12/8/2019 – Ding Liren won the 2019 Grand Chess Tour final match against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave by taking the first rapid game and drawing the second. The Chinese ace won their second classical game on Saturday to take a sizeable lead into the final day. World Champion Magnus Carlsen finished in third place after closing out his match against Levon Aronian in blitz! Live games and commentary from 14:00 UTC (15:00 CET, 9:00 EST).

12/7/2019 – On Wednesday the open European Rapid and Blitz Championships officially got underway. The host is the Estonian Chess Federation. Rapid chess is played on Thursday and Friday, while on Saturday and Sunday the blitz tournament will take centre stage. | Photo: Estonian Chess Federation

12/5/2019 – Last Saturday the first European Golden Pawn event was held in the super-luxurious Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo, Monaco. The host, the European Chess Union, writes: "The award ceremony will mark the beginning of a new tradition, honoring the best representatives of European chess. The chess world — people for whom chess is not just a sport, but an outstanding, intellectual and royal game — has been waiting for this high-scale event." We are proud to report that ChessBase got the prize for the "Best European Chess Project."

12/2/2019 – It will be a jam-packed December in the world of elite chess. The Grand Chess Tour and the Grand Prix series will come to an end with events in London and Jerusalem respectively. European rapid and blitz tournaments will be the prelude to the World Rapid and Blitz Championships that will take place in Moscow. The second leg of the Women's Grand Prix will be played in the luxurious Yacht Club in Monaco. And a couple of strong opens will be organized in Spain and the United Kingdom. Don't miss any of the action! | You'll find all of these events and more covered in our live games broadcast area Live.ChessBase.com and we'll also be providing News coverage.

11/26/2019 – The penultimate tournament of the Grand Chess Tour, the Tata Steel Rapid & Blitz in Kolkata, features World Champion Magnus Carlsen and some of the world's best chess players. Live games and commentary from 7:30 UTC (8:30 CET / 2:30 EST). | Photos: Grand Chess Tour

11/24/2019 – The 84th edition of the Spanish Championship is taking place in Marbella (province of Málaga) from the 16th until the 24th of November. Most of the strongest players from the Iberian country are participating. Five players are sharing the lead on 5 out of 6: Paco Vallejo, Alexei Shirov, Miguel Santos Ruiz, José Cuenca and Pedro Ginés. Rounds 1 to 8 start at 16:00 UTC (17:00 CET / 11:00 AM EST) | Photo: Diario Sur

11/20/2019 – Garry Kasparov became, at the age of 22, the youngest World Champion in chess history. His famous matches against the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue brought chess and artificial intelligence into the mainstream. Now, he’s focusing on the quiet war Russia is waging against U.S. democracy. Last week he sat down on the PBS show (in collaboration with CNN) Amanpour and Company and, with Miles O’Brien, discussed everything from computer chess, troll farms to election interference.

11/20/2019 – FIDE has announced the venue and dates for the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships. Officially called the "King Salman World Rapid & Blitz Championships", the tournament will be held in Moscow from December 25th to 30th, 2019.

11/17/2019 – Alexander Grischuk won a thrilling tiebreak match against Jan-Krzysztof Duda. The latter took the first rapid game but lost the second. Grischuk dominated the 10+10 games to clinch his victory in Hamburg, and with it 10 Grand Prix points. His total of 20 points will be difficult to beat. The pair played to a draw in the second game of their final match, after Game 1 also ended in a draw. Sixteen players began the tournament competing for Grand Prix points in the penultimate event of the series from November 5th to November 17th, in Germany's Hanseatic metropolis. Games and commentary. | Pictured: Duda during his final match with Grischuk. | Photo: Valeria Gordienko

11/16/2019 – Seven rounds have been completed, and two leaders have emerged victorious at the European Club Cup in Ulcinj (Montenegro) played from November 10th to 16th. In the open competition 66 teams play, in the women's tournament there are 14 teams. Photo: Official site

11/12/2019 – In our most ambitious release yet, Fritz 17 brings a slew of features such as new functions to help you build your repertoire, special tools to help memorize it, new ways to generate exercises from your games, and more! It also brings not one, but several new engines such as the latest Fat Fritz with new percentage displays, the new Fritz 17 engine, and an easy-to-install Leela for the fans of the open-source project, and more! Get it at a 25% discount!

11/10/2019 – Levon Aronian and Sergey Karjakin surged in the final day of blitz to finish joint first in the overall standings in Bucharest. Aronian won a two-game rapid playoff to be declared the winner of the Superbet Rapid & Blitz. Live games and commentary from 13:00 UTC (14:00 CET, 8:00 AM EST). | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

11/9/2019 – Today, November 9th, 2019, Germany marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, a major geopolitical event in 1989 which set the stage for German reunification. Germany is one of the most important chess countries, cultivating chess culture for about 1000 years. With over 2300 clubs almost 100,000 chess aficionados are actively engaged. The country has 100 grandmasters and some of the most important chess tournaments. Walter Rädler has produced a nice video vignette.

11/6/2019 – Our recent article on Fat Fritz elicited some criticism and predictions. In one comment a reader concluded "Stockfish is STILL the champion." While we look forward to testing that proposition in formal competition soon, we have naturally "run the experiment" so to speak, already: We ran two engine vs engine matches, a pre-release build of Fat Fritz against Stockfish 8 and then against Stockfish 10. The result? Fat Fritz won both! Here are some of the games along with grandmaster analysis from GM ELSHAN MORADIABADI.

11/2/2019 – Wesley So was the winner of the Fisher Random World Championship, defeating the classical World Champion Magnus Carlsen. Ian Nepomniachtchi beat Fabiano Caruana to finish third. Live game commentary from 16:30 UTC (17:30 CET / 12:30 EDT) Note: Europe has already switched to Winter time! | Photo: www.frchess.com

11/1/2019 – November will kick off with the third leg of the Grand Prix in Hamburg, the penultimate stage of the FIDE series that awards two spots for the 2020 Candidates Tournament. This month will also feature the last two rapid and blitz events of the Grand Chess Tour, which will decide who will join Magnus Carlsen in the London finale. In the midst of all that elite action, the European Club Cup will take place in Montenegro. | You'll find all of these events and more covered in our live games broadcast area Live.ChessBase.com and we'll also be providing News coverage.

10/24/2019 – A jury appointed by FIDE, headed by Vladimir Kramnik, has chosen the coaches of the year 2018. The awards go to John Donaldson (pictured), Yu Shaoteng, Michal Konopka, Ramachandran Ramesh and Adrian Mikhalchishin. | Photos: FIDE

10/22/2019 – At the 2019 Hoogeveen chess festival, Jan Timman joins a youthful trio for six-game matches from October 20th 26th. The Dutch legend plays against Zhansaya Abdumalik. Alongside them, the second match features Iranian Alireza Firouzja against Peruvian Jorge Cori. The traditional Open tournament runs in parallel. Live games from 12:00 UTC (14:00 CEST / 8:00 EDT) | Photo: Hoogeveen chess