9/11/2025 – For the second time, Hamburg played host to a unique combined chess and tennis tournament. To manage the Swiss-system draw, a specially developed combined rating was introduced. Georgi Davidov once again proved his class, successfully defending his title from last year. | Pictured: Group photo at the close of the tournament – champion Georgi Davidov with the knight in the centre, flanked on his right by organisers Christian Kalla and Kai Schönwolf. | Fotos: Eva Maria Zickelbein and Anastasiia Agapitova

9/11/2025 – Hikaru Nakamura is working to meet the requirement of playing enough classical games in 2025 to qualify for the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament by rating. The world number two recently entered two state-level events in the United States, scoring perfect results in both. He won all seven games at the Louisiana State Championship in New Orleans, before adding five more victories at the Iowa Chess Open in Iowa City. These results bring his total to 29 classical games, with 11 still needed by year's end. | Photo: Nakamura's X account

9/10/2025 – The Saint Louis Chess Club will soon host the 2025 US Chess Championship and the 2025 US Women's Championship, running from 12 to 24 October in its newly expanded venue. With a prize fund exceeding $400,000, the 12-player fields feature America's elite, including Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Carissa Yip, Alice Lee and Irina Krush. Alongside the competitions, Hall of Fame inductions and cultural events promise a historic month for American chess in Saint Louis. | Pictured: 2024 US chess champions, Fabiano Caruana and Carissa Yip | Photo: Lennart Ootes

9/10/2025 – As part of the Fortune Brainstorm Tech Conference, Anna Cramling will play a game of chess against Noland Arbaugh. Arbaugh is paraplegic, but with the help of a novel neurochip in his brain, he can move the pieces via a Brain Computer interface using pure thought power.

9/10/2025 – Parham Maghsoodloo kept his lead at the FIDE Grand Swiss, drawing with Arjun Erigaisi to stay half a point clear on 5/6 going into the rest day. Nihal Sarin defeated Szymon Gumularz, while Anish Giri overcame Marc'Andria Maurizzi to join the five-player pack of pursuers. Reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju suffered a second consecutive defeat, this time against Nikolas Theodorou (pictured). In the women's section, Vaishali Rameshbabu and Kateryna Lagno both won to remain tied at the top. | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza

9/10/2025 – The XTX Markets London Chess Classic (LCC) returns to the capital between 26th November and 7th December 2025. Following GM Gawain Jones's victory in 2024, the event will once again be held largely at the iconic Emirates Stadium, switching to London Novotel West in Hammersmith to avoid clashes with Arsenal home matches.

9/6/2025 – In the diagram position Black set the board on fire with 34...Rgxd6. How would you assess the situation after that?

9/6/2025 – After two rounds of the FIDE Grand Swiss, only five players remain on perfect scores out of 172 participants, underlining the strength of both tournaments. In the open, Alireza Firouzja, Parham Maghsoodloo and Anton Demchenko (pictured) lead with 2/2, while Vaishali Rameshbabu and Olga Badelka top the women's standings. Thirty players chase the leaders in the open, while fifteen trail in the women's event. | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza

9/6/2025 – Michael Kotyk is a young chess trainer from Hamburg. He still remembers clearly when he first took serious notice of the Trompowsky system: during the World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin. That was reason enough for him to take a closer look at Robert Ris’s video course on this opening and to explain why he now finds the Trompowsky system interesting, despite having long considered it not particularly dangerous... | Photos: ChessBase

9/5/2025 – Grandmaster Lubomir Ftacnik presents a personal chess course that draws on his decades of playing at the top level and later experience as a coach, aiming to teach what he now understands more deeply than during his competitive career. Instead of overwhelming students with the endless information available in databases, he focuses on highlighting the most important principles—how to evaluate positions, avoid common mistakes, and understand underlying features of the game. The course covers key aspects of openings, middlegames, and endgames, always stressing practical understanding to help players make better decisions at the board.

9/5/2025 – In his latest Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft looks back at the Sinquefield Cup and presents Wesley So’s crucial win over Nodirbek Abdusattorov. So began the tournament with a string of draws, but in this game he displayed both creativity and a fine sense for positional nuance. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

9/5/2025 – On Tuesday 22-year-old Ukrainian GM Kirill Shevchenko was stripped of his title and banned from competitive chess for three years. He was caught cheating during the Spanish Team Championship last year – and admitted to his wrongdoing. The case renewed our interest in the subject, and we take a look back at the evolution of cheating in chess – and the very tricky way it can be exercised.