11/14/2019 – The second finalist at the FIDE Grand Prix in Hamburg is Jan-Krzysztof Duda. The Polish grandmaster will be facing Alexander Grischuk starting Friday to decide who will become the champion in the second-largest city of Germany. Duda defeated Daniil Dubov in rapid tiebreaks despite losing the first encounter against the Russian. | Photo: Official site

11/14/2019 – In the past decade brute force programs became stronger than any human chess player, and now self-learning artificial intelligence programs like AlphaZero, Leela and Fat Fritz take these skills even further. What this all means is of great interest, and chess is simply the first area in which we are acutely feeling the impact of Artificial Intelligence. Thankfully computer experts, philosopher, and thinkers are beginning to discuss the subject seriously — as in this fairly profound podcast with Judea Pearl and Sam Harris, who use the chess paradigm extensively in their discussion. Definitely worth listening.

11/13/2019 – Today Karsten welcomes Indian GM P Harikrishna, the current world number 27, and a 2700-rated Grandmaster. Can Karsten stump him? On-demand for ChessBase account holders. Don't have an account yet? You can register a free 90-day account to watch!

11/13/2019 – With the Superbet Rapid and Blitz in the books, the race for the Grand Chess Tour finals in London is becoming clear. Sergey Karjakin, by virtue of tying with Aronian for first is out of the running. Since Vachier-Lagrave is finished with his tour events, Viswanathan Anand is looking to qualify for London, and 6th place in Kolkata should be enough to close the gap. The new Chess960 World Champion Wesley So will be there too. Can you guess what is veiled with blue velvet below?| Photo: Shahid Ahmed

11/13/2019 – Alexander Grischuk knocked Maxime Vachier-Lagrave out of the Grand Prix in Hamburg by beating him in the second classical game of the semi-finals. Grischuk thus massively increased his chances to reach the 2020 Candidates Tournament through the series. Meanwhile, Daniil Dubov got a slight edge against Jan-Krzysztof Duda, but could not make much of it — their semi-final match-up will be decided in tiebreaks. | Photo: Valeria Gordienko

11/12/2019 – In our most ambitious release yet, Fritz 17 brings a slew of features such as new functions to help you build your repertoire, special tools to help memorize it, new ways to generate exercises from your games, and more! It also brings not one, but several new engines such as the latest Fat Fritz with new percentage displays, the new Fritz 17 engine, and an easy-to-install Leela for the fans of the open-source project, and more! Get it at a 25% discount!

11/12/2019 – This week IM Lawrence Trent checks out the Euro Club Cup and specifically a win with black by French GM Romain Edouard. | Puzzle time: In the diagram below, it's White to move! | Lawrence is live for free and on-demand for a limited time, or forever on-demand with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.

11/12/2019 – The newest chess foundation in the world was announced during a Twitch broadcast from the oldest chess club in the United States. The new chess foundation is the Eade Foundation, with FIDE Master James “Jim” Eade serving as its Chairman, CEO, and President. The oldest chess club in the United States is the Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club, which is reaching out to new communities through online broadcasting. WIM ALEXEY ROOT reports. | Pictured: Paul and Jay Whitehead in 1973 | Photo: Mechanics' Institute Chess Club

11/12/2019 – The first classical games of the semi-finals at the FIDE Grand Prix in Hamburg ended in draws. Both games went into theoretical lines that led to draws in less than thirty moves. In Tuesday's rematch games, Alexander Grischuk and Daniil Dubov will have the white pieces against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Jan-Krzysztof Duda, respectively. | Photo: Valeria Gordienko

11/11/2019 – GM Simon Williams is a fan of gambits and lately he's been looking at the Budapest. Get a 1-hour overview on this exciting opening from the "Ginger GM". Watch live for free (or on-demand for a limited time) starting at the usual hour: 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET / 12 Noon EST).

11/11/2019 – The European Club 2019 is taking place in Montenegro from the 10th to the 16th of November 2019. Team Alkaloid is the top seed in the open section and Kyiv Chess Federation is the strongest team in the women's section. Altogether 66 teams in the open and 14 teams in women have taken part. The first round was quite an easy one for all the top seeds. We acquaint you with the teams and also tell you about what you can expect in the next rounds.

11/11/2019 – The one match that went to tiebreaks at the second round of the FIDE Grand Prix in Hamburg saw Daniil Dubov getting the better of Peter Svidler. Svidler had the upper hand in both 25-minute encounters, but could not convert any of his good positions into a win. Dubov, on the other hand, made the most of his good position in game three of the rapid play-offs. | Photo: Valeria Gordienko

11/11/2019 – In a pure endgame a rook is usually much better than a bishop but winning often still requires good technique.

11/11/2019 – Levon Aronian only finished in 5th place with 10 points from 18 games in this weekend's blitz tournament, but when combined with his 10 points in the rapid, his total tally tied him for first place with Sergey Karjakin, who won the blitz portion jointly with Le Quang Liem scoring 11/18. In the resulting playoff, Aronian scored a full point in the second game to snare the overall victory in the Romanian capital, Bucharest. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

11/10/2019 – Levon Aronian and Sergey Karjakin surged in the final day of blitz to finish joint first in the overall standings in Bucharest. Aronian won a two-game rapid playoff to be declared the winner of the Superbet Rapid & Blitz. Live games and commentary from 13:00 UTC (14:00 CET, 8:00 AM EST). | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

11/10/2019 – Only one match-up will be decided in tiebreaks at the second round of the FIDE Grand Prix in Hamburg, as Russians Peter Svidler and Daniil Dubov drew for a second day in a row and will be playing rapid and blitz on Sunday. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexander Grischuk and Jan-Krzysztof Duda secured their spots in the semi-finals in the classical phase, thus getting one extra point at the overall GP standings. | Photo: Nadja Wittmann

11/9/2019 – With an Elo rating of 2670, the Ukrainian GM Anton Korobov is currently number 68 in the classical world rankings. However, he is ranked sixth in the world in rapid chess at 2798! Korobov demonstrated his mastery of this format in the rapid portion of the Superbet tournament of the Grand Chess Tour in Bucharest. He finished Day 3 with a two point lead over the field. | Photos: Grand Chess Tour / Lennart Ootes

11/9/2019 – Today, November 9th, 2019, Germany marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, a major geopolitical event in 1989 which set the stage for German reunification. Germany is one of the most important chess countries, cultivating chess culture for about 1000 years. With over 2300 clubs almost 100,000 chess aficionados are actively engaged. The country has 100 grandmasters and some of the most important chess tournaments. Walter Rädler has produced a nice video vignette.