1/27/2019 – Sharing can be fun — and sharing chess games can be fun but also helpful and instructive, e.g. if you teach chess or work with a trainer. In any case, sharing games with ChessBase 15 is easy. Here's a short tutorial covering your options. | Drawing: ChessBase

1/27/2019 – The 81st Tata Steel Chess Tournament takes place from January 12th to 27th in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands (and two "on tour" locations). The "Masters" has an average Elo of 2753. The "Challengers" weighs in at 2582. Both are 14-player round-robin tournaments. Round-up show live at 20:00 UTC (21:00 CET, 3:00 PM EST) Live commentary by IMs Sopiko Guramishvili and GM Robert Hess from 12:30 UTC (13:30 CET, 7:30 am EST) | Photo: TataSteelChess.com

1/27/2019 – At the conclusion of the penultimate round of the Tata Steel Masters, it became clear that the race for the title will be only between Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri. With a win over Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the twelfth round, Carlsen has taken the sole lead. Giri remained half-a-point behind the World Champion after avoiding defeat thanks to a sudden draw offer by Teimour Radjabov. Other wins of the round were scored by Vladimir Kramnik (over Vladimir Fedoseev) and Sam Shankland (over Ian Nepomniachtchi), while the game between Vishy Anand and Ding Liren ended in an exciting draw. | Photo: Alina l'Ami / Official site

1/26/2019 – Vladislav Kovalev has won three in a row and takes a half point lead into Sunday's final round. Maksim Chigaev and Andrey Esipenko remain undefeated and a half point back. But Kovalev has the easiest pairing in Round 13 — White against the bottom seed Stefan Kuipers — while the young Russians both have Black against tougher opponents. We take a closer look at the past week in the Challengers. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

1/26/2019 – "Study of the Month" author SIEGFRIED HORNECKER returns to his deep dive into Czech chess composers with a fascinating column on Oldřich Duras. The fourth column in this mini-series builds upon his research from the second half of 2018. See also: Part 1: Prokop’s poetry, Part 2: Prokeš from Prague and Part 3: Miroslav Havel. Of course, don't miss the instructive studies!

1/26/2019 – A completely unexpected resignation from Sam Shankland allowed Anish Giri to catch up with Magnus Carlsen in the standings. A half point behind, the only chaser is Ian Nepomniachtchi, who grabbed an important win over Vladimir Fedoseev. In other news, Vladimir Kramnik got his first victory this year, while Vladislav Kovalev won the only decisive game of the Challengers and joined Maksim Chigaev at the top of the standings. Full report by ALEX YERMOLINKSY. | Photos: Alina l'Ami / Official site

1/25/2019 – Friday at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, Noon EST) 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. Puzzle and the live video...

1/25/2019 – The Iranian IM Sarasadat Khademalsharieh is the player of the hour at the Gibraltar Chess Festival. She defeated GM Alexander Donchenko in Round 3 and was one of the five leaders with a perfect score. The dream start for Nigerian expert Kolade Onabogun, who beat two GMs, came to an end in Round 3, as he lost to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. We take a brief look at these two outsiders. | Photo: John Saunders

1/25/2019 – The Grand Chess Tour is expanding in 2019 to eight tournaments. The Your Next Move Blitz and Rapid in Leuven is replaced by tournaments in India, Ivory Coast and Romania and a new classical tournament is planned for Croatia. There will be twelve full GCT participants and a $1.75 Million Prize Fund. | Pictured: London organiser Malcolm Pein hands the GCT 2018 trophy to Hikaru Nakamura | Photo: Grand Chess Tour (Lennart Ootes)

1/25/2019 – In the diagram position, with White to move, the white knight b3 is hanging. Retreat or counter-attack — how would you react?

1/25/2019 – It's a new discovery — a collection of the most interesting chess problems and puzzles, from the tenth century until today. The unique thing is that each puzzle has a little story attached to it, telling you something about the circumstances of its composition and its place in the history of chess problems. We bring you a small sample from the book "Chess Compositions". Try working out the positions before you peek at the solutions.

1/24/2019 – Every two weeks on Thursday's at 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET, 1 pm EST), IM Robert Ris shows sharp and double edged opening lines. If you fancy sacrificing or playing gambits, this show is a must see. Not only will you profit from specific opening ideas but you'll learn a lot of interesting general opening concepts too. The live show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows.