3/31/2026 – At the grenke Chess Festival 2026 in Karlsruhe, ChessBase is right in the middle of the action: at the Chess Tigers booth, visitors can get direct help with preparation, training and all questions related to chess. At the same time, the team is creating plenty of content from the world's largest open chess festival, including interviews and shows with guests such as Veronika Exler and Georgios Souleidis, as well as coverage of the new Opening Encyclopaedia 2026. | Photos: Grenke Chess Festival video screenshots

3/31/2026 – In this episode of The Monthly Dragon, Chris Ward takes a close look at the newest Dragadorf developments and shows why these modern Dragon setups are becoming such a practical weapon for Black. Using fresh blitz examples and clear strategic ideas, he explains how early ...h5, flexible piece play and typical Dragadorf plans can leave White struggling to find a convincing setup. A particularly striking highlight is an unexpected knight retreat that turns out to be a powerful positional idea and perfectly captures the fresh creativity in today's Dragon theory. | Photo: John Upham

3/28/2026 – In this episode of Svitlana's Smart Moves, Svitlana continues her Candidates series by presenting one key tactical moment from each player in the Women's Candidates, while Arne tries to solve them along the way. The positions showcase a wide range of attacking and endgame ideas, from classic double-bishop sacrifices to precise defensive resources and beautiful promotion tactics, while also highlighting the strength and fighting spirit of players like Deshmukh, Zhongyi, Vaishali, Goryachkina and Lagno.

3/26/2026 – At the Prague International Chess Festival 2026, the popular Hand & Brain format followed right after the main event, bringing together Grandmasters, Challengers, Futures players, celebrities, and sponsors in mixed teams for four entertaining rounds. Among the standout games was the pairing of Divya Deshmukh & Christina Jordan against Bao Anh Angelina Nguyen Doan & Benjamin Gledura. The game seemed firmly in White’s hands before the momentum shifted dramatically, turning into a commanding position for Black. In a remarkable finish, Gledura discovered a brilliant tactical idea that everyone else at the table missed—including his own partner.

3/21/2026 – In this second part of Svitlana’s Smart Moves: Candidates Special, Svitlana and Arne go through tactical highlights from the remaining four Candidates players, giving viewers both easier and harder puzzles to solve along with them. The episode especially showcases Fabiano Caruana’s astonishing calculation depth, several brilliant attacking ideas by Praggnanandhaa, and a series of creative tactical shots that underline why these players are so dangerous.

3/20/2026 – After the Prague International Chess Festival, the top players didn't want to stop playing, so they set up three boards for 6-player bughouse. World Champion Gukesh, Keymer, Maghsoodloo, and Ganguly were joined by rising "futures" stars Clio Alessi and Lilian Schirmbeck to create absolute chaos. Keymer was basically overpowered the entire game, while Ganguly held on with everything he had. The highlight? A ridiculous loophole battery where they sacrificed 10 knights and bishops in a row. Finally, no engines, no prep. Just pure fun between some of the best chess players in the world.

3/15/2026 – In this episode, Svitlana and Arne kick off a Candidates-themed tactics series by exploring beautiful combinations from the careers of several contenders, including Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giri, Matthias Blübaum, and Wei Yi. Each player is represented by an easier and a harder puzzle, and the lesson highlights recurring tactical themes such as queen deflections, mating nets, forcing moves, and precise attacking calculation. Along the way, they also discuss their Candidates favourites, with Arne backing Matthias Blübaum as a dark horse, while Svitlana expects a fiercely contested tournament full of surprises.

3/11/2026 – Chess tournaments have a way of running so smoothly that spectators rarely stop to think about why. That seamless experience is no accident, it's the result of dedicated people working tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure everything goes according to plan. At the Prague International Chess Festival, organizer Petr Boleslav leads a close-knit team of helpers, many of whom he has known for years and who themselves come from a chess background. ChessBase sat down with several of them to offer a glimpse into the world behind the tournament.

2/28/2026 – This episode trains you to think more creatively by first testing obvious ideas, understanding precisely why they fail, and then searching for a small adjustment that removes the opponent’s defensive resource. Through tactical and endgame examples, Svitlana shows that imagination isn’t about random brilliance, but about spotting loose pieces, hidden interference ideas, and unexpected candidate moves that change the evaluation completely. The learning effect is practical: by repeatedly challenging your first instinct and actively looking for alternatives, you reduce careless mistakes and expand your tactical vision in real games.

2/28/2026 – Chris Ward flips the usual “Monthly Dragon” perspective by studying why White wins against the Sicilian Dragon, using the classic Karpov–Korchnoi game to highlight recurring mating themes. He then shows how those same ideas transfer across openings and how he used the lessons in his own games to punish opponents who weren’t aware of the patterns—especially tactics involving sacrificesand mating nets. The takeaway for Dragon players: don’t avoid White’s best wins, learn the “warning signs,” so you can prevent them and steer the positions toward Black’s counterplay instead.| Photo: John Upham

2/20/2026 – In this episode, Svitlana explores how to fight back after a blunder, using dramatic comeback examples from players like Magnus Carlsen and classic games from the 19th century to show that even the best can recover from lost material. The key lessons are to avoid self-pity, keep pieces on the board, create complications, pose constant problems, and play actively as if you’re not worse—because pressure often causes the opponent to falter. Ultimately, she demonstrates that chess games are rarely over after a single mistake, and with the right mindset and resourcefulness, even a lost position can turn into a win or at least a save.

2/19/2026 – By coincidence, ChessBase conducted an interview with Loek van Wely just a day after the passing of Jan Timman. Their Dutch rivalry at the board defined an era, yet beyond the battles they also shared memorable moments, such as representing their country together at the 1992 Olympiad in Manila. Although Van Wely’s peak years are behind him, he has remarkably maintained a 2600+ level and remains fiercely competitive. In the interview, he reveals how he sustains his strength, and reflects on politics, poker, and his work as a coach.

2/14/2026 – In this episode of Svitlana’s Smart Moves, Svitlana introduces the concept “move first, think later,” encouraging players to start with concrete candidate moves based on intuition and pattern recognition, and only afterward justify them with general principles. Through several tactical examples, she shows how strong moves arise naturally from experience rather than abstract reasoning about positional features. The key takeaway is that in practical play, it’s often more effective to trust your instincts, calculate actively, and refine your logic afterward, rather than getting stuck searching for rules before finding a move.

2/13/2026 – Robert Ris presents 14-year-old prodigy Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, who impressed at Tata Steel Masters and scored 7/13 against elite opposition. In a sharp English Opening battle against Arjun Erigaisi, Erdogmus demonstrates deep preparation, fearless play, and precise calculation, including dynamic piece activity and strong strategic decisions. The game eventually transforms into a complex endgame where his bishop pair and powerful passed pawns take over, sealing a remarkable victory for the young talent.

2/10/2026 – In this “Best Games of 2025” episode, Lilit Mkrtchian takes us through a deeply instructive win from the Tegernsee tournament, showing her full ChessBase-style preparation workflow and how she chose an offbeat setup to get her opponent out of comfort early. The lesson then turns into a masterclass on positional pressure: exploiting the weakened d5-square, improving pieces step by step, and using concrete calculation to avoid tempting but incorrect tactics. The game finishes with clean technique—converting a queenside advantage and a dangerous passed a-pawn—while the big takeaway is clear: smart prep + strong squares + not spoiling a better position wins games.

2/7/2026 – In this episode, Svitlana takes on one of the most aggressive setups against the Modern Defence: the Austrian Attack. She explains the key ideas behind White’s early central pawn storm, typical attacking plans, and what you should be aiming for before the tactics even begin. A practical, idea-driven lesson that helps you understand when to attack, how to build it up, and what Black is trying to survive.

2/1/2026 – In this episode, Svitlana analyzes one of her own intense games from the Canadian University Championships, where she faced a 2400+ tactical rival in a long-awaited revenge match. The game began as a controlled strategic battle out of a Pirc structure, exploded into sharp complications, and transitioned into a wildly double-edged endgame where both players missed wins. Svitlana shows key defensive resources, creative practical decisions under time pressure, and two critical endgame “bluffs” that helped her hold a theoretically difficult position. After six exhausting hours and 113 moves, the roller-coaster fight finally ended in a hard-earned draw packed with lessons from opening to endgame.

1/30/2026 – GM Chris Ward opens the Monthly Dragon with a sharp refresher on a classic Classical Dragon position, showing how certain White sidelines can be punished, especially with the key idea …Qb6 and the tactical “Zollner gambit” packed with pins, forks, and long-diagonal themes. He then moves to a second highlight: Arne’s very first Classical Dragon, played as a delayed Vietnamese Dragon to surprise a Dragon expert, with a practical discussion of move orders of h5 vs. e5. The game itself is a model attacking performance: Black builds dark-square pressure, opens lines, and finishes with a direct king hunt and checkmate. | Photo: John Upham