12/31/2024 – The duel knight against bishop is often difficult and complicated but in general bishops prefer dynamic positions while knights like static positions. In the diagram position Black is better, but White can hold. How?

12/31/2024 – The World Blitz Championships are taking place in New York on 30-31 December. Over 300 elite players, including Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Ju Wenjun, compete in iconic Wall Street venues. The tournaments, open and women's, are played with a time control of 3 minutes for the game plus 2-second increments per move. | Follow the games live with expert commentary starting at 20.00 CET (14.00 ET, 0.30 IST)

12/31/2024 – The opening day of the World Blitz Chess Championships in New York brought electrifying action, with top players battling for a spot in the knockout stages. In the open section, 10 players tied for first place with 9½/13, but only 8 advanced, including Magnus Carlsen, Hans Niemann (pictured) and newly crowned rapid champion Volodar Murzin. Meanwhile, in the women's event, Vaishali Rameshbabu delivered a commanding performance, scoring an unbeaten 9½/11 to finish a full point ahead of her closest rival. | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza

12/30/2024 – In the latest episode of their "Two Knights Talk" show, Arne Kähler and Johannes Fischer talk about the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships in New York, dress codes, harsh decisions, diplomacy and how Magnus Carlsen and his jeans dominate the coverage of these events. Arne Kähler also presents a position from chess history that was at the beginning of an unfortunate trend.

12/30/2024 – It happened during a training session we arranged for three young talents in the ChessBase office. It was conducted by Dr. Karsten Müller, who is a leading endgame expert. Some time later, Karsten wrote an article in the (German language) Chess Calendar describing how the pre-teen Dommaraju Gukesh refuted a Tal brilliancy by the legendary Mikhail Tal. Here's an English translation of Karsten's article.

12/30/2024 – The World Rapid Championships, which were played from 26 to 28 December in New York, made unexpected headlines. The reason for this was not the surprising victory of the young Russian GM Volodar Murzin, but the withdrawal of Magnus Carlsen from the tournament after he was accused of violating the dress code. This led to a dispute that escalated quickly. Carlsen withdrew from the World Rapid Championship after 8 rounds and announced he would not play in the Blitz section either. But as Carlsen now explained in a surprising interview with Levy Rozman, he will take part in the Blitz after all. And will be wearing jeans. | Photo: FIDE / Lennart Ootes

12/30/2024 – In his last Game of the Week show 2024, Merijn van Delft presents one of the most amazing games of the year - an encounter between David Paravyan and Nandhidhaa. White again and again came up with surprising, original and beautiful ideas. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

12/29/2024 – After our Christmas Puzzles, involving kings and a couple of pawns, you may be tempted to call Ding Liren's oversight in the final game of the World Championship match a gross blunder. It was a catastrophic mistake that cost the World Champion millions of dollars of potential future income. How it came about is explained by ChessBase Magazine author GM Dorian Rogozenco in this video reconstruction.

12/29/2024 – The World Rapid Chess Championships concluded with outright victories in both the open and women's sections. In the open category, 18-year-old Russian GM Volodar Murzin stunned a star-studded field to claim the title with an unbeaten 10/13 score, becoming the second-youngest champion in the event's history. Meanwhile, India’s Humpy Koneru clinched her second women's world rapid title with a clutch final-round victory, finishing with 8½/11 points. | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza

12/29/2024 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books on chess training and strategy. In the last episode of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving" in 2024 Herman invites you to enjoy some fascinating endgame studies. | Photo: Pascal Simon

12/29/2024 – The World Championship match between Gukesh Dommaraju and Ding Liren demonstrated how important it can be to catch your opponent on the wrong foot in the opening. In her 60-minute course, Svitlana Demchenko shows how this can be achieved with both colours and very little theory. | Photos: Nils Rohde

12/29/2024 – Beneath its deceptively simple facade of a game, chess conceals a rich tapestry of human ingenuity and thought. It is, as Anatoly Karpov succinctly remarked, art, science, and sport all rolled into one. Yet, while the competitive aspect of chess basks in the limelight with its high-stakes, action-packed tournaments and matches, the subtle but no less fascinating endeavour of chess composition, where artistry shines the brightest, languishes in relative obscurity. As a step towards redressing this imbalance, ChessBase India and the World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC) present My First Endgame Study, a beginner-friendly study composing contest designed for chess enthusiasts eager to explore the creative world of chess composition, specifically studies. Details follow.