12/9/2018 – While Carlsen and Caruana played for the World Championship in London, millions of people all over the world saw them fight in a soundproof glass box. But behind the scenes, the teams of seconds who supported them remained largely hidden. GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov has been the second of Fabiano Caruana since 2015, and in this interview, he shares impressions of the match to date. | Photos: Nikolai Dunaevsky / World Chess

12/5/2018 – It was quite a series: 102 matches in a row without a loss by the team of Novy Bor in the Czech League (the 'Extraliga'). Last Sunday, this incredible series ended in defeat. Aneta Vignerova, Miss Czech Republic 2009, opened the competition Moravská Slavia vs Labortech Ostrava. | Photos: Vladimir Jagr

12/5/2018 – Following the example of the massive bi-annual Chess Olympiad, an Under-16 youth version was held in Konya, Turkey, a 9-round Swiss team tournament which took place from November 25th to December 2nd, 2018. The Uzbek team won with 16 points ahead of India and China. Iran's top board, Alireza Firouzja scored 8.0/9 for a performance rating of 2736! | Photo: Official site

12/5/2018 – FIDE has finally announced the venue and regulations for the 2018 World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships. The dates are the same, but the venue, as was widely expected, has changed. It will take place from December 25th (arrival) to 31st (departure) in St. Petersburg, Russia. Magnus Carlsen will play, but it remains to be seen how much of the world elite will join him on short notice. | Pictured: The Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange, Rostral Columns from across the frozen Neva river | Stanislav Kondratiev (Unsplash.com)

12/4/2018 – The ChessBase Mega Database and other game collections contain fantastic examples for all important chess manoeuvres. However, they often remain hidden. The new search mask in ChessBase 15 can help find these hidden gems. A powerful function that is simply fun to use!

12/3/2018 – The match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana was the fourth World Chess Championship which took place in London. The contest was previously played in the English capital in 1986, 1993 and 2000. We take a brief pass through the history of World Championship matches between Kasparov and Karpov, Kasparov vs Short and Kasparov vs Kramnik. | Photo: Ben Bartels

11/23/2018 – The tenth game of the 2018 World Championship match in London was a highly tense affair. Fabiano Caruana surprised his opponent in the opening, but in the asymmetrical position that followed Magnus Carlsen seemed to have better chances. The Challenger, however, defended stubbornly and, in the endgame, Carlsen was a little too optimistic, lost a pawn, and nonetheless managed to secure a draw. The game was analysed by current U.S. champion SAM SHANKLAND and by ERWIN L'AMI. | Photos: Nikolai Dunaevsky / World Chess

11/20/2018 – Kateryna Lagno took the lead over World Champion Ju Wenjun in the Women's World Championship final with a win in the second match game today. The score stands at 1½:½ in favour of the Russian, with two games to play. Before Tuesday, Ju had won all five of her matches without losing a single game. | Photos: Official site

11/20/2018 – For the first time in the match, Fabiano Caruana chose to play the Open Sicilian 3.d4 against Carlsen. The World Champion went for the Sveshnikov variation, which would not have been totally unexpected by the Caruana team and the challenger secured some advantage, both on the board and on the clock. But, as GM WESLEY SO and GM YANNICK PELLETIER explain, after a missed opportunity on his 24th move, Caruana let Carlsen equalise and the game ended drawn. | Photos: Nikolai Dunaevsky / World Chess

11/19/2018 – Today, November 19th, José Raúl Capablanca, would have celebrated his 130th birthday. After World War I the Cuban was the world's best player and World Champion from 1921 to 1927. During his career, he played more than 500 tournament games but lost only 36 of them. | Photo: Screenshot from the movie "Chess Fever"

11/16/2018 – In today's 5th game of the World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana, the two players honoured Georgian champion Bukhtuti Gurgenidze with their opening selection and after a mild-mannered struggle, the game ended in a draw. (The 2017 World Junior Champion GM ARYAN TARI annotates.) The press conference, however, was once again lively. When asked which player Carlsen most admired from the past, he brought down the house with the original reply, "myself from three or four years ago". | Photo: Nikolai Dunaevsky / World Chess

11/2/2018 – November is shaping up to be another massive chess month. There are super tournaments starting soon in China and India and of course the World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana is now just a week away. But that's not even the only World Championship happening! In Khanty-Mansiysk, the Women's World championship — a knockout with 64 players — gets underway. Among the competitors is the reigning World Champion Ju Wenjun who, if she fails to win, will have had a scant five months with the crown. | Photos: FIDE

10/11/2018 – Tomorrow an impressive team tournament gets underway — this year's European Cup — and among those in action will be World Champion Magnus Carlsen who plays for the "Valerenga Sjakklubb" from Oslo. The Elo favourite is the team of "Alkaloid" with an average rating of 2741 and Ding Liren among the players. Another 2800 player, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov leads the Azerbaijani team Odlar Yurdu. | Photo: European Chess Union

10/9/2018 – Many will know the name of Viacheslav Ragozin above all as the eponym of the Ragozin variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined. Ragozin was a successful tournament player in the 1930s to 1950s, becoming the second correspondence chess World Champion in 1958 and was active as a journalist, arbiter and official. Yesterday was the 110th anniversary of his birth. | Photo: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

10/5/2018 – Vladimir Petrovs had a tragic life. He was born in 1907 and became one of the strongest players in Latvia. His biggest success was the international tournament in Kemeri 1937 where he finished joint first with Reshevsky and Flohr, ahead of Alekhine and Keres. When Germany occupied Latvia in WW II he fled to Moscow but after critical remarks about the commuist regime he was arrested and in August 1943 he died in a Soviet labour camp. | Photo: Vladimir Petrovs with his wife Galina (Russkije.lv)

9/13/2018 – After two days of Chess960 in St. Louis, Wesley So established the largest lead in his match against Anish Giri. Perhaps that why So says he prefers the variant over "normal chess". Or is it the other way around — preference breeds success? Garry Kasparov, on the other hand, is well behind in his match against Veselin Topalov. Elsewhere the rating favourites all lead, with the exception of Hikaru Nakamura vs Peter Svidler, which is tied at 6 points apiece. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club/ Lennart Ootes, Austin Fuller

8/24/2018 – One of the most famous chess scenes in a film is the game between the knight Antonius Block and Death from Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" (1957). Bergman's film inspired the German director Margarethe von Trotta to become a director herself, and as a homage to Bergman she now made a documentary about her idol: "Searching for Ingmar Bergman", a film in which the chess scene from "The Seventh Seal" also plays a role.

8/16/2018 – Sestao Xake Taldea's team narrowly won the Spanish team championship in Linares with one point lead, relegating Cac Beniajan Duochess and Solvay A. Elisabeth Pähtz was the best player of the tournament. | Photos: FEDA