1/15/2025 – The problemist's art has always been a bit of a mystery to chess players. Are chess problems merely puzzles with unique and rather curious solutions, or is there something more to them? Join Satanick Mukhuty, ChessBase India's Composition Editor, as he dissects the art of chess problem-solving in his new blog, "The anatomy of chess solving". The inaugural episode showcases four meticulously curated problems designed to illuminate the subtle nuances and clever craftsmanship of problem chess. To get the most out of this article, take 10 minutes to study each position before reading the explanatory text. This will help you develop your problem-solving skills and appreciate the artistry behind each chess composition.

12/29/2024 – Beneath its deceptively simple facade of a game, chess conceals a rich tapestry of human ingenuity and thought. It is, as Anatoly Karpov succinctly remarked, art, science, and sport all rolled into one. Yet, while the competitive aspect of chess basks in the limelight with its high-stakes, action-packed tournaments and matches, the subtle but no less fascinating endeavour of chess composition, where artistry shines the brightest, languishes in relative obscurity. As a step towards redressing this imbalance, ChessBase India and the World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC) present My First Endgame Study, a beginner-friendly study composing contest designed for chess enthusiasts eager to explore the creative world of chess composition, specifically studies. Details follow.

11/2/2024 – ChessBase India's week-long, free-for-all Big Diwali Chess Camp concluded on a high note. On October 26, the penultimate day, an intense chess-solving contest took centre stage. The challenge was to solve six complex chess compositions in just two hours. Carefully curated by Satanick Mukhuty, the Chess Composition Editor of ChessBase India, the tasks included four problems and two studies designed to push the participants' strategic and tactical prowess to the limit. Ultimately, among the 35 contestants, the 22-year-old Pushkar Dere secured a decisive victory with a remarkable score of 29/30. Satanick shares his insights into the contest and walks you through the solutions to all six challenging puzzles! | Photo: Aditya Sur Roy

12/2/2023 – Welcome to the ChessBase India Winter Chess Solving Championship, an initiative to promote chess composition and creative-logical thinking through chess. This introductory article serves as the curtain-raiser to the event: Satanick Mukhuty give you the rules, the details of the prizes, and the first six of the twelve problems to solve. This is a serious challenge.

10/23/2022 – In the third and final instalment of the Chess Artistry Adventure series, we bring you seven more studies, six of them originals, by world-class composers like Arpad Rusz, Amatzia Avni, Michael Pasman, and more. We also briefly discuss the composers and try to understand how they can turn positions from games into original compositions. Like in the previous article, we also have an assortment of flavours here. Some of the studies are concrete and tactical, while others are a bit on the technical side. However, regardless of style, each composition is deeply instructional, and you can be sure to come out wiser as a chess player if you go through them all.

10/19/2022 – Judit Polgar's Global Chess Festival was held in Budapest, Hungary, on the 8th of October this year. Among other things, the current edition of the annual gala hosted a study composing cum exhibition event called Chess Artistry Adventure. The artful program in memory of the late Pal Benko has received fourteen original studies from some of the best composers in the world. In an article we published last month, four of these were explained in detail. Today, as it were, we venture deeper into the forest and tackle some more from the rest of them. What follows is some high-class chess, with difficulty ranging from the guilefully complex to the tortuously analytical—nothing remotely facile, nothing for the faint-hearted!

9/27/2022 – From building character to sharpening cognitive abilities to meliorating neurological disorders like Autism, the benefits of the ancient game of chess are many and wide-ranging. In fact, having evolved through one and a half millennia, it is more than just a game today. It is a cultural and intellectual phenomenon: an inspiration for visual artists, a playground for experimentation for scientists, and a pedagogical tool for educationists; but more than anything else, it is a common tongue connecting people across gender, ethnicity and generation. Judit Polgar's Global Chess Festival is an event that is held every year in Budapest, Hungary, to celebrate this very diversity of chess. It is a gala that invites not only players but professionals from various other disciplines with the sole aim of promoting chess in all its myriad facets. This year the singular event is taking place on the 8th of October. We walk you through its different planned activities and present four original studies for solving that are part of its special program, Chess Artistry Adventure, in memory of the late Pal Benko.

3/15/2021 – Anish Giri has been in tremendous form at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational event. In the first 10 rounds, he has scored 6 wins and 4 draws. It was not just about the fact that he won his games, he did so by showing very interesting chess. Although he has beaten strong players like Aronian, Wesley So and others, Anish's win against Magnus Carlsen stands out. After beating the World Champion, the Dutch no.1 joined the ChessBase India livestream commentary and broke down the game for us.| Photo: Lennart Ootes

3/10/2021 – He is indeed more than just the metaphoric king – the "Raja" in Teimour Radjabov's name makes him the king of the King's Indian Defence. The world no. 10 is truly a leading expert in this opening, someone whose exploits have redefined the way it is handled in the uppermost echelons of contemporary chess. Here's he gives us an interactive lesson that will teach you how to handle this quintessentially extremist opening. Learn and enjoy!

2/20/2021 – Grandmaster Chess is a series hosted by IM Sagar Shah on the ChessBase India YouTube channel. The idea of the series is to give you a peek into the mind of a world class grandmaster. In every episode a Grandmaster presents one of his or her best games while four famous Indian stand-up comedians comment and ask questions. In episode 14 of the show Humpy Koneru, currently number three on the FIDE Women's World Ranking list, demonstrates her attacking skills. Enjoy!

2/16/2021 – On Sunday, February 14, Wesley So added another tournament victory to the long list of his successes: he won the Opera Euro Online Tournament by beating Magnus Carlsen in the final. Which So also managed to do in the Skilling Open and in the final of the World Championship in Fischerrandom. But why is Wesley So so successful and how does he manage to beat Carlsen again and again? In an interview with Wesley So Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal tried to find out!

10/12/2020 – On Saturday, October 10, the Global Chess Festival was celebrated! The woman behind this vibrant annual gala hardly needs any introduction. The strongest female chess player of all time is the only woman to have ever challenged male hegemony in the sport. Though everyone is familiar with Judit Polgar, the chess player, we thought the world would also do good to know Judit the wife and mother. At the end of last month, ChessBase India's Amruta Mokal conducted an exclusive interview with this remarkable lady. In this article we bring you the full transcript of this candid tête-à-tête. | Photo credit: globalchessfestival.com

8/8/2020 – In this third part about the life and work of the prominent study composer Steffen Slumstrup Nielsen, we will get to know the person. So what follows next will give you an insightful peek into the mind of a composer, how he thinks and works. It will also give you a perspective of different styles of composing and how they evolve. We know our chess players well, it's time that we get to know our chess composers too! | Photo: Niels Jørgen Jacobsen, Silkeborg

7/12/2020 – In this second article about the life and work of the prominent study composer Steffen Slumstrup Nielsen, we will go through five of his studies, from a light miniature to his most outstanding creation till date. Sit back and enjoy! | See Part I | Photo: Niels Jørgen Jacobsen, Silkeborg

6/16/2020 – In this article (the first part of what hopefully will turn into a series) we will delve into the life and work of the prominent study composer Steffen Slumstrup Nielsen. It is especially interesting to read how this first-rate creative mind may spot a motif in a top GM game, and then use that in a prize-winning endgame study | Foto: Niels Jørgen Jacobsen, Silkeborg

4/12/2020 – For whatever reason, the majority of chess players are men. The same is true for chess composers. However, for more than 150 years women have composed chess problems and Satanick Mukhuty presents some of these composers and their creations.

7/12/2019 – The 19th IPCA World Individual Chess Championship 2019 was held in Slovakia. Even though chess is primarily a mental game, it demands from its players great physical stamina. To keep finding good moves on the chessboard even after hours of strenuous battle is not for the faint-hearted. Every participant of this event showed great tenacity sitting at the board and fighting it out for three or four hours at stretch, despite their serious physical limitations.

5/20/2019 – The IMSA Mind games Rapid section had been won by Anton Korobov and Alexandra Kosteniuk. After three days of rapid, it was now time for 22 rounds of 3'+2" blitz. Chinese GM Bu Xiangzhi played a solid and stable event and with 14½/22 took home the gold. The silver was won by Korobov and the bronze by Rapport. In the women's section it was a fierce fight to the finish line between Lei Tingjie and Kosteniuk. The Chinese player won the gold, Kosteniuk the silver and Tan Zhongyi bronze.