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 A new pure AI system has superseded even those programs.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

12/12/2018 – Ideas and strategies in Grandmaster games can be quite instructive. IM Merijn van Delft presents games like these every Wednesday at 20:00 CET (19:00 UT, 2 pm EDT). On this week's show: The open file. 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.

12/12/2018 – Most chess players who have visited Iceland have stayed and played in Reykjavik. Northern Iceland is another story, quite different from the capital area. This spring there is a chance to visit an exotic part of the country to play in an international tournament – in beautiful surroundings and excellent conditions. The Icelandic Open 2019 will take place from May 25th to June 1st in Akureyri, just 60 km south of the Arctic Circle. Plan it in.

12/11/2018 – The 10th London Chess Classic is underway with the semifinal played at the headquarters of Google's DeepMind. Demis Hassibis (pictured in the background) joined tournament director Malcolm Pein and a schoolgirl — learning chess under the Chess in Schools and Communities umbrella — on stage at the start of the first classical game. Yesterday, at the London Pro-Biz Cup, chess-loving business people or celebrities joined grandmasters taking turns in a tandem chess team tournament. Garry Kasparov was among the professionals, but it was the team of Roiko Vujatovic and David Howell that won. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

12/11/2018 – V. Saravanan is a strong chess player, an eloquent speaker and also a fine chess coach. He was also the commentator at the World Junior Championship 2014 and a journalist for many eminent tournaments like the World Championship 2012 and the Sinquefield Cup 2017 and 2018. However, there is one video which made the world see a completely different side of him. Last January, we released a video of Saravanan entitled "Must read books to become a better chess player". It was a one-hour video where the Chennai IM spoke about some of his favourite books of chess. The video became very popular and had over 32,000 views on our YouTube Channel. Now Saravanan is back, this time with part II of his "Must read books to become a better chess player" and this will be premiered LIVE on 11th of December 2018 at 15:00 UTC.

12/11/2018 – YAICP — Yet Another Indian Chess Prodigy! His name is D. Gukesh and he stems from — where else — Tamil Nadu, the home state of Vishy Anand. Gukesh was born on May 29, 2006, which means he is currently twelve and a half years old. On Saturday the lad scored his second GM norm in a closed round-robin in Paraćin, Serbia. Gukesh has a live rating of 2490 and from Thursday onwards will be playing in the next GM Open. Will he be able to break Sergey Karjakin's record? This will be his last chance. | Photo: Nebojsa Radosavljevic

12/11/2018 – In the endgame, far advanced passed pawns are often very dangerous. But in this endgame with dark-squared bishops, the player with the black pieces can navigate the dangerous waters to safety. Can you?

12/11/2018 – There was not much of a breather for Fabiano Caruana after his defeat in the tiebreak at the World Championship. He is back in London joining Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave as the four players qualified for the London Chess Classic, the final leg of the 2018 Grand Chess Tour, from December 11th to 17th. Can Caruana regain his mojo in rapid chess against Nakamura? Meanwhile, the top four players in England fight for the British Knockout Championship in a parallel semifinal and final.