12/3/2025 – In the 100th edition of the "Campeonato Argentino Superior" in Buenos Aires, seven-time national champion Diego Flores, 12-year-old prodigy Faustino Oro and 2021 champion Federico Pérez Ponsa are locked in a battle for first place. Flores is leading the standings, with Oro and Pérez a half point back. To get his second GM norm, the "Messi of chess" needs to score 3/3 in his final games. | Pictured: Faustino Oro at a press event with Jorge Macri, the head of government of Buenos Aires | Photo: Organisers, David Llada.

11/25/2025 – In Larnaca, Europe’s small chess nations met for the 9th ESNA Team Chess Championship – and delivered a full week of excitement, fierce games, and genuine team spirit. A tournament that shows: greatness isn’t measured on a map, but on the board. | Photos: European Small Nations Chess Association (ESNA)

11/23/2025 – ChessBase’s October releases cover everything from chess history to opening repertoire and calculation training. In episode 19 of the Master Class series, the expert team of Dorian Rogozenco, Karsten Müller, Mihail Marin and Oliver Reeh presents the first World Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz. Robert Ris’ new opening course also reaches back to that era, as the opening he examines in depth is named after two classical masters: the Colle & Zukertort System. And who doesn’t enjoy looking into the thought processes of grandmasters and world-class trainers? Discover calculation techniques at the highest level — Surya Ganguly’s “Calculation Step by Step” is sure to climb the ChessBase bestseller list quickly. | All photos: ChessBase

11/20/2025 – The second day of the 2025 FIDE Women’s World Team Championship in Linares saw high-quality chess and dramatic moments. While Team FIDE extended its lead in Pool A, Hou Yifan produced a standout performance in Pool B with a precise win in her tournament debut. The battle for the remaining knockout spots is heating up – in both groups, tense final rounds lie ahead. | Photos: FIDE/Raul Martinez, Pavel Dvorkovich

11/6/2025 – A flying start at Lake Tegernsee! Polish grandmaster Szymon Gumularz storms to the top of the OIBM 2025 with a flawless record of five wins in five rounds. In round 6, he faces Luis Engel, who is half a point behind the leader in a group of five pursuers. | Photos: Organiser / Sandra Schmidt

11/3/2025 – At the start of the 28th Open International Bavarian Chess Championships (OIBM) on the picturesque shores of Lake Tegernsee, there was palpable tension on the first day of the tournament, both around the chessboards and during the breaks when the more than 500 participants from over 30 countries gathered together. As soon as the first move was made, it was clear that this was a tournament where a passion for chess met international standards. It deserved special attention not only because of its size, but also because of the quality of the competitors. The historic Gut Kaltenbrunn estate provided the perfect setting for a tournament that skilfully combined leisure and competition. | Photos: Organiser / Stev Bonhage, Sandra Schmidt, Sebastian Siebrecht

10/30/2025 – Budva is all about chess as the 2025 European Youth Chess Championship gets underway. The best young players from across Europe have gathered in the Montenegrin coastal town to compete in twelve age groups, from U8 to U18, with separate competitions for boys and girls, to determine their European champions. The tournament is being played with a classical time limit, with each player having 90 minutes thinking time, plus an additional 30 seconds per move. | Photos: Mark Livshitz

10/19/2025 – ChessBase's September releases provide you with everything you need to improve your game: Nico Zwirs and Andrew Martin's 60-minute courses will quickly equip you for a successful opening phase. Victor Bologan's "The Lazy Way" bundle immerses you in the depths of opening strategy and provides you with universal knowledge that you can perfect with Lubomir Ftacnik's course on positional play. In addition, the new ChessBase Magazine Extra offers training material for all phases of the game. Just take a look at all of last month's products.

10/16/2025 – Hans Niemann was the sole winner in Round 4 of the Open section at this year’s U.S. Championships. Playing Black, he defeated Sam Shankland to move into a tie for second place with defending champion Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian, half a point behind leader Wesley So, who drew his game against Abhimanyu Mishra. In the Women’s Championship, by contrast, five players scored victories. With second-placed Alice Lee drawing against defending champion Carissa Yip, leader Anna Sargsyan extended her lead to a full point thanks to her win over Megan Paragua. Thursday is a rest day in St. Louis. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / St. Louis Chess Club

9/28/2025 – Garry Kasparov is one of the most influential figures of recent decades - not only as a World Champion, but also as a ChessBase author. One of his classic video courses has been reissued. In addition, the new ChessBase Magazine is here, and there is brand new opening knowledge - so the August releases from ChessBase once again leave nothing to be desired! Just take a look at all of last month's products: | All Photos: ChessBase

9/21/2025 – It’s once again time to think about aesthetics in ChessBase 18 training: Have you ever noticed the “Style” option? If not, in this episode we’ll explain briefly and concisely how you can better adapt your screen display to your own taste.

9/14/2025 – How do you train endgames? To be honest, the question might be better phrased as: Do you even train endgames at all? After all, the magical richness of the final phase of a game is something not everyone appreciates. This makes it all the more important that training is enjoyable and not bogged down by unnecessarily long searches for the right solution. In this regard, the LiveBook feature of ChessBase 18 may not be familiar to everyone. All the more reason, then, to introduce this highly practical tool in this tutorial.

9/7/2025 – ChessBase 18 is amazingly versatile and often surprisingly user-friendly — as the first 29 parts of this tutorial series have already shown! One particularly important feature in this context is the “Folders” window, which lets you quickly locate anything you want to use within your storage directories. In this episode, we’ll show you how to activate the window (in case it’s been disabled) and what you can view and work with there.

8/31/2025 – How to use ChessBase 18 effectively in training — that is the subject of this three-part series in our tutorial line. Using it effectively also means being able to send your files to your training group, since the material you created in the earlier parts should, after all, be made available to your students in a useful way. ChessBase 18 offers several practical methods for doing this, which we explain in this part.

8/24/2025 – Use ChessBase 18 for training purposes: with smart use of the database functions and the training tool, you can quickly put together excellent training material. There’s no need anymore to pore over books, copy diagrams, or scan pages. In this second part of the tutorial, you’ll learn how easy it is to prepare your material in a didactic way and turn it into exercises. This saves you valuable time that you can use for your own training or for your students.

8/23/2025 – For a long time in the seventh round, Matthias Bluebaum had real chances of scoring a win and getting closer to leader Nodirbek Yakubboev in the standings – but in the end, the two-time European champion remains a full point behind the Uzbek grandmaster. On Saturday, the two will play each other, and Bluebaum must win with black to catch him in the lead. Radoslaw Wojtaszek and David Navara will be keeping their fingers crossed for him, as both are also one point behind the leader. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Chess Olympiad 2022)

8/22/2025 – Suspense in Vichy. The semifinals of the French Chess Championship offered thrilling duels between experience and youthful vigour. Marc'Andria Maurizzi (pictured) and Laurent Fressinet prevailed in the open competition, while Mitra Hejazipour and Yosha Iglesias will contest the women's final. Etienne Bacrot v. Sébastien Mazé and Deimanté Daulyte-Cornette v. Anastasia Savina will be the matches for third place. | Photos: Nathalie Daubry / French Chess Federation

8/22/2025 – For the first time in this year’s Rubinstein Memorial A-Group, three games ended decisively. However, the top encounter of round six between Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Matthias Blübaum was not among them: the two players, both in the leading trio after round five, agreed to a draw. Nodirbek Yakubboev did better, regaining sole lead with a win over Pawel Teclaf. The third winner of the round was David Navara, the 2003 Rubinstein Memorial champion, who defeated Jan Klimowski. | Photo: Petr Vrabec/Chess Festival Prague