9/18/2021 – Nona Gaprindashvili, a history-making chess champion, has sued the giant video portal Netflix over a line in the series ‘The Queen’s Gambit’, where it was claimed that the female world champion had never faced men. Nona and her attorneys called the statement grossly sexist and belittling. "By 1968, the year in which the episode is set, she had competed against at least 59 male chess players." The international news is full of the story.

9/11/2021 – Twenty years ago, on September 12, 2001, we launched our brand new database-driven news page. The very first report we were forced to file was about the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York, which had been perpetrated on the previous day. It had a special meaning for chess. Six years earlier the World Chess Championship had been staged on the Observation Deck on the 107th floor.

9/7/2021 – Fridrik Ólafsson may be the strongest chess player of the 20th century about whom until now no book existed, in any major language. It feels great to present this first book outside of Iceland about the chess career of their first and most prominent grandmaster. It is full of important narrative and wonderfully annotated games, which highlight his personal attacking style, which he used to beat the likes of Keres, Tal, Petrosian, Fischer, Korchnoi and Karpov.

8/25/2021 – The legend, the 13th World Champion, and arguably the greatest chess player ever, Garry Kasparov, is coming to ChessBase India for the 18th episode of Grandmaster Chess. The livestream will take place on the 25th of August at 6.45 p.m. (3:15 p.m. European time, 9 a.m. New York). Dont't miss it – you can see Garry in relaxed banter with chess amateurs. And he is doing this for a second time! Take a look at how the first session went.

8/12/2021 – The 5th Youth Chess Composing Challenge is open to the U23 generation, born no earlier than 01.01.1998. The thematic condition for the Mate in 2 contest is that in the initial position all four bishops, which should be fully involved in the play, must be in the corners of the board. There are examples of problems that more or less fulfil these stipulations, and now young composers are asked to come up with the finest examples.

7/21/2021 – An inexpensive chess set can sell for $20, but a handcrafted wooden set certified for the World Chess Championship costs $500. Much of the set's value lies in just one piece: the knight. Making this one piece takes two hours, and there are fewer than ten people trained to carve knights for the championship chess sets. It is fascinating to watch the high-end pieces being made.

7/23/2021 – Frederick Gordon learnt chess at the age of six. After a week he started beating his parents, both PhDs in mathematics. Now, at the age of ten, Freddy has defeated a full-blown grandmaster, Bogdon Lalic, in a rapid chess game. But, the BBC reports, "the talented young Scottish player did not share his excitement with his school friends because he thought it would be boasting."

7/5/2021 – It was a great shock to wake up and learn that Yury Dokhoian had died, at the age of just 56, struck down by the accursed virus that has immobilized the world. Yet another reminder that we are not over it, yet. It is still going to take friends and loved ones. Frederic Friedel shares some memories of his friend Yury, with whom he spent a great deal of time. | Photo: Wiki, Porto Carras, 2011

6/23/2021 – The new edition of one of our favourite books, by problemist Werner Keym, now contains 400 famous examples of brilliant games, remarkable, sometimes outrageous studies, and preposterous chess problems. The book includes a lot of subsidiary diagrams that makes it particularly easy to read. We bring you a number of entertaining examples: for instance, can you find a forced mate in two in this position? There is only one key move that will do it.

6/21/2021 – 国际象棋在中国越来越受欢迎--数据库程序ChessBase也是如此。但不是每个人都能流利地使用英语。对于那些喜欢用母语操作的人，我们有一项特殊的服务：ChessBase的中文教程手册。 Chess is becoming more popular in China – as is the database program ChessBase. But not everyone is fluent in English. For those who prefer to operate in their native language we have a special service: a ChessBase tutorial manual in Chinese.

5/25/2021 – This is a 12-year-old on a mission: to become the youngest chess grandmaster in history. Abhimanyu Mishra has made two norms, but in his latest tournament suffered a setback: in time trouble refused a draw offer by a GM and discovered that this is not such a great idea. Abhi lost the game, and a second one to boot, but staged a remarkable comeback with four back-to-back wins. He gained nine rating points and is currently just eight points from his goal. Read the messages of encouragement the lad from Englishtown, New Jersey, is getting from well-known personalities from all over the world.

5/24/2021 – You are a very talented young player taking part in a tournament in Budapest. After it is over you learn that your scheduled flight home to Goa, India, is no longer available – the first one to be cancelled due to the outbreak of the pandemic. So you are stuck in the Hungarian capital, and still are, over a year later. So what do you do, how do you manage? Here's one way Leon Mendonca and his father are coping: with a Pentecostal violin performance!

5/21/2021 – It was a two-part task: from the reactions of students to a Zen master's whispered hints, they try to deduce which piece he is thinking of. In the second part you have to solve a chess study with a uniquely different drawing strategy. Very strong players all over the world joined in our experiment – most failed to solve the Logical. Here at last are the solutions – both of them.

5/5/2021 – Two students are studying a chess position. A Zen master watches and tells them that one of the pieces will play a very deep move. "Which one?" the students want to know. The Zen master whispers the piece type to one student and the colour to the other. From their reactions they are able to deduce which piece it is. You can help us in a book project by solving the problem. And hopefully have some fun in the process.

4/28/2021 – In previous articles we showed you the mad rook (dolle toren) rampage, where it sacrifices itself to secure a stalemate draw. Then we showed you how queens, bishops and knights could do the same. But what about pawns, we asked? It turns out there are similar motifs with suicidal pawns. Here's a series of amusing studies by Mikhail Zinar.

4/14/2021 – Recently we showed you a unique theme in chess endings: the defending side puts his king into a stalemate position, after which the remaining piece – a rook or even a queen – becomes suicidal, offering itself for capture. Many readers found that fascinating, and asked for more. Today we look at two other pieces that can do the same. Have fun with some astonishing new examples.

4/9/2021 – It was an Easter puzzle. We asked you to take a try to solve this truly remarkable study by a truly remarkable composer, Mario Matouš. You were asked to win the position against a rampaging queen which wants to sacrifice itself to stalemate the black monarch. Were you able to solve it? Many readers found the problem quite difficult, and extremely clever. Today we give you the full solution, on a replay board with full engine support.

4/1/2021 – Quantum Chess is a variant of regular chess in which every piece is endowed with quantum powers. The game is real and the stakes are high, as the future of humanity hangs in the balance. Was actor and comedian Paul Rudd able to beat Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest minds of our generation, in a game of chess that will determine the future of humanity? Take a look!