6/3/2018 – The new ChessBase Online Playerbase contains chess profiles of about 525,000 players and about 38,000 photos: players.chessbase.com You want to know who is currently among the top ten or the top hundred? Or you want to know how your rating (or the rating of rivals and friends) developed over the years? Have a look! | Drawing: ChessBase

6/2/2018 – The city of Hamburg, Germany, is shaped by two rivers: the Elbe that runs from East to West and connects Hamburg to the sea, and the more idyllic Alster that runs from North to South through the city. In 1957 schoolteachers in Hamburg had the idea to let schools lying to the right of the Alster play chess against schools to the left of the Alster. In 1958 the first "Alsterufer" match took place. 60 years later it is one of the world's biggest chess tournaments - and a fantastic chess spectacle. | Fotos: Stefan Malzkorn

6/2/2018 – In the first three rounds of the Altibox Norway Chess tournaments, Magnus Carlsen was the only player to win a game, but in round four Sergey Karjakin and Levon Aronian put their first number 1 up on the crosstable. Viswanathan Anand and Wesley So drew, as did Hikaru Nakamura and Carlsen. The game between Ding Liren and Fabiano Caruana was postponed following a serious bicycle accident suffered by Ding, who fractured a hip. Carlsen's lead has now shrunk to half a point. Report and games annotated by GM ALEX YERMOLINSKY. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Norway Chess

6/1/2018 – This DVD could be Carlsen's answer to Caruana's unbeatable Petroff Defence. Tiviakov in his most recent video series teaches us his experience with this formidable weapon for White, which avoids the Petroff, and eventually lets us enter into a comfortable Italian game, an opening which has become very popular recently. DAVIDE NASTASIO takes a closer look, and SERGEI TIVIAKOV annotates a fresh game of his own.

6/1/2018 – Ding Liren is at a career best 2798 on the Elo ratings and number four in the world. But Thursday night it emerged that he's suffered a hip fracture while bicycling in Norway and will miss today's fourth round. The scheduled game with Caruana has been postponed (for now) until the next rest day, June 4th. Before the incident, the players took part in a "cook-off" where they were paired up and got to play the roll of professional chefs for a while. Here Ding enjoys the fruits (or rather veggies) of his labour. Behind him (L-to-R): Vachier-Lagrave, Aronian, Caruana and Karjakin | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Altibox Norway Chess

6/1/2018 – Downfalls, comebacks, blunders and brilliancies, all was witnessed in the Siberian town of Poikovsky which is playing host to the Karpov Poikovsky International. Ian Nepomniachtchi had been leading the tournament for the most part but by the time the dust of the battles of round five had settled, he was not only joined by two co-leaders but had also suffered his first defeat of the tournament. Vidit Gujrathi also came very close to defeating Gelfand in the fifth round but the Israeli GM found a stunning stalemate tactic to save the day. A report on all the action at Poikovsky.

5/29/2018 – Knights on the rim are dim because they often do not have much room for maneuver. Kings on the rim can be dim because they might fall victim to a mating attack.

5/28/2018 – This is what the chess world has been waiting for: one of the strongest chess engines in the world, but with access to the most important AI enhancement of recent times: Komodo 12 can be switched to a Monte Carlo search, very similar to the one employed by AlphaZero. This engine achieves over 3000 Elo, but more importantly, it plays more aggressively and more human-like. Komodo Monte Carlo is not primarily concerned with material advantage and provides a completely new strategic evaluation of the game.

5/28/2018 – In this Simon Says we look at ten different examples from games, or studies and asks you to take a stab at solving them. Simon then looks at the themes and breaks down the examples! | Photo: Alina l'Ami

5/28/2018 – The Karpov Poikovsky tournament went off to a flying start on Sunday as a decisive game was witnessed on every board: Vidit Gujrathi won in Karpovian style in his very first appearance in Poikovsky; Emil Sutovsky ground down Vladislav Kovalev in an 80 move marathon; Ian Nepomniachtchi and Dmitry Jakovenko won after winning a pawn a piece out of the opening; while Anton Korobov crushed Fedoseev's dubious opening. Here's an illustrated report with analysis. | Pictured: Anatoly Karpov | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

5/28/2018 – The Altibox Norway Chess Tournament started with a blitz tournament, and with 10 of the world’s best players competing it was probably one of the best blitz tournaments in the history of chess. It determined which five players will have one more game with White in the classic tournament which starts today on Monday, April 28, but was of course also about prestige and invites predictions of form. Magnus Carlsen was favourite but Wesley So won. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

5/27/2018 – From 11 to 23 May, the Norwegian Bliss was the scene of a "chess tournament at sea". The ship and the tournament travelled from Miami through the Panama Canal to Los Angeles. The winner was Michael Klyszcz from the SG Löberitz, an amateur angler and ex-basketball player. Jürgen Meijerink and Henry Gregory Allen earned prizes. On its last leg, the chess tourists visited "Switzerland in Central America" and then a land of the volcanoes (see picture towards the foot of one of them). | Photo: Michael Dombrowsky