11/17/2023 – Despite a last round loss Grandmaster Ray Robson ended up winning the rapid portion of the 2023 Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz, with a score of 11.0/18 heading into the blitz tomorrow. Tied for second were GMs Fabiano Caruana and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, both on 10.0/18, with several players (Firouzja, Nepomniachtchi, Giri, Liem) trailing closely behind with an even 9.0/18. | Photo courtesy of Saint Louis Chess Club, Lennart Ootes

11/16/2023 – Baskaran Adhiban had quite a rough start in the FIDE Grand Swiss, but that did not prevent him from returning to his trademark creative style in round six against Eduardo Iturrizaga. We don’t want to give too many spoilers, but Paul Morphy would have been proud! In Game of the Week #594, Merijn Van Delft takes a closer look at this encounter. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

11/16/2023 – At the age of 29 years, Vidit Gujrathi did something very special: he won the FIDE Grand Swiss outright and with it a spot in the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2024. In an personal conversation with Sagar Shah, Vidit speaks about what the title means to him, the role of his family and parents, and reveals his trainers. This Podcast gives an insight into the personal side of this world class GM.

11/16/2023 – The second day of rapid started off slow with ten straight draws, before an explosive final round left GM Ray Robson at the top of the standings after an important win over GM Alireza Firouzja. Heading into the final day of rapid, Robson leads with 8.0/12, while GMs Maxime Vachier Lagrave, Anish Giri, and Le Quang Liem trail closely behind with 7.0/12. | Photo courtesy of Saint Louis Chess Club, Lennart Ootes

11/16/2023 – Three more games to go, and the score between humans vs. Fritz 19 is now 1.5 to 1.5, after Robert Ris conquered the aggressive bull. Svitlana Demchenko's opponent is the turtle, an endgame aficionado. This animal is considered one of the more challenging Fritz 19 characters, and difficult to break. In the Sicilian Kan Variation, the Canadian WIM cannot really advance, until a material imbalance shows up out of nowhere! But things aren't getting easier ...

11/16/2023 – Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, author, organiser, commentator, chess book collector and editor-in-chief of the renowned chess magazine "New in Chess", has conducted numerous interviews with top players over the last four decades. When Sagar Shah, founder and director of ChessBase India, recently visited Holland, he changed roles and interviewed the experienced interviewer. This led to an entertaining conversation about chess books and memories of meeting players such as Kasparov, Karpov, Tal, Anand and many others.

11/14/2023 – The new Mega Database now contains over 10 million games and over 700,000 new games. With 112,000 annotated games, the Mega Database is also the largest annotated game collection in the world. The Mega Player Encyclopaedia contains 60,000 player names with over 40,000 player photos. Wow! All this is constantly being edited and expanded, e.g. with the automatic Mega Update!

11/14/2023 – In the diagram position White just played 53.g4+. Should Black take the offered pawn with 53...Kxg4 or should he ignore the potentially dangerous g-pawn and go for the white pawns on the queenside with 53...Ke4? What would you do?

11/13/2023 – In the Endgame Magic Show #255 Karsten Müller and endgame aficionado Ted Jewell continue to analyse endgame highlights, this time they look at endgame gems from the Qatar Open. | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

11/13/2023 – Ivan Sokolov's long awaited "Understanding Middlegame Strategies" continues! The dutch Grandmaster and star coach released three new volumes on the French Winawer, Catalan Structures, and the French Tarrasch Variation.

11/13/2023 – The Sicilian Najdorf is one of the most popular openings after 1.e4 and is part of the repertoire of almost all top players. In two volumes, the young Hamburg grandmaster presents all of White's answers and shows how Black can aggressively realise his strategic plans. With exercises and tests.

11/13/2023 – After two rounds in the open section of the European Team Championship, six teams are sharing first place with 4/4 match points: Germany, France, the Netherlands, Serbia, Poland and Israel. Among the six teams standing a match point behind is Austria, who stunned Norway despite Valentin Dragnev failing to make the most of an advantageous position over Magnus Carlsen. In the women’s section, Azerbaijan, France, Poland, Spain and Serbia are sharing the lead, with Spain joining the leading pack after beating the top seeds from Georgia. | Photo: German Chess Federation