10/16/2025 – Richard Rapport had the best individual result at the European Team Chess Championship in Batumi. Playing on board 1 for Hungary, he scored 5.5 points from 7 games and had a performance rating of 2869, the highest of all players in Batumi. In the final round, he won a nice and theoretically interesting game against Maksim Chigaev. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archiv)

10/15/2025 – The European Team Championship was exciting from start to finish and in the end the well deserved winner was Ukraine. Their top scorer Igor Kovalenko has a very impressive life story, having served at the front lines of the war for 2.5 years and now returning to top level chess. Our Game of the Week is his positional masterpiece from the important seventh round encounter against the Netherlands, in which he outplayed Loek van Wely with a very creative manoeuvre. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

10/15/2025 – The Colle and Zukertort Systems offer White a simple yet powerful setup with d4–Nf3–e3–Bd3, aiming for rapid development and a strong kingside attack. The Colle-Koltanowski focuses on c3 and e4, while the Zukertort System employs b3 and a fianchettoed bishop for added strategic depth. Easy to learn and highly effective for club players, this course teaches key sacrifices, maneuvers, and attacking ideas through classical and modern grandmaster games.

10/15/2025 – Two decisive games were seen in the open section and four in the women's section as round three of the US Chess Championships took place in Saint Louis. In the open, Wesley So defeated Sam Shankland to move into the sole lead on 2½ points, while Grigoriy Oparin scored his first win of the tournament. In the women's championship, Nazi Paikidze caught Anna Sargsyan at the top after defeating Tatev Abrahamyan, while Irina Krush, Alice Lee and Thalia Cervantes also claimed victories. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

10/15/2025 – In a surprising move, FIDE has officially approved a new world championship format: the Total Chess World Championship Tour, organized by Norway Chess. The Tour will determine a FIDE World Combined Champion across three disciplines – Fast Classic, Rapid, and Blitz – through four global events each year. With a $2.7 million annual prize pool, the series aims to find “The Total Chess Player” and bring faster, tech-enhanced formats to a wider audience. A pilot event launches in fall 2026, followed by the first full season in 2027. | Photo: FIDE

10/15/2025 – The fight bishop against knight can be tricky: White to move and win?

10/11/2025 – The Saint Louis Chess Club will soon host the 2025 US Chess Championship and the 2025 US Women's Championship, running from 12 to 24 October in its newly expanded venue. With a prize fund exceeding $400,000, the 12-player fields feature America's elite, including Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Carissa Yip, Alice Lee and Irina Krush. Alongside the competitions, Hall of Fame inductions and cultural events promise a historic month for American chess in Saint Louis.

10/11/2025 – The Ragozin Defence is one of those opening systems that are very popular in modern tournament chess. It combines solid classical elements with dynamic ideas. For those looking for active and dynamic play against 1.d4 without taking any significant risks, Grandmaster Surya Ganguly has created a high-class Fritz trainer in "Reinventing the Ragozin". The course impresses not only with its modern repertoire against the Queen's Gambit Declined in impressive depth, but also with valuable insights into the modern opening preparation of current top players. Lukas Köpl has taken a close look at Ganguly's Fritz trainer.

10/10/2025 – Two former world champions, Viswanathan Anand and Garry Kasparov, face each other in "Clutch Chess: The Legends", a 12-game chess960 exhibition match held from 8 to 10 October at the newly expanded Saint Louis Chess Club. The event features rapid and blitz games with increasing point values and prize stakes each day. | Follow the action live starting at 19.00 CEST (13.00 ET, 10.30 IST)

10/10/2025 – Garry Kasparov increased his advantage over Viswanathan Anand to 8½–3½ after the second day of their chess960 match in Saint Louis. The 13th world champion capitalised on Anand's time forfeiture in the first game and later added another win in the blitz section. The day's results left Kasparov firmly ahead, though twelve points remain at stake in the final session of the exhibition match. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

10/10/2025 – The delayed September edition reviews a single slow-play game in the mainline Sicilian Dragon, Yugoslav Attack with Bc4 and 10.Bb3. Chris outlines White’s three plans: all-out h4–h5, positional a4, or the “halfway house”, and shows the typical imbalances after Bxe6 followed by fxe6 and the tactical motif Rb4. But, our viewers have to be strong, since this episode it is White who actually wins | Photo: John Upham

10/10/2025 – The fifth round of the European Team Chess Championship in Batumi brought a major shift in both leaderboards. In the open section, Ukraine defeated the defending champions from Serbia to take the sole lead, while in the women's tournament, Poland continued their remarkable run, becoming the only team still on a perfect score after overcoming Germany in the day's top match. | Photos: European Chess Union