12/19/2018 – The Asian Continental Championship remained wide open until the very end. At the conclusion of the final round, all of the top three finishers — Wei Yi, Amin Tabatabaei and Le Quang Liem — were tied for first and it wasn't until the application of the tiebreaks that Wei Yi was declared the winner. In the women's group, too, Padmini Rout was caught in the lead after the final round by Gong Qianyun but clinched the title nonetheless as she had won the direct encounter against Gong in round 6. Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son and Surya Shekhar Ganguly took the fourth and the fifth spots respectively to book their berth into the 2019 FIDE World Cup. | Photo: Peter Long

12/19/2018 – Ideas and strategies in Grandmaster games can be quite instructive. IM Merijn van Delft presents games like these every Wednesday at 20:00 CEST (19:00 UT, 2 pm EDT). On this week's show: Pawn structures. The live show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders. To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows.

12/19/2018 – The year 2018 will end with two World Chess Championships: from December 25 to December 31 the world's best players will meet in St. Petersburg to play the World Rapid and Blitz Championships. Magnus Carlsen has already declared his ambition to win both titles: "No usurpers are going to be left alive!". In a press release the Russian Chess Federation announces details of the event. | Photo: Magnus Carlsen | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

12/19/2018 – 12 games, 12 draws - there was not a single win in the World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana. However, the players more than once came close. In game 1 Carlsen missed the win, in game 6 Caruana could have won - in a very complicated and difficult endgame. Karsten Müller took a closer look and shows how Caruana missed a big chance. | Photos: Nikolai Dunaevsky (Agon)

12/19/2018 – The London Chess Classic was a top tournament in which four of the world's best players took part. But the London Chess Classic was also an event in which young children could see, feel and express the passion for chess - a life-changing experience. | Photos: London Chess Classic

12/18/2018 – Tuesdays at 18:00 CEST (5:00 pm UK time, Noon EDT) Lawrence Trent brings you the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments. This week Lawrence looks at the British Knockouts from the London Chess Classic.

12/18/2018 – It's a new book, on a hot topic, and by two great experts: Prof Jonathan Schaeffer, one of the pioneers of computer chess, and Dr Karsten Müller, GM and leading endgame expert. It traces the progress of computers in our noble game, with explanations and analysis, and lots of meticulously annotated games. The book bears a proper review (which will follow), but for today we bring you the highly interesting foreword by a man who has faced down computers for a number of years.

12/18/2018 – Vidit Gujrathi, the youngest Indian to breach the 2700 Elo mark, is known for his thorough opening preparation and solid style of play. But while his bent is more towards positional niceties, his vivid imagination and almost impeccable calculation let him transcend styles on demand. The following video shows Vidit’s mind in action as he solves four studies and a real-game puzzle, while also explaining how he found his way through the woods of variations.

12/18/2018 – Usually two bishops win against pawns but usually in chess you also have to be careful till the opponent resigns or is mated.

12/17/2018 – After drawing the first seven games of the final match against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura pulled off a very nice win to secure first place at the London Classic — given this year's format, this meant Nakamura also won the overall Grand Chess Tour. Third place went to Fabiano Caruana, who obtained three victories on Monday to take down Levon Aronian. Meanwhile, Gawain Jones showed a more than convincing performance to beat Luke McShane and become the champion of the 2018 British Knockout Championship. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

12/17/2018 – In this Simon Says we take a look at some recent ideas in this exciting opening. Simon is live this week at 18:00 CET (17:00 UTC). If you miss the show, you can watch it in the archive with a ChessBase Account. Don't have an account? You can register a free 90-day account to watch!

12/17/2018 – WCh London, Chess Olympiad, European Club Cup, Simon Williams on The Modern Reti, Mihail Marin on the Open Ruy Lopez, Yannick Pelletier tackles the French, new CBM contributor Daniel Naroditsky brings you "the London System revisited", Evgeny Postny looks at the Symmetrical English, plus our regular slew of columns and columnists. Check out the last ChessBase Magazine of 2018, today!