1/6/2024 – You might see how White could have won outright in the diagram position in the blink of an eye. Black's path to a draw a few moves later, on the other hand, might be a real challenge. Either way - have fun!

1/5/2024 – This week GM Daniel King presents archetypal attacks from the World Rapid Championship. A test of judgment and calculation. | Power Play is on air most Fridays. Watch it on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer.

1/5/2024 – Magnus Carlsen is missing from this year's Tata Steel Chess, but World Champion Ding Liren has returned from his sabbatical. Otherwise, the Masters and Challengers are once again very colourful, with superstars, women and young talented players. The tournament starts in a week's time. | Photo: Tata Steel Chess

1/5/2024 – The Masters tournament in Hastings remains exciting: after 8 of 9 rounds, 3 players are leading with 6.5/8 each: Abijheet Gupta, Brandon Jacobson and Zhang Pengxiang. Half a point behind are Deep Sengupta, Eldar Gasanov and Shreyas Royal with 6.0/8. The top pairings for round nine will be Jacobson against Gupta and Zhang against Sengupta. The round starts at 15.15 CET with live commentary from Richard Pert and Matthew Sadler.

1/5/2024 – How did you fare with the three fun-to-solve puzzles we provided on December 30? They were fairly subtle, one quite amuzing. We got them from Gauri Shankar is a FIDE Master with eight IM norms. He lives in Chicago and produces entertaining video shorts explaining problems and studies. You can watch them for the solutions to our Christmas selection.

1/4/2024 – As expected, Magnus Carlsen has now announced on his X account that he won't be playing in the Candidates Tournament in Toronto in April, even though he qualified by winning the World Cup 2023 and by being the world's number one on the rating list. GM Nijat Abasov from Azerbaijan, who lost to Carlsen in the semifinals of the World Cup, will get Carlsen's place in the Candidates. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

1/1/2024 – We are three months away from the start of the Candidates Tournaments in Toronto. With no more rated classical games in the December-2023 period, we got the names of the two players who got the rating spot in the open and women’s sections — Alireza Firouzja and Humpy Koneru (pictured), respectively. The 2023 edition of the FIDE Circuit has also finished, with Gukesh grabbing the Candidates spot by finishing in second place, since Fabiano Caruana — the winner of the Circuit — was already qualified via the FIDE World Cup. | Photo: FIDE / Lennart Ootes

12/31/2023 – The traditional chess tournament in the English seaside resort of Hastings has been held immediately after Christmas for over 100 years. The event has reached its 97th edition, with rounds taking place on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. The most important tournament, the Masters, which includes a number of titleholders, ends on January 5. French grandmaster Maxime Lagarde is the tournament’s top seed.

12/31/2023 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books on chess training and strategy. In the 158th episode of his ChessBase show "Understanding before moving" Herman continues his series "Chess history in a nutshell" and continues to talk about the games and the legacy of Paul Keres. | Photo: Pascal Simon

12/31/2023 – Today we have two very special problems. They are doubtlessly like no other chess puzzle you have seen. And warning: they are very hard. You could easily spend a substantial part of the final day of the year 2023 struggling to solve them. But if you succeed, you will experience an exhilarating feeling of pride. Take a look.

12/31/2023 – Once again, a fantastic chess year is coming to an end. As usual, Svitlana gathered some of her absolute favourite tactics, for the viewer and Arne to solve. Happy new year everybody, and see you in 2024!

12/30/2023 – Magnus Carlsen grabbed his 17th World Championship title — the 7th in blitz — by scoring 16/21 points at the World Blitz event in Samarkand. After losing his first game of the day, against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Carlsen grabbed six wins in a row to retake the sole lead. Two draws in the final rounds allowed him to outscore Daniil Dubov by a half point. In the women’s championship, Valentina Gunina got outright victory thanks to a final-round win over Anna Muzychuk. Alexandra Kosteniuk came close to catching the eventual champion, but fell just short and took the silver medal. | Photo: FIDE / Anastasia Korolkova