10/28/2022 – In the last several weeks, the world of chess has been rocked by the accusations and allegations of cheating with the help of a computer. The idea is not new of course, but it might shock you to know the very first case of surreptitiously using a computer in a game against a grandmaster dates all the way back to 1980. You won't believe who were responsible! Here is the original video footage of the pioneers in action.

8/10/2022 – The 2022 World Computer Chess championship was just held, and was the first edition since 2019 and the outbreak of the pandemic. After over two years, the traditional event took place in Vienna, Austria, and the winners were Ginkgo AKA Fritz using new neural net technology, and a powerful new Komodo (free update today!). Don't miss Komodo's fantastic knight sacrifice (with video!). (photo: Erdo Gunes, operator of Komodo)

7/27/2022 – By now it is almost impossible to not have heard the tragic tale of the 7-year-old boy whose finger was broken during an exhibition by a chess playing robot. It was certainly the least likely incident one would have imagined, but Murphy's Law was in full swing that day. Still, the history of robots and chess has been ongoing for over 250 years now, with robot chess players today in the homes of proud owners.

5/16/2022 – One of the fascinating aspects of new iterations of tablebases is submitting known positions to their 'divine' evaluation. The words "better" or "worse" cease to have any meaning and not only are all evaluations perfect and absolute, but so are the solutions. In the following article a share of cooks of studies as well as famous endgames and analyses are placed under the spotlight of the 8-piece tablebases.

5/11/2022 – Endgame tablebases can only be described as "god chess" as they are perfect information on all positions they cover, and the terms 'better' or 'worse' cease to have any meaning. Marc Bourzutschky has trained and resolved a large number of the 8-piece tablebase positions and shared his results and findings, as well as insights in a video interview.

3/4/2021 – Every chess fan knows about the "Man vs Machine" matches between the IBM computer Deep Blue and World Champion Garry Kasparov in 1996 and 1997. But in the 1960s IBM had already developed a computer that could play chess reasonably well: the IBM 305 Ramac. At an industrial fair in Milan, Ramac even defeated the Italian champion Mario Monticelli - with a little trash-talk to spice things up. A find by Adolivio Capece.

2/11/2021 – 25 years ago, on February 10, 1996, Deep Blue became the first chess computer to beat a reigning World Champion in a game under tournament conditions. This happened in the first Kasparov vs Deep Blue match, the first big "Man vs Machine" match. Despite his loss in the first game Kasparov still won the match 4-2, but one year later, 1997, he lost the rematch against Deep Blue.

12/21/2020 – For long-time chess fans this might already sound like a tiring question. But for newcomers and those still invested in finding out how far computers can go in terms of solving the game, this remains to be a fascinating subject. British daily newspaper The Guardian recently published a 6-minute video — featuring Garry Kasparov, Maurice Ashley, Daniel Gormally and Alexandra Botez — exploring the issue.

12/8/2020 – In the latest episode of his "Let's talk about chess" podcast Eric van Reem talks with Stefan Meyer-Kahlen, the creator of Shredder. Shredder is one of the best-known computer programs and won no less than 15 titles at Computer Chess World Championships.

10/2/2020 – Some might think that ChessBase was the inventor of the chess database. That is true to some degree, but there is a predecessor, and Frederic Friedel was a part of it. In the video we talk about one of the very first commercially available chess database systems, called "Intelligent Chess", and we opened our little ChessBase museum to present to you, the original prototype including a database on audio cassette.

7/5/2020 – Looking back: in 1983 Frederic Friedel was in Budapest for the third Microcomputer World Chess Championship. There he made first acquaintance with the Polgar family, but also met the East German chess programming team. His description of this memorable encounter tells us what things were like in the fading years of Eastern European communism.

6/4/2020 – On August 31, 1970, an experiment began that continues to this day. The first chess tournament for computers was held as part of the ACM’s National Conference. The interest generated was tremendous, leading to ACM sponsoring an annual event until 1994. Professor Jonathan Schaeffer has provided us with a retrospect of what it was like at this pioneering time, which was the beginning of a 50-year project to build a chess program capable of competing with (and, eventually exceeding the abilities of) strong human players. The experiment continues to this day and for the foreseeable future, he says.