3/20/2025 – Day 5 of the 2025 American Cup saw contrasting matches in the Champions Brackets, with Alice Lee securing a key win in the women's section, while Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana opted for a quick draw in the open section. Meanwhile, the Elimination Brackets featured intense battles, as Irina Krush and Nazi Paikidze advanced in the women's event, while Levon Aronian and Sam Sevian eliminated Wesley So and Leinier Dominguez, respectively. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

3/20/2025 – Anna Muzychuk extended her winning streak to three games, strengthening her lead in the Cyprus Women's Grand Prix with four rounds remaining. Zhu Jiner remains just half a point behind after drawing with Alexandra Goryachkina, now in third place. Zhu's performance has already pushed her into the world's top eight in the live ratings. Elisabeth Paehtz secured her first victory of the event, while the remaining games ended in draws. The players will enjoy a rest day before the competition resumes. | Photos: FIDE / Mark Livshitz

3/19/2025 – Prepare for your next tournament with the new Opening Encyclopaedia 2025! Whether you want to build up a reliable and powerful opening repertoire or find new opening ideas for your existing repertoire, the Opening Encyclopaedia covers the entire opening theory in one product and is the ideal start for your opening training. Many new articles enrich the current theory with new or revisited ideas. The Encyclopaedia can help you learn openings quickly and give you a head start on your next opponent. Each article contains explanations and annotated games illustrating typical plans to deepen your understanding.

3/19/2025 – At the January Tata Steel Challengers tournament in Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands, at the start of their 4th round game, Uzbek GM Nodirbek Yakubboev refused to shake the extended hand of his opponent, Indian GM Vaishali Rameshbabu. This is what International Arbiter Alon Shulman, Councilor of the ECU Arbiters Council, has to say about the incident and about handshake history.

3/19/2025 – The fourth day of the American Cup saw intense battles in the semifinals of the Champions Bracket. Hikaru Nakamura secured his spot in the final by defeating Leinier Dominguez in the second classical game, while Fabiano Caruana edged out Levon Aronian in a blitz playoff after two drawn classical games. In the women's event, Alice Lee advanced with a draw, while Tatev Abrahamyan won a playoff against Carissa Yip. The finals will feature Nakamura v. Caruana and Lee v. Abrahamyan. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

3/18/2025 – Svitlana Demchenko introduces her new ChessBase training course, focusing on one of her favourite openings, the King's Indian Attack (KIA). She explains its universal nature, emphasizing that players only need to learn a basic setup (1.Nf3, 2.g3, 3.Bg2, 4.O-O, 5.d3), making it ideal for both creative and lazy players. She showcases how the KIA can be reached via e4 against various defences, including the French, Sicilian and Caro-Kann, offering flexibility in transpositions. A model game by Tigran Petrosian is analysed, demonstrating the strategic manoeuvring and attacking potential of the opening, particularly the h4-h5 push to weaken Black's kingside.

3/18/2025 – Sometimes, even a few pieces are enough to create a powerful mating attack. In the diagram position White is a piece up, but has to find a way to parry Black's attack. Any ideas?

3/18/2025 – The living chess legend from Argentina, Oscar Panno, celebrated his 90th birthday on Monday. The Argentine ranks sixth on the list of the oldest living chess grandmasters. His international career began in 1953 when he won the U20 World Championship. A number of remarkable achievements followed in what turned out to be a memorable chess career.

3/18/2025 – The third round of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix in Cyprus featured hard-fought games, with high accuracy scores across the board. Anna Muzychuk secured the only decisive result, defeating Nana Dzagnidze in a queen endgame that lasted 83 moves - the longest game of the tournament so far. The remaining matches ended in well-contested draws, reflecting the competitive nature of the event. Zhu Jiner maintained her tournament lead with 2½/3 points to her name. | Photos: FIDE / Mark Livshitz

3/17/2025 – In his new Game of the Week show Merijn van Delft looks at a model game that helped Dutch grandmaster Thomas Beerdsen to win the Open at the Chess Festival Prague. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

3/17/2025 – Pawn sacrifices occur in chess in all phases of the game, and the intentions associated with the sacrifice can be of the most diverse nature. In his latest CBM article, Oliver Reeh sheds light on pawn sacrifices in a tactical context and states even here: ‘Pawn sacrifices can be motivated in very different ways.’ In his column, you can expect 40 games peppered with a total of 170 (!) training questions! The tactics expert has also recorded his four favourite combinations in interactive video format. Take advantage of this week's reading sample and solve the problems move by move - together with the IM from Hamburg. Have fun!

3/17/2025 – The American Cup's brackets are taking shape after two days of classical games ended in draws, leading to decisive playoffs. Hikaru Nakamura, Leinier Dominguez, Levon Aronian and Fabiano Caruana advanced in the Champions Bracket, while their opponents moved to the Elimination Bracket. In the women's event, Alice Lee, Irina Krush, Carissa Yip and Tatev Abrahamyan (pictured) secured victories to progress. | Photo: Crystal Fuller