10/26/2026 – While looking through the standings of the European Club Cup which concluded last week, René Mandelbaum focused on the teams at the bottom of the table. To his surprise, he discovered that many of their players were rated between 1800 and 2000. These are good club players - still, he had expected stronger opposition at a European championship. "With a field like this, we shouldn't finish last", he thought. | Photos: SK Weisse Dame Hamburg

10/23/2026 – The European Club Cup is taking place on 17-23 October in Budva, Montenegro, bringing together 108 teams in the open section and 22 teams in the women's competition. The seven-round event features a number of elite players, including Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Wei Yi, Alexandra Goryachkina and Humpy Koneru. | Follow the action of the final round live with expert commentary starting at 14.00 CEST (8.00 ET, 17.30 IST) | Pictured: Anish Giri | Photo: Gerd Densing

10/22/2026 – The 2026 U.S. Championship came to a dramatic conclusion: Wesley So lost to last-placed Sam Sevian in the final round, ending his 48-game unbeaten streak at the U.S. Championships. Fabiano Caruana, meanwhile, won on demand against Awonder Liang to catch So at the top of the standings. The title will now be decided in a playoff, beginning with two rapid games at 15+10. If the scores remain level, another two rapid games will follow, then up to two two-game blitz matches at 5+2. If the players are still tied, the arbiter will decide how to proceed. | Live with commentary from 12.00 CDT / 18.00 BST / 19.00 CEST | Photo: Crystal Fuller

10/21/2026 – The US Championships are taking place on 9-21 October at the Saint Louis Chess Club. Each tournament is a 12-player single round-robin with a classical time control. Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and Levon Aronian are the highest-rated players in the open, while Carissa Yip, Alice Lee and Irina Krush head the women's field. | Follow the action live starting at 19.00 CEST (13.00 ET, 22.30 IST) | Pictured: Grigoriy Oparin | Photo: Lennart Ootes

10/13/2026 – Bodhana Sivanandan made her debut in the Second Bundesliga this weekend, playing for the Hamburger SK's men's team. She is the youngest youngest player ever to play in the German Bundesliga, and the youngest WGM in history. Her score in the two games she played: 1½ points. Not bad for an 11-year-old girl. Before the matches she visited ChessBase in Hamburg and did some recordings for us.

10/1/2026 – Arne Kähler shares impressions from the final moments in Samarkand: the start of the crucial matches Uzbekistan–Ukraine and India–Hungary in the last round, a blitz game against seven-year-old Uzbek talent Mukhammadyusuf Bakhramov, scenes from the press room, a chat with Frederik Svane from Germany and Konstantin Peyrer from Austria, and highlights from the closing ceremony. | Photo: ChessBase

9/30/2026 – Arne Kähler sets off by golf cart from the entrance gate to the exhibition area at the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand. He shows the stands of WR Chess, DGT and ChessBase, while also passing the ChessBase India workspace, the food court and the souvenir shop. Arne then visits the press area and the game zone before meeting a special guest at the ChessBase stand - elite grandmaster Levon Aronian! | Photo: ChessBase

9/27/2026 – The 46th edition of the Chess Olympiad is taking place on 16-27 September at the Silk Road EXPO in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. A record 208 teams in the open and 191 in the women's category are fighting for collective and individual medals. | Follow the games live with expert commentary starting at 12.00 CEST (6.00 ET, 15.30 IST) | Pictured: Alexandra Kosteniuk from Switzerland by Michal Walusza / FIDE

9/26/2026 – Eleven rounds, 206 teams in the Open, 185 in the Women's event – thousands of games are played at the Chess Olympiad. Most attention goes to the games on the top boards, while many entertaining and interesting games go unnoticed. But at the ChessBase booth in Samarkand, ChessBase invites Olympiad players to show us their best games. Colin Pace from Malta (right in the photo) used the chance. | Left in the photo: ChessBase author Bahne Fuhrmann

9/24/2026 – Timur Turlov is an entrepreneur, president of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation and a candidate for the FIDE presidency. But how did he get into chess? In a conversation with Johannes Fischer at the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Turlov talks about how his grandfather taught him the game, how his six children rekindled his enthusiasm for chess, why chess helps him in his work as an entrepreneur, and why he supports the game.

9/23/2026 – The ChessBase crew continues its coverage from the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, moving from the exhibition stand to the playing hall and capturing some of the atmosphere around the event. The latest vlog features reactions to the forthcoming ChessBase for Mac, behind-the-scenes work by the team, new guests in the "Off the Board" interview series and the celebrations that follow a victory by the Uzbek team.

9/22/2026 – Bobby Fischer remains one of the most fascinating and enigmatic figures in chess history. IM John Donaldson, captain of the US team at the Chess Olympiad and the author of numerous books on famous and lesser-known chess personalities, is one of the leading experts on Fischer. He recently published a new book on the 1972 World Champion, "Inside the Mind of Bobby Fischer". In the interview, Donaldson talks about his research, previously unknown material and how he views Fischer after years of studying his life and work.

9/19/2026 – ChessBase has a team on-site at the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand. Visitors to the ChessBase stand can find out more about ChessBase for Mac. Arne Kähler and Veronika Exler are also conducting interviews. Svitlana Demchenko has hundreds of databases, Nikita Vitiugov considers himself to be one of the best chefs among chess players, while Gloria Yepez does not enjoy playing blitz! | Photo: ChessBase

9/19/2026 – Baadur Jobava produced a striking tactical win in round three of the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, defeating Finland's Toivo Keinanen in 30 moves. Playing white from an Exchange French, the Georgian grandmaster unleashed 17.Bxh6! and followed it with a series of precise attacking manoeuvres after Black accepted the sacrifice. The game highlighted Jobava's trademark tactical sharpness, and was analysed in full by GM Daniel King. | Image: Daniel King's Power Play Chess YouTube channel

9/18/2026 – A ChessBase team travelled to Samarkand. During the journey, Arne Kähler was already interviewing teams on their way to the event. Nigel Short spoke about ambitious plans that had only come about thanks to an earlier interview with Arne. The ChessBase team met Carissa Yip in Istanbul. Yip had just arrived from the Global Chess League in India. In the travel vlog, the team also shares impressions of Samarkand itself, as well as excerpts from the opening ceremony. | Photo: Emine Yanik

9/17/2026 – ChessBase has a team on-site at the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand. Visitors to the ChessBase stand can find out more about ChessBase for Mac. Arne Kähler and Veronika Exler are also conducting interviews. Adriana Palao loves sacrificing queens, Konstantin Peyrer would rather not use a board for the first game analysis, while Jerelyn Adeshola Mary Beckley wants to beat Magnus Carlsen in ten years' time. | Photo: ChessBase

9/15/2026 – At the end of August, the chess historians of the Chess History & Literature Society met in Copenhagen to exchange new findings from their research into chess history and chess literature in talks and lectures, and to present interesting new books. Herbert Bastian, Michael Negele and Frank Hoffmeister report. | Photo: The conference venue, Skakkens Hus, Sølvgade 5, 1307 Copenhagen / Photos: Herbert Bastian

9/13/2026 – Garry Kasparov and Veselin Topalov will face each other in “Clutch Chess: The Legends” in Saint Louis from 11 to 13 September. The two former members of the chess elite will play a twelve-game Chess960 match, with wins becoming more valuable on each successive day. The encounter follows Kasparov’s victory over Viswanathan Anand last year and renews a rivalry that was already revived in Saint Louis in 2018 with a Chess960 match. | Photos: St. Louis Chess Club, Austin Fuller | Live with commentary from 18:40 CEST / 17:40 BST / 12:40 ET / 22:10 IST.