4/30/2023 – By winning game 4 of the rapid tiebreakers — after three draws — Ding Liren became the 17th undisputed world chess champion! Ian Nepomniachtchi seemed to have things under control in the deciding game, and even a bit of an advantage at times, but he overestimated his chances and allowed Ding to get a dangerous passer. Ding kept his nerves and converted his advantage brilliantly. | Replay the games with computer-assisted analysis. Full report to follow shortly.

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

11/28/2019 – Twelve prestigious universities from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan and China have sent chess squads to Tianjin. Nankai University is hosting the event as part of the celebrations of its 100-year anniversary. WGM QIYU ZHOU is in the coastal metropolis representing the University of Toronto. She sent us a pictorial report of her experience so far. | Pictured: Representatives of each university during the opening ceremony. | Photo: Liu Yi

10/15/2020 – If you want to compare chess achievements between men and women, writes Professor Wei Ji Ma of NYU, given their vastly unequal numbers, it is a very bad idea to focus on the top male and female players. If you do you will need to account for the participation gap using an analysis similar to the one he presents. Prof. Ma supplies the tools needed to refute the theory of female inferiority.

12/12/2024 – Gukesh D became the youngest-ever undisputed world chess champion after beating Ding Liren in the last classical encounter of their 14-game match in Singapore. Ding voluntarily entered a pawn-down endgame which was objectively drawn, but a blunder by the Chinese GM on move 55 meant Gukesh would take the title by winning the match with a 7½-6½ score. | Full report to follow shortly.

12/10/2021 – Magnus Carlsen picked up a fourth win at the World Championship match in Dubai to secure overall victory with three games to spare. Playing black, the world champion saw Ian Nepomniachtchi all but self-destructing for a third time in the match. This was Carlsen’s fourth consecutive defence of the title after becoming world champion in 2013. | Replay all the games with computer analysis. Full report to follow shortly | Photo: Niki Riga

8/24/2023 – Former World Champion Magnus Carlsen has accomplished a significant milestone in his illustrious chess career by capturing his inaugural World Cup title, the only tournament that was missing from his immense collection of victories. All three top-placed players have qualified for the 2024 Candidates tournament, which is due to take place next April in Canada. Full report to follow.

3/27/2018 – Sergey Karjkin didn't succeed in posing serious problems for Ding Liren and after, what he called, a "terrible blunder", he had to scramble to save a draw. That left Caruana in great shape to win the tournament. Mamedyarov struggled to find winning chances with black against Kramnik, but in the end that game ended drawn as well. Caruana, needing only a draw, was in command against Grischuk and even won the game to finish in clear first by a full point! | Photo and drawings by World Chess

4/26/2018 – It might sound like a joke, but it is not: the revolutionary techniques used to create Alpha Zero, the famous AI chess program developed by DeepMind, are now being used to engineer an engine that runs on the PC. This project has now been underway for about two months, and the engine, Leela Chess Zero, is already quite strong, playing at 2700 on good hardware, and is freely available. As will be seen, just about every aspect of this new engine is revolutionary and breaks all the paradigms that had dominated the field until now.

3/6/2023 – While a number of Russian chess masters have publicly spoken out in favour of stopping the Russian war of aggression, hardly anything has been heard from others. For example, from Vladimir Kramnik, the 14th World Champion (2000 to 2007). Martin Breutigam, author and International Master, asked Kramnik about the long silence – and received a full answer. | Photo: Guido Kohlen

11/30/2020 – The Skilling Open is the first stop of the 2020-21 Champions Chess Tour. With 16 participants, the event will be played on November 22-30. A single round robin tournament to be played from Sunday to Tuesday will decide who moves on to the knockout stage.The top eight will advance to a 6-day knockout. The action each day begins at 17:00 GMT (18:00 CET, 12:00 ET). Read the full report on Day 1 of the final | Photo: Lennart Ootes

8/29/2019 – The 2019 Sinquefield Cup playoff ended up with Ding Liren beating world champion Magnus Carlsen to win the title and take home $82.500. After two draws in the rapid games, the Chinese star beat Carlsen in both blitz encounters. The commentators and the world champion deservedly praised Ding's performance. Express report. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

2/14/2021 – The Opera Euro Rapid tournament is the third event of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Sixteen strong grandmasters played a preliminary round lasting three days to find out who moves on to the quarterfinals. In the knockout stage, each encounter is decided over two days. Read the full report on Day 1 of the finals. The action kicks off at 17.00 CET.

10/4/2019 – Teimour Radjabov qualified to the next Candidates Tournament by knocking out Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the classical phase of the World Cup semi-finals, which meant he had an extra rest day heading into the final match against Ding Liren. In parallel, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is facing Yu Yangyi in the match for third place. Live games and commentary from 10:0 UTC (12 Noon CEST / 6:00 AM EDT). | Photo: FIDE

1/31/2021 – The Tata Steel Chess Tournament took place on January 16-31 as an over-the-board 14-player single round robin. Jorden van Foreest defeated Nils Grandelius in round 13 to catch up with Anish Giri, who managed to hold a draw from a worse position against David Anton. In the all-Dutch finale, Van Foreest won the Armageddon decider to clinch the title. | Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit

7/4/2022 – The Candidates Tournament is the ultimate qualifier for the FIDE World Championship. Eight prominent grandmasters compete for the right to face reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen in a match for the crown. The event is a double round-robin held in Madrid, Spain, from 16 June to 5 July 2022. Rounds kick off at 15.00 CEST (09.00 ET, 18.30 IST). Follow the games live with expert commentary!

1/26/2020 – The 82nd edition of the chess festival in Wijk aan Zee takes place from January 11-26. By beating the previously undefeated Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Fabiano Caruana scored his third straight win to secure first place at the Masters with a round the spare. Starting with his victory over Daniil Dubov last Saturday, Caruana showed why he has maintained his second place in the ratings list for so long. The final round starts an hour and a half earlier, at 11:00 UTC (12:00 CET / 6:00 AM EST) with live games and commentary by GM Peter Leko and IM Sopiko Guramishvili | Photo: Alina l'Ami / TataSteelChess.com

10/27/2017 – Are you on the lookout for easy to use Windows software that can read all relevant data formats used in the saving of chess games and positions? If so, you absolutely have to install the latest version of our ChessBase Reader 2017 on your computer. It's a free download!