11/6/2024 – Recently, the famous Babson task (Black promotes to one of the four possible pieces and White must promote to the same piece in all four cases to win) has been conquered by in an endgame study. Many thought it to be impossible to realize this extremely difficult task. In this second part of the three part series Harold van der Heijden describes how study composers progressed towards solving the problem.

11/6/2024 – In his series ‘Practical Tips for the Tournament Player’, Jan Markos deals with one of his favourite topics in chess in the new ChessBase Magazine #222: domination. In its pure form, it promises total control over an impotent opponent. Your own risk is minimised and you have all the time in the world to improve your pieces and work out a winning plan. It is therefore often worth investing time or even material to achieve a dominant position. Jan Markos explains the most important techniques based on three top-class games. You can now view the complete article in the free reading sample in ChessBase books format - directly via the web browser on your iPad, tablet, Mac, smartphone or Windows PC! Have fun.

11/6/2024 – In the 6th round of the Women's Grand Prix Tournament in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, Aleksandra Goryachkina won her fourth game in a row. She played against German Grandmaster Elisabeth Paehtz, who missed study-like drawing chances in a difficult endgame. Stavroula Tsolakidou, Tan Zhongyi and Kateryna Lagno also won their games. With three rounds to go Goryachkina now leads with 5.0/6, followed by Tsolakidou and Tan Zhongyi with 4.0/6 each. | Photos: Konstantin Chalabov and Anastasia Abramova (FIDE)

11/6/2024 – In his new Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft looks back to the European Club Cup, which was won by the team of Novy Bor. With a score of 5.5/7 German GM Vincent Keymer was the topscorer on the team, and his best game was probably his win against Alexey Sarana - which Merijn analyses closely. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

11/6/2024 – The Chennai Grand Masters Chess Tournament kicked off with enthralling action in both the Masters and Challengers sections. In the Masters, Arjun Erigaisi and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won their respective games, defeating Vidit Gujrathi and Parham Maghsoodloo respectively. Meanwhile, the Challengers section saw all four games ending decisively, with Raunak Sadhwani, Abhimanyu Puranik, Leon Luke Mendonca, and Pranav Venkatesh claiming victories. The intense opening day set a strong competitive tone for the tournament ahead. | Photo: Aditya Sur Roy

11/5/2024 – Club players love to attack against the king. Perhaps it has something to do with the ancient hunting instincts. After all, most young footballers want to play strikers. Almost no one wants to defend. Grandmasters love to attack as well. However, they understand that there are many more creatures to be hunted, not only the king. Basically, every piece can become a prey! A professional chess player is hunting on the entire board. And he or she is satisfied with a knight or a rook if the monarch can’t be trapped. With a material advantage, the mate will come. Let us have a look at several examples in which a strong player traps and hunts down a piece of the opponent.

11/5/2024 – FIDE, together with the World Solving Championships for Youth and Cadets, hosted a series of free online lessons to get participants ready for the inaugural FIDE World Solving Championships. They were run by Anirudh Daga and WFCC President Marjan Kovačević. Today we bring you the solutions to the two-movers we gave you to solve last week. Were you able to solve them?

11/5/2024 – The final day of the 27th Open International Bavarian Chess Championship at Gut Kaltenbrunn at Tegernsee saw another very exciting round, as eleven players were still in the running for the tournament victory. In the end, Titas Stremavicius and Rinat Jumabayev shared first place, but thanks to his better tiebreak Stremavicius won the tournament. | Photos: Sandra Schmidt

11/5/2024 – After five rounds, the players at the Grand Prix tournament in Shymkent had a rest day, during which the organisers offered the opportunity to get to know the culture and history of Kazakhstan. As well as visiting the monument in memory of Baidibek Bi, the players saw Kazakh craftsmanship and had a taste of Kazakh cuisine. Josefine Heinemann reports. | Photos: Konstantin Chalabov, Anastasia Abramova (FIDE) and Josefine Heinemann

11/5/2024 – When only a few pawns remain on the board, the attacker must be careful to keep at least one of them. In the diagram position it is Black to move. He still has two pawns and he has a way to win. What should he do?

11/4/2024 – The Kasparov Chess Foundation Academy has successfully kicked off on October 19, 2024, with its Preseason Trainings. The first session on What We Can Learn from the Chess Olympiad 2024 Top Games, was a success. Participants explored thrilling dynamic games and learned valuable lessons from instructive mistakes made by even the greatest players. Remember, we grow by learning from our own mistakes and those of the best!

11/4/2024 – Aleksandra Goryachkina has taken the lead at the Shymkent Women’s Grand Prix with a stellar performance, securing her third consecutive win by defeating former co-leader Tan Zhongyi in round 5. Goryachkina now holds 4/5 points, a half-point ahead of Kazakhstan's own Bibisara Assaubayeva, who sits in second place after a strong win against Humpy Koneru. Tied for third are Tan, Humpy and Stavroula Tsolakidou, all remaining within striking distance. | Photo: Konstantin Chalabov