4/5/2025 – Sunil who? He is one of the most successful chess coaches in the USA, running the National Scholastic Chess Foundation (NSCF) teacher training programs. Sunil Weeramantry has looked after literally thousands of budding chess players - including his stepson, who ascended to the top of the chess world. Know who we are talking about. | Pictures by Frederic Friedel and NSCF

4/1/2025 – For decades we rigorously celebrated April Fool's day. But our pranks became progressively more difficult over the years. If we were able to construct a fake story, one that was genuinely funny, our friends at Google made it possible to check it in seconds. So we abandoned the tradition. Today, however, we present you with hoaxes and counterfeits in the history of chess. We had expert assistance in doing so.

3/31/2025 – Susan Polgar's book, Rebel Queen, describes the trials and tribulations of a super-talent at odds with her federation, and how she overcame it to rise to the very top of women's chess. Today we excerpt passages from this remarkably well-written book that we predict will at some stage be turned into a "Queen's Gambit" type Netflix series.

3/11/2025 – Today is publishing day. Susan Polgar's book, Rebel Queen, is available in book outlets, or on Amazon, where you can also get the Kindle edition. It describes the trials and tribulations of a super-talent at odds with her federation, and how she overcame it to rise to the very top of women's chess. Today we excerpt a passage from her book that describes her encounter with ChessBase. We are proud to have played a role in her chess career. | Photo Renata Goreczk

3/10/2025 – On July 13, 2004, Bobby Fischer was detained in Japan with an invalid U.S. passport. That marked the beginning of a nine-month ordeal for him in Japanese custody. Among the supporters fighting for his release was former World Champion Boris Spassky, whom Fischer had dethroned thirty years earlier. Spassky, who passed last week, even wrote a personal letter of appeal to President George Bush, asking to be locked up in the same cell as Fischer. "And give us a chess set," he said.

2/28/2025 – Boris Spassky, the tenth World Chess Champion, was a chess prodigy who became a grandmaster at the young age of 18. He won the World Chess Championship in 1969, and held the title until 1972, when he lost to Bobby Fischer in the famous "Match of the Century". Boris passed on Thursday at the age of 88. He was a decades-long personal friend of the author. | Photo Frederic Friedel, taken in June 2007

2/11/2025 – Last week we gave you three puzzles to solve. Were you able to solve them moving the pieces on the diagrams, or all in your head, like a couple of 2700+ friends did. In any case today we bring you the solutions, explained to us in his inimitable style by chess trainer Gauri Shankar of Chicago. Have fun and learn!

2/4/2025 – Ready to test your wits, your ability to handle unusual chess problems? We have selected three really challenging examples for you to solve – problems that have come up with some outrageous ideas. See if you can find them, and record the time it takes you to solve them. In a week we will provide you with the full solutions, diligently explained in YouTube videos.

1/30/2025 – Suhani Shah is one of the finest mentalists we know. Certainly one of the most entertaining. In one of her acts she proceeded to read the minds of two chess World Champions – Vishy Anand and D.Gukesh. Check out the videos in our report to see how she fared works – and try to explain the techniques she uses. A word of caution: this is one really clever lady!

1/24/2025 – A real life Queen’s Gambit, this captivating memoir tells the story of one of the most renowned women in chess history. Susan Polgar takes on a sexist establishment, standing up to an authoritarian empire and rewriting the rules of what women could achieve against the oppressive backdrop of Cold War Eastern Europe. A must-read book, coming out on March 11. Pre-orders available on Amazon.

1/21/2025 – Judit Polgar, the strongest female chess player of all time, wishes our readers a "Happy 2025, which will hopefully be filled with exciting challenges and successes – both on and off the chessboard!" To kick off the year she has prepared something special for us: you can get Judit's books, personally signed by her, at discounted prices in her Webshop. This exclusive offer is valid until January 31, 2025.

1/20/2025 – After the Moscow 1925 tournament, World Champion José Raúl Capablanca wrote an account of the event, together with proposals for a new form of chess. "Capablanca Chess" was to be played on a 10×8 board with two new pieces: the "archbishop," combining the powers of a bishop and a knight, and the "chancellor," combining the powers of a rook and a knight.

1/13/2025 – The 1925 chess tournament held in Moscow was a groundbreaking event in chess history. The International Chess Tournament was the world's first state-sponsored chess tournament. It featured 21 players –eleven international stars and ten Soviet masters. It was won by Efim Bogoljubow, who finished ahead of Lasker and Capablanca, the reigning world champion. Against him Bogoljubow played one of the most and complex one of the most widely discussed games in history.

1/9/2025 – At the start of the World Championship in Singapore, on November 25th 2024, a new chess puzzle game, inspired by the incredibly popular 'Wordle', was launched. It was developed by a young lad from Singapore, a problem expert, together with a member of the ChessBase family. We have been experimenting with the World Championship game, to see how people who are confronted with it, react. We recorded a strong chess player's first interaction with the game. It was instructive and entertaining.

12/29/2024 – After our Christmas Puzzles, involving kings and a couple of pawns, you may be tempted to call Ding Liren's oversight in the final game of the World Championship match a gross blunder. It was a catastrophic mistake that cost the World Champion millions of dollars of potential future income. How it came about is explained by ChessBase Magazine author GM Dorian Rogozenco in this video reconstruction.

12/28/2024 – Simple pawn endings are vital, and can win you a World Championship. Ask Gukesh. So can you understand and play them proficiently? Do you recognize winning chances in your calculations? In the second part of our Christmas pawn endgame puzzle suite, we bring you new and entertaining positions that will test your skills. And hopefully leave you a better, more effective player.

12/27/2024 – Would you know that Black (to play) in this position can win? Would you recognize that, instantly, in your calculations? And would you be able to play it to victory? That could win you a World Championship! Today we want to check your pawn ending skills, with positions to solve and techniques to learn. It is an entertaining and instructive pastime in the Christmas week.

12/14/2024 – On Monday the 2024 Nobel Prizes were awarded in a Stockholm, Sweden. The prize for chemistry went to three scientists, one of whom has an illustrious background in chess. Demis Hassabis was a chess prodigy with a 2300 rating at the age of 13. He founded DeepMind, a subsidiary of Google, and went on to develop the groundbreaking artificial intelligence program AlphaZero. Frederic Friedel has known Demis since he was 17. | Photo European Biotechology/Nanaka Adachi