3/16/2017 – That, in fact, is what the newly founded Penrose Institute is suggesting. The founder, famous mathematician Sir Roger Penrose, has composed a problem devised "to defeat an artificially intelligent (AI) computer but be solvable for humans". The latter are asked to submit their solutions and share their reasoning. But the position itself and the logic behind the experiment is not compelling. Still, you may enjoy checking it with your chess engine.

3/15/2017 – This week's column features two games submitted by Kanwal Bhatia, an academic in her thirties who has played a number of times in the England women's team. She explains that she learned chess on a container ship, where she first grew up. She now works in London as a researcher in machine learning for medical imaging.

3/15/2017 – Daniel King has been one of the longest lasting fixture in the ChessBase family, and to celebrate his 25th PowerPlay DVD, the classic PowerPlay 7: Improve Your Pieces is now on sale 50% off! He will also be presenting a live PowerPlay show on Playchess, and finally here is a video interview with the English grandmaster, where he talks about his life, his love of chess, and a passionate comment on the World Championship.

3/15/2017 – Concluding his recap on the Women World Championship, the focus now moves forward to the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and lastly the standout qualities in Tan Zhongyi, the new world champion. GM Elshan Moradiabadi provides his analysis of the turning points of missed or hit shots that ultimately decided the title.

3/14/2017 – Recent trends in book publishing indicate how demanding life has become. A whole series of thick books tell you about "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", "1001 TV Series You Must Watch Before You Die", "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" or "1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die". But what about chess? And why not start small, e.g. with "50 chessgames every chessplayer should know"?

3/14/2017 – GM Anish Giri called him the Master Shifu of the Indian team at the Olympiad. There is absolutely no doubt that R.B. Ramesh and his chess Gurukul have transformed the chess scene in India drastically. Ranging from superb performances at the Olympiad, to clean sweeps at the World Youth, to the creation of super talents like R. Praggnanandhaa, R.B.Ramesh has played a huge role. Here is a candid interview with the foremost coach in Indian chess by Niklesh Jain.

3/9/2017 – Organized by Alexei Shirov together with the Riga Chess Federation, the Tal Memorial Rapid tournament was recently held in Jurmala, Latvia. The aim of the tournament was to pay tribute to the brightest representative of Latvian Chess ever, and players from all around the world came to enjoy this event. The tournament was won by Vladimir Onischuk, but the biggest surprise was the 6th place finish by veteran Evgeny Sveshnikov. Here is the illustrated report.

3/9/2017 – He is the oldest player in the world's top 100, and last December he won the British Knockout Championship, to the surprise of some. In the quaterfinals he was dragged into a tie-break by the lowest-rated player in the event, but he then went on to beat Luke McShane and David Howell to take the title. "I am very happy with my status as celebrity oldie – I suppose now that Viktor has gone, someone had to step up," says Nigel in this interview with Junior Tay.

3/8/2017 – The Chebanenko Slav (1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e3 a6!?) is a solid, strategically interesting system that has caused players with White a lot of problems. On his DVD "The Chebanenco - still improved" Viktor Bologan offers a complete Slav repertoire based on the Chebanenco and explains why the line is so attractive. FM Markus Hochgräfe is a Slav aficionado and took a close look at the DVD. He suggests some improvements but all in all he liked what Bologan offers.

3/8/2017 – Imagine one of those survival contest shows with a hefty $500 thousand prize at the end. Now imagine it is a team of two, with one survival pro such as a former military specialist, and one who has never even camped under the stars such as an etiquette coach or... a professional chess player like Sam Shankland! The humorous reality show premieres March 9 and is not to be missed!

3/7/2017 – The 2nd China - India Summit is currently underway in China. It is a four-round Scheveningen event where four players from India play against four from China. Team India team consists of Ganguly, Sethuraman, Abhijeet Gupta and Karthikeyan Murali, while Team China has Wei Yi, Bu Xiangzhi, Lu Shanglei and Zhou Jianchao. After three rounds, China leads 7.5-4.5. Here is the illustrated report.

3/7/2017 – One can only describe a norm tournament in which three of the seven hopefuls manage to actually make norms as a smashing success! The mix of young and ambitious players coupled with a lot of fighting chess was the recipe for this big success, and at the top were both Australian IM Bobby Cheng and IM Lucas Van Foreest who both scored GM norms. Illustrated report and analysis by GM Alexandr Fier.