5/14/2021 – Due to the pandemic, the Mitropa Cup 2021 was played as a "Hybrid Tournament" - the teams met at a central venue in their own countries from where they played online against the other teams, supervised by an arbiter. The Italian teams coped best with this still unusual form of tournament chess: they won gold in the Open Tournament and in the Women's Tournament. | Picture: Italian Chess Federation

5/11/2021 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent will take a look at the Russian Team Championships, with a focus on the game Rublevsky vs Askerov. | Lawrence's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

5/9/2021 – Reading seems to have become a dying habit. With the advent of gadgets, distraction lurks around every corner and resisting the temptations has become increasingly difficult. A true bibliophile knows the essence of reading from a physical book — the smell of a newly printed one cannot be replaced by a digital version. Four-time Indian women’s champion, Asian continental champion and Olympic individual gold medallist IM Padmini Rout reflects on Daniel King’s book about Sultan Khan. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

5/9/2021 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. In the 26th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman shows examples of a good cooperation between queen and bishop. | Photo: Tommy Grooten

5/7/2021 – The International Chess Federation will hold an online conference dubbed “Chess for Freedom” on May 11th at 15:30 CET (8:30 US Central Time). The conference will present a newly launched project focused on introducing chess to prisons. This conference will feature FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, the 12th World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, and other invited guests.

5/4/2021 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent will take a look at the New in Chess Classic where Magnus Carlsen won his first Meltwater Champion Chess Tour title. | Lawrence's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

5/10/2021 – The Russian Team Championships were decided in the penultimate round: The Iron Horsemen of St. Petersburg win the Open Championship, the Moscow Chess Team wins the Women's Tournament. However, there is still one round to play in which the other teams fight for the places. It starts at 14:00 CEST (8:00 am EDT, 1 pm BST). Follow the games live.

5/4/2021 – On 1 May the FIDE published the new World Ranking List. Magnus Carlsen (2847) continues to be the world's number one, followed by Fabiano Caruna (2820) on two. The second half of the Candidates Tournament helped Ding Liren (number 3, 2799) to eight additional rating points while Ian Nepomniachtchi (number 4, 2792) gained three rating points and Anish Giri (number 6, 2780) four. But it was the Iranian Parham Maghsoodloo who made the biggest jump ahead: after convincingly winning the Iranian Championship he now has a rating of 2698 and is the world's number 41.

5/3/2021 – The title comes from Bobby Fischer's description of how he handles the Dragon, and is quite appropriate for the game presented here. In a classic Keres Attack, with just seven moves given to them, Fat Fritz 2 and a top-notch Leela duke it out on powerful hardware. White builds up a massive position and then starts dropping bombs. Don't miss this spectacular game!

5/2/2021 – Only needing a draw in the second set of the finals against Hikaru Nakamura, Magnus Carlsen bounced back from a loss in game 1 with a win in game 3. Nakamura could not win on demand in game 4, which meant Carlsen had won his first event of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov obtained a 2½-½ victory over Levon Aronian to secure third place. | The action kicks off daily at 19:00 CEST.

5/2/2021 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. In the 25th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman shows how useful a "Strategic Thinking Protocol" is to find the right plans and moves. | Photo: Tommy Grooten

5/1/2021 – In the last episode about the Candidates Tournament 202X, Eric van Reem (pictured), host of the "Let's talk about chess" podcast, talks (again) to GM Jon Tisdall. They discuss the Candidates Tournament 202X, the winner with the unspeakable name, the right format to qualify, wildcards, the retirement of GM Wang Hao, GM Peter Leko being the decisive factor in the Candidates and the upcoming World Championship in Dubai. And yes, they managed to pronounce the name of the winner, GM Yan Nepomniachtchi! Enjoy!| Photo: Eric van Reem

4/27/2021 – Ding Liren, Kirill Alekseenko and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave finished the 2020-21 Candidates Tournament on a high note, scoring wins over Ian Nepomniachtchi, Anish Giri and Wang Hao respectively. Fabiano Caruana and Alexander Grischuk signed a draw. In his last interview of the event, Wang announced his retirement from professional chess. | Full report to follow shortly.

4/27/2021 – There is still one round to go at the Candidates Tournament but Ian Nepomniachtchi is sure to be the winner, and in November he will play Magnus Carlsen for the World Championship. In the press conference after the 13th round Nepomniachtchi said that he was very happy about the win but also revealed that he felt tired after more than a year of preparation. | Photo: Alina l'Ami (Archive)

4/27/2021 – After the longest half-time break ever, the Candidates Tournament in Yekaterinburg resumed last week. Ian Nepomniachtchi won the tournament with a round to spare and thus gained the right to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the World Championship title. Follow the games live with commentary. All rounds kick off at 16:00 local time (13:00 CEST, 7:00 ET) | Photo: Lennart Ootes / FIDE

4/25/2021 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. In the 24th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman illustrates how powerful strategic thinking can be. | Photo: Tommy Grooten

4/20/2021 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent will of course take a look at Kirill Alekseenko's win against Alexander Grischuk from the first round of the Candidates. | Lawrence's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

4/19/2021 – The Julius Baer Chess Challenge is the counterpart to the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour - for young players and talents. Tonight World Champion Magnus Carlsen will play Banter Blitz against all challengers, one after the other. Live from 20:00 CEST (14:00 EDT)