12/12/2016 – In round four of the London Chess Classic Hikaru Nakamura scored his second win in a row. He won a wild and inspired game with Black against Veselin Topalov. Wesley So was close to a win against Anish Giri but the dutch player defended stubbornly and saved the draw - Georg Meier shares his impressions about this encounter. The other three games also ended in a draw, but they were also entertaining. See our report.

12/12/2016 – How to play World Championship matches? Yasser Seirawan did not like the 12 game format in Carlsen vs Karjakin and proposed a "Radical Solution". Now Maurice Ashley disagrees. After asking the top players for their opinion and looking back at previous matches he concludes that 12 games and a rapid tiebreak are enough!

12/12/2016 – Tiberias is an ancient city with a rich history. Founded by the Romans it is mentioned in the New Testament and considered to be one of the four holy Cities of Judaism. Currently, chess is also an attraction of Tiberias. The city is host to the Championships of Israel and used the opportunity to show how much it supports chess.

12/12/2016 – One of the things that has long been a hardcore difference between the program ChessBase and Fritz has been the automated analysis features. When it came to automated functionality, ChessBase only offered database research and reports, while engine analysis was available manually only. This has slowly changed with Let’s Check, and Deep (position) Analysis, but finally ChessBase 14 introduces complete independent game analysis with Tactical Analysis. Read on to find out more.

12/12/2016 – We all witnessed Nakamura’s painful defeat against Wesley So in round 1, which meant that he Hikaru’s birthday did not go the way he intended. We all watched him put Vishy through the same pain yesterday on his 47th birthday, meaning that birthdays seem to be unlucky in chess! Sabrina Chevannes reports...

12/12/2016 – From December 1 to December 24 we invite our readers every day to open a door in our advent calendar. Click and enjoy a little chess treat. Advent calendar, door 12.

12/9/2016 – When looking at the flagship database by ChessBase, Mega 2017, it would be understandable to conclude that its asking price was buying you the 6.8 million games it comes with, not to mention the over 70 thousand commented games, but that is only part of what you get. When you purchase Mega 2017, you also get a professional 12-month service that will keep your database completely up-to-date. Here is a tutorial on how to activate and use it.

12/9/2016 – From December 1 to December 24 we invite our readers every day to open a door in our advent calendar. Click and enjoy a little chess treat. Advent calendar, door 9.

12/8/2016 – Of course, the match between Carlsen and Karjakin was closely followed by the Russian chess press. Karjakin lost narrowly but in Russia he is still a hero. Garry Kasparov, however, was blunt: "A World Champion Karjakin would have been a misunderstanding." Here are more reactions from the Russian press, including an interview with Sergey Karjakin.

12/8/2016 – With the arrival of Houdini 5 many will be asking themselves: What makes it so special? Aside from unique characteristics that made Houdini the reference all others were compared to is a special function hidden away in its options you should definitely know about: Tactical mode. This feature turns Houdini 5 into a single-minded tactics hunter that will find combinations and winners far faster than normal. Read on to learn about Tactical Mode and a backdoor trick.

12/8/2016 – From December 1 to December 24 we invite our readers every day to open a door in our advent calendar. Click and enjoy a little chess treat. Advent calendar, door 8.

12/7/2016 – Tanisha Boramanikar is one of the many talents from India. She is ten years old and rated just under 1400. But she plays much better. When she sent two "Agony and Ecstasy" games to Jon Speelman, the grandmaster was impressed.