime Vachier-Lagrave to a draw from the white side of a Grünfeld Defence, after the Frenchman won a pawn but could not convert it in the endgame. In the battle for third place, Levon Aronian achieved a slight edge against Fabiano Caruana but was not able to get the full point. The first classical round of the British Knockout Championship also ended with two draws. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

12/16/2018 – Fan favourite super-GM Vassily Ivanchuk lost to 12-year-old Sreeshwan Maralakshikari from India. The powerful youth are likely to remain one of the chief storylines in Sitges, a town just down the Mediterranean coast from Barcelona. In attendance are the top players in the world ages 11-14 — all from India — plus the European number one under-15 IM Vincent Keymer from Germany. | Pictured: The playing hall on the eve of battle | Photo: Sunway Sitges International Chess Festival

12/15/2018 – Usually, chess websites are better if the reader can play through games or use interactive diagrams or has the choice to follow tournaments live or practise some tactics, etc. ChessBase offers a number of attractive tools which you can embed on your website to let your readers enjoy chess even more. The tools are all free! And here's how to get them running yourself! | Drawing: ChessBase

12/15/2018 – Here's a handy guide for future reference. We present one-click access to all the special guests that you may have missed from the great 'Today in Chess' shows, courtesy the Saint Louis Chess Club. Garry Kasparov was a regular, but they also received virtual visits from Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Peter Leko and more. Plus all the ChessBase contributors (video and text) annotations in once place.

12/14/2018 – Friday at 18:00 CET (17:00 UT) Daniel King will go on air on playchess.com. You can watch the episode live for free. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer, plus Daniel will be looking at the AlphaZero games vs Stockfish. Puzzle and the live video...

12/14/2018 – And then there were two. The semi-finals of the British Knockout Championship saw Gawain Jones and Luke McShane (pictured) defeat rating favourites — according to FIDE's classical list — David Howell and Michael Adams. Only two games were drawn out of the twelve played in rapid and blitz formats on Thursday. The players will have a rest day before returning to the fray on Saturday for the three-day matches that will decide the final standings — Adams and Howell will fight for third place. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / London Chess Classic

12/14/2018 – In the diagram position White seems to have everything under control — harmony is the keyword. However, Black's next move changes this drastically. Can you spot his idea?

12/14/2018 – Hikaru Nakamura (pictured) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave are considered two of the best rapid chess and blitz chess players in the world. In rapid Nakamura is rated number two and Vachier-Lagrave number six, while in blitz, 'MVL' is now number one — surpassing Magnus Carlsen — and Nakamura is number three. They will meet in the London Chess Classic finals after defeating Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian respectively. Here's how day 3 unfolded. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

12/13/2018 – "I usually review mainly books but I want to say a few words about CB 15", writes CARL PORTMAN, author of the book Chess Behind Bars, as he begins his collection of thoughts on our flagship database program. Importantly, he tackles the perennial question: Should I upgrade it and why? Portman thinks "you’ll be intellectually naked without it"!

12/13/2018 – The 17th edition of the Asian Continental Championship did not begin on the right note. A night before the start of the event, GM Vidit Gujrathi took to Facebook to express his dissatisfaction about the conditions provided. He further revealed that he and his colleagues MR Lalith Babu and Abhijit Kunte were attacked by a group of goons, just a few hundred metres away from their hotel! In our first report, we talk about the incident, FIDE's reaction and the happenings of the first three rounds. No photos or video are currently available in the "gallery" of the official site: philchesstournaments.com

12/13/2018 – The Kasparov Chess Foundation (KCF) and The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis (CCSCSL) have run the very successful Young Stars program for 'Team USA' for the past six years. Meet the latest crop of talented kids from the recent New York training session. Plus, In a new article, Garry Kasparov reminds us that the recent World Championship match did not represent "a contest between the two strongest chess players on the planet, only the strongest humans." Brute force programs have long exceeded human playing strength. But that does not end the historical role of chess as a laboratory of cognition. A new pure AI system has superseded even those programs. Kasparov evaluates AlphaZero's play in Science Magazine and gives a political interview in the prestigious magazine The New Yorker. | Photo DeepMind Technologies, Igor Khodzinskiy

12/12/2018 – Those who fear the "draw death" of classical chess gained a bit more ammunition today after both semifinal games ended drawn. In light of the 12 draws in the World Championship, four more in London so far is a bit disappointing. The game between Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana ended quickly and without even a hint of fireworks. Levon Aronian (pictured) surprised Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the opening and got an advantage, but could not exploit it. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour