9/16/2022 – Fritz has fascinated the chess world for thirty years. And the success story continues. In Vienna, the most popular chess program ever was once again able to underline its premier position: the newly developed neural engine with NNUE technology won the official Chess Software World Championship! With Power Fritz 18 you have the world champion program on your PC!

9/16/2022 – High-stakes, classical games can be extremely enthralling as top grandmasters get enough time to discuss positions that are often cut short in events with quicker time controls. In round 8 of the Chennai Olympiad, Gabriel Sargissian scored a win that gave his team a crucial victory over India’s top team. Sargissian converted a slightly superior endgame against Pentala Harikrishna, who valiantly defended until move 102. Wolfram Schön sent copious annotations of the epic endgame struggle. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage

9/16/2022 – Ten international chess superstars are battling it out over the board on September 13-16 at the Champions Showdown Chess 9LX extravaganza. The field includes living legend Garry Kasparov, an in-form Alireza Firouzja and defending champion Leinier Dominguez. | Follow the games live starting at 21.00 CEST (15.00 ET, 0.30 IST)

9/16/2022 – In ChessBase Magazine #208, our new author, GM Jan Markos, started his video training series "Practical Tips for the Tournament Player" with an article on "Time Management". In the new issue, CBM #209, he reveals how you should play in must-win situations. You certainly know such situations too - what would you tend to do? Play a risky opening line? Seek sacrifices? Try to put your opponent under time pressure? Jan Markos' recommendations go in a completely different direction. You can watch an excerpt from his video here. Have a look!

9/15/2022 – Dutch IM and well-known trainer Robert Ris has recorded a two-volume FritzTrainer in which he presents a complete Black repertoire against the opening moves 1.d4,c4 and 1.Nf3. His repertoire is based on the Queen’s Gambit Accepted after 1.d4 d5 2.c4. Free piece play is the idea. Philipp Hillebrand took an in-depth look at the course.

9/15/2022 – Ian Nepomniachtchi could not keep up the pace he had shown on Wednesday, as he is now standing in third place at the Champions Showdown tournament. Nepo was replaced at the top of the standings by Alireza Firouzja and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Garry Kasparov has lost all his games so far in Saint Louis. Do not miss GM Karsten Müller’s endgame analysis. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club

9/15/2022 – In his “Game of the Week” show, Merijn van Delft looks at a razor-sharp encounter between Alireza Firouzja and Wesley So. A crucial game which shed some light on current top-level chess trends. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

9/15/2022 – When you are solving an exercise in a book, or guessing a move in Solitaire Chess, and your move is wrong, the first thing you want to know is why it was wrong, and what the refutation was, but unless the author included your exact choice, you will be left scratching your head. A new feature in ChessBase solves this brilliantly and can become a powerful tool to your improvement.

9/15/2022 – World Champion Alexander Alekhine successfully played an unusual opening in the 1920s, one that would later be named after him. For White, the opening is annoying because, although it looks unplayable for Black at first, it is very much playable for his opponent. Furthermore, although it is called "Alekhine's Defence" it is seemingly more suitable for attacking players, which we will learn from today's video. Svitlana enjoys this opening big time, and shares her knowledge with us.

9/15/2022 – The first three rounds of the Champions Showdown tournament were played at the Saint Louis Chess Club on Wednesday. The event featuring the Chess960 variant saw Ian Nepomniachtchi winning all three of his games, while Garry Kasparov and Peter Svidler did not manage to score on the first day of action. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

9/14/2022 – The year was 2013. Magnus Carlsen was about to play his first match against Viswanathan Anand, and he was knee-deep in preparation. Amid this process, Magnus shared an endgame study on Facebook. He captioned the image, “More preparation. White to move and win, shown from black’s side”. A few days later, GM Vidit Gujarathi asked me if I had solved Carlsen’s challenge, which was extremely interesting. Dear reader, can you solve the Carlsen challenge?

9/14/2022 – When the organisation of the 2022 Sinquefield Cup decided, after Round 3, to implement a fifteen-minute delay for the broadcast of moves, we felt some gratification. Hadn't we suggested exactly this to FIDE, seventeen years ago, as one possible measure to counteract cheating in chess? At least to make it more difficult? Not everybody was happy with the proposal and with its implementation in Saint Louis. What do you think?