7/15/2019 – He was a world-class grandmaster, twice World Champion candidate, friend of Bobby Fischer (who enabled Fischer's participation in the 1972 WCh match), inventor of the eponymous Benko Gambit and the 1.g3 Benko Opening (which he used to beat Fischer and Tal). But he is probably best known as an author and composer of endgame studies and chess problems. He is also a loyal friend who has provided us with countless articles over the last ten years. We offer our heartfelt wishes for his 91st birthday today. Like to join in?

7/8/2019 – This is one of the most elegant chess problems we have ever seen. It was composed by the master, Pal Benko when he was just fifteen. Five pieces, four on their original squares, and the task is to force mate in three moves. That is quite difficult: Bobby Fischer failed to find the solution in half an hour. Can you do better – and can you find a correction for the minor dual that was found in the problem? You can win a nice prize if you do.

7/7/2019 – The final round of the Zagreb Grand Chess Tour takes place on Sunday. Will Magnus Carlsen maintain his half-point lead over Wesley So? How will Caruana fare against Karjakin? To find out, and to follow the action live requires just a click or two on our news page. You get not just the moves, but running machine commentary, openings analysis, engine evaluation, and a lot more. Here is how you can really enjoy the round.

5/17/2019 – 22 years ago Garry Kasparov played an ill-fated match against Deep Blue. There were many interesting visitors at the event in New York, amongst them a young Women's Grandmaster who, in an interview, said: "I don't think it's my place to criticize a World Champion, but ...". She went on to give a frank opinion of Kasparov's strategy. Today Anjelina Belakovskaia, who is doing remarkable work for American chess (and finance), turns fifty. FREDERIC FRIEDEL looks back at his first encounter with her, and the early days of ChessBase Magazine.

4/26/2019 – As in the previous year we decided to abandon our decades-long tradition of tricking our readers with false stories on April 1st. For those who are disappointed by this decision we brought you a really fun (and fully genuine) task proposed by Pal Benko for this auspicious day. Initially there was an error in the task, but after we corrected that we received valid solutions. The best came from Mihály Berkics from Hungary, who receives a special prize.

4/10/2019 – You know what the Knight's Tour is: move the knight so it visits every square of the chessboard just once. There are around 30 trillion ways to do this, but it is certainly not easy for humans to execute a single one correctly — least of all blindfolded and starting from a random square. Or is it? If you invest a couple of hours into the task you stand to entertain people at parties — or even appear on a hit television show.

4/6/2019 – Recently a new book on endgame studies was published, written by IM Yochanan Afek. He belongs to that very rare breed of composition grandmasters, with more studies to his name than we have seen elsewhere. His book is a treasure trove that provides insights into how, on occasion, the games Afek or others have played gave him the ideas for his study compositions. Review by Frederic Friedel.

4/1/2019 – Last year we decided to abandon our decades-long tradition of tricking our readers with fake stories on April 1st. Instead, we said, we are going to stick to straight and truthful news. For those who are disappointed by this decision we bring you a really fun (and fully genuine) task proposed by Pal Benko for this auspicious day, and also take a look back at an historic prank we perpetrated in the past — just to prove we have not lost our sense of humour.

3/27/2019 – The announcement came as a shock to the chess world: former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, one of the all-time greats of chess, said he would no longer be participating in competitive chess. Journalists rushed to ask him about his motives, and one of the resulting pieces stood out: an interview in the Chennai-based New Sunday Express. We bring you excerpts (with kind permission) and narrative by Frederic Friedel on his first encounter with the super-talent.

3/18/2019 – In January our editor emeritus Frederic Friedel took a trip to India, to visit our partners at ChessBase India, to visit two big GM Opens, and to meet some of the incredible young talents the country is currently producing. There was a preteen grandmaster, a number of candidate GMs in their very early teens, and a delightful U12 girl's world champion. Frederic made many new friends, but he also used the opportunity to conduct his famous talent test on them. Here are the results and a biographical video.

2/21/2019 – Last year's World Chess Championship in London was an exciting affair. All twelve games were drawn, and not everyone was there for the final tiebreak day, to see Carlsen win three games and retain his crown. But Frederic Friedel did attend the spectacular opening gala and the first two rounds. He describes the many interesting people he met and the impressions they left. This is the first in a series on chess-related encounters.

2/18/2019 – In the first two sections of this series, originally published in Der Spiegel, Europe's largest (and most influential) news portal, Frederic Friedel described his decades-long involvement in computer chess. He was commissioned to make the story personal, and in part three he describes his encounter with the latest twist in this area of research: artificial intelligence and self-learning machines that are playing at the very highest levels of the game. Where are we headed and what will the future bring?

2/12/2019 – Europe's largest (and most influential) news portal, Der Spiegel, recently published a three-part series on the history of chess programming. It was authored by Frederic Friedel, emeritus editor of the ChessBase news page. In the early 1980s Frederic was intrumental to bringing computer chess to the attention of the German public, and in 1987 he co-founded ChessBase. Here is part two of his series. Read part one.

2/7/2019 – Our Christmas Day problem article really made the rounds. First eminent mathematician and problemist Noam Elkies sent rapid feedback, and then one of truly great problem composers (and GM, and World Championship candidate) sent us his comments. It is none other then Pal Benko who helped convert Frederic Friedel's amateur composition into an "Excelsior", and tried himself to construct a full Excelsior (where the pawn starts with a single step). It's a lesson in problem composition.

1/25/2019 – It's a new discovery — a collection of the most interesting chess problems and puzzles, from the tenth century until today. The unique thing is that each puzzle has a little story attached to it, telling you something about the circumstances of its composition and its place in the history of chess problems. We bring you a small sample from the book "Chess Compositions". Try working out the positions before you peek at the solutions.

1/2/2019 – On Christmas day we published an article by Frederic Friedel, describing the process of composing a chess problem. It was based on his own effort to generate a proper helpmate back in 2002. A number of readers followed his invitation and send in amateur compositions themselves. We also received feedback from a remarkable personality: Noam Elkies is a professor of mathematics, a musician and music composer, chess master and problemist. He explained how to use an online problem database to assist in such tasks. We share his instructions with our readers.

12/31/2018 – It is another entertaining type of chess problems. The point of retro is you must consider the moves that led up to the given position. They are often quite difficult to guess – you have to think out of the box. We are not going to slay our doubtlessly inexperienced readers with complex retrograde analysis, but instead show you a number of fairly simple examples, some of which will still have you frowning in puzzlement. One thing for sure: they are all very entertaining.

12/22/2018 – Playing blitz is a lot of fun. But is it useful? This is the question on the minds of many chess players, parents and trainers. The answer is a resounding "Yes!" We have a great instructional video by IM and chess trainer Sagar Shah, who shows how you can make the best use of your blitz games using the normal ChessBase tools. It's a 16-minute tutorial that you shouldn't miss. Follow his instructions and watch the rating points pour in.