6/23/2023 – In his new Power Play Show, GM Daniel King tests the viewers’ killer instincts. In the last-round game from Norway Chess between Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana, a position arose which was highly tactical and could have led to a swift conclusion! | 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.

6/23/2023 – All five games in the Masters section of the Prague Chess Festival finished drawn, leaving Vincent Keymer in the sole lead. Meanwhile, in the Challengers, Matuesz Bartel and Benjamin Gledura both won with white to join Vaclav Finek in the lead with 1½/2 points. Bartel obtained a fine win over Czech IM Richard Stalmach, whose approach in the French Defence proved ineffective against Bartel’s energetic play. | Photo: Petr Vrabec

6/23/2023 – The last time Vishy Anand played a rated tournament game was on 9th October 2022 at European Club Cup. After eight months, the maestro did not show any rust on the board. In fact, he felt very optimistic about his position against Jan-Krzysztof Duda. He felt that his queen and rook were flooding towards the kingside. The other former world champion in his team, Yifan Hou scored the second decisive game of the match against Alexandra Kosteniuk. Thus, Chingari Gulf Titans lost to Ganges Grandmasters 0-3 (4-10) without conceding a single match. Four matches will be played tomorrow starting with SG Alpine Warriors vs Balan Alaskan Knights from 2 p.m. local time. Photo: Jio Cinema live stream

6/22/2023 – In his Game of the Week show #573 Merijn van Delft takes a close look at a line of the Catalan that has recently become popular and seems to offer Black good chances. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

6/22/2023 – Regional powerhouse Vietnam continues to dominate in standard chess after six rounds of play. Vietnamese players occupy the top three positions in the Open U-8, Open U-10, Open U-12, Open U-14, Open U-16 and Open U-18 categories, and it is a similar story in the Girls U-8 & U-10 Combined and Girls U-18 categories. | Photos: Peter Long

6/22/2023 – The Prague Chess Festival kicked off on Wednesday. Both the Masters and the Challengers saw four draws and a decisive game each. In the Masters, top seed Wang Hao was defeated by German star Vincent Keymer, who got a superior endgame out of a sharp, theoretical variation, and converted it proficiently. In the Challengers, 13-year-old Czech FM Vaclav Finek beat Indian GM Akash G with the white pieces. | Photo: Petr Vrabec

6/18/2023 – When a strong player looks at a position (in a real game of chess, not a problem) he or she will automatically see it not as a random collection of pieces but as a series of chunks — patterns that are recognisable and have known features. And the patterns will also generate ideas of moves which may be profitable. Curiously, sometimes apparently insignificant changes can be crucial, and today I’m focussing on an instance of this phenomenon. | Pictured: Mikhail Tal

6/18/2023 – The European Pair Blitz Championships will take place on 19 June 2023 in the Opera House of Krákow, Poland. The competition is an accompanying event to the 2023 European Games. The championships will feature top male and female chess players from eight European federations: Poland, Azerbaijan, Israel, Romania, Spain, Armenia and the Netherlands. Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Oliwia Kiolbasa will represent the host country. | Pictured: Łukasz Turlej and Shohreh Bayat

6/18/2023 – Day 7 of the Armageddon Series in Berlin will decide the winner of the week-long extravaganza. Richard Rapport defeated Jan-Krzysztof Duda to reach the Grand Final from the upper bracket. Duda, however, will get a second chance, as he faces Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the final match of the lower bracket. The winner will face Rapport, who would need to lose twice to finish the tournament in second place. | Start: 19.00 CEST. Follow the games live with commentary by Simon Williams and Jovanka Houska.

6/18/2023 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. In the 129th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues his series "Chess history in a nutshell" and continues to talk about the attacking and defending skills of Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official World Champion. | Photo: Pascal Simon

6/18/2023 – ‘Chess4refugees’ was the motto of the Emanuel Lasker Society Chess Culture Day, which took place a week ago in Hamburg. The event kicked off with a simultaneous exhibition given by Dr. Richard Lutz and Dr. Helmut Pfleger (final result: 20-5). In the evening, the chairman of the Emanuel Lasker Society, Thomas Weischede, handed over a symbolic cheque for €5,000 to the UN Refugee Aid and a lively panel discussion about 40 years of chess history followed with Frederic Friedel, Prof. Christian Hesse and Dr. Helmut Pfleger. | Photos: Nadja Wittmann (ChessBase)

6/17/2023 – Ahead of the inaugural edition of the Global Chess League (GCL), the league has announced the tournament’s schedule and the scoring system. Remarkably, a game won with the black pieces will result in 4 Game Points (GP) for the winning player; a victory for a player with the white pieces will see them win 3 GP. The tournament will take place from June 21 to July 2 in Dubai.