12/10/2025 – The second day of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Finals in South Africa marked the start of the knockout phase, with four quarterfinal matches played under a 30+15 time control. Two encounters were settled in the first pair of games, while the other two required blitz tiebreaks. Magnus Carlsen, Javokhir Sindarov, Vincent Keymer and Levon Aronian advanced to the semifinals, while the defeated players moved to the lower bracket to compete for fifth to eighth place. | Photo: Freestyle Chess / Lennart Ootes

12/9/2025 – Diego Flores claimed his eighth national title at the 2025 Argentine Championship, matching Miguel Najdorf's long-standing record in the event's centenary edition. The 12-player round-robin, held at Buenos Aires City Hall, saw Flores finish unbeaten with 8½/11, securing victory after a final-round draw against Federico Pérez Ponsa. Strong performances by Diego Valerga, Leonardo Tristán and 12-year-old IM Faustino Oro added further significance to this historic edition. | Photo: Argentine Chess Federation (FADA)

12/9/2025 – The King’s Indian Defence has been one of the most dynamic and popular responses to 1.d4 for decades. Legends such as Garry Kasparov, Bobby Fischer, and Hikaru Nakamura have employed it at the highest level – and it continues to fascinate today, as it offers Black not only solidity but also rich attacking and counterattacking opportunities. Its special advantage: the King’s Indian is a universal system, equally effective against 1.d4, 1.c4, and 1.Nf3. Grandmaster Felix Blohberger, multiple Austrian Champion and experienced second, presents a complete two-part repertoire for Black. His approach: practical, clear, and flexible – instead of endless theory, you’ll get straightforward concepts and strategies that are easy to learn and apply.

12/9/2025 – Out of the clear blue sky: Mating attacks do happen in endgames: Black to move and win.

12/9/2025 – This week an Indian top Grandmaster 2662-rated lost a game in only 16 moves! In this week's episode we will see what went wrong in a sharp line of the Queen's Indian Defence with 5.Qc2, which includes an early pawn sacrifice. | Fast & Furious is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

12/9/2025 – Now that we have examined all the individual trees in this game between Viktor Kortschnoj and Anatoly Karpov from 1978, what is our view of the forest? Move after move, Kortschnoj made optimal choices, never lessening the tension. Most decisive endings are won after a gross blunder, but it took 46 years to find where Black finally stumbled. As GM Alex Fishbein noted, Kortschnoj "made many nonstandard decisions, made no mistakes and played brilliantly – one of the best endings ever played."

12/8/2025 – The opening stage of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Finals in South Africa consisted of a single round-robin tournament with a 10+5 time control. Although no players were eliminated, the results were of clear importance: they decide the quarterfinal pairings. Javokhir Sindarov, fresh from his victory at the FIDE World Cup, was the top scorer, as he obtained 5½/7 points, with wins over Magnus Carlsen, Parham Maghsoodloo, Fabiano Caruana and Hans Niemann. The Uzbek star achieved this feat on his 20th birthday. | Photo: Freestyle Chess / Lennart Ootes

12/8/2025 – In recent days, an unusual face has been circulating on sports pages and social media: Sarwagya Singh Kushwaha, a boy from the Sagar district in Madhya Pradesh, India, has been registered as a FIDE-rated chess player at just three years, seven months and 13 days old — making him the youngest player in history to obtain an official FIDE rating. His FIDE entry shows a rapid rating of 1572; his FIDE ID is 558059504. | Photo: ChessBase India

12/8/2025 – Young players are often said to thrive on tactics while veterans rely on strategy. But the fifth game of the six-game match in Monte Carlo between 34-year-old Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and 14-year-old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus told a different story. After four draws, the young Turkish talent claimed the first win of the match — a clean, textbook performance in the Spanish Exchange Variation.

12/8/2025 – Karsten shows endgames with rooks and knight against rooks and knight from Goa. The main guideline is that a light initiative weighs heavily. The following is nice win for White. How to start?| You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

12/8/2025 – Grandmaster Dorian Rogozenco highlights how ChessBase 26’s Opening Report quickly reveals statistical trends and practical insights for specific opening lines, demonstrating it with a rare surprise weapon for Black in the French Advance, with the moves f6 and also f5, and showing that Black’s results, especially at lower levels, look promising enough to merit investigation. He emphasizes that the tool not only shows performance data and history, but also warns which sidelines you must know, making it a powerful way to get a fast, informed first impression before more in-depth analysis.

12/8/2025 – After four rounds of the President Cup in Tashkent, three players share the lead on 3/4: Nihal Sarin, Shamsiddin Vokhidov and Mukhiddin Madaminov. Their identical paths, combined with a striking trend of all decisive games favouring white, have given the event a notably symmetrical start. With Shant Sargsyan and Bardiya Daneshvar close behind and key pairings scheduled for round five, the tournament is entering an important early phase. | Photo: Uzbek Chess Federation