6/4/2020 – The new ChessBase Magazine Extra #195 offers a lot of chess highlights, including a review by Ju Wenjun who talks about her narrow victory against Aleksandra Goryachkina in the last Women's World Championship match. Georgios Souleidis shows the power of the "Firouzja-Express" and opening surveys, endgame and middlegame columns and lots of other training materials help you to sharpen your game. A must for every serious chess player.

6/4/2020 – In the early 1990s, International Master Stuart Rachels was one of the very best US chess players. He played games against Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Nigel Short, Anthony Miles and Boris Spassky, only to name a few. His chess adventures are funny, beautiful, interesting and honest. His book "The Best I Saw In Chess" which just came out, is a blast to read. We conducted an interview with Rachels about the book, the chess greats he met, his decision to quit chess and the ego of chess players. | Photos: Stuart Rachels

6/4/2020 – Reuben Fine started well into the AVRO tournament. After his win against Mikhail Botvinnik in round 1 Fine also defeated his old rival Samuel Reshevsky in round 2. Max Euwe outplayed Salo Flohr and scored the second win of the round. José Raúl Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine drew as did Paul Keres and Botvinnik. With 2.0/2 Fine is now sole leader. | Photo: Tartakower, Keres, Fine and Euwe analyse at the beach with a pocket chess set.

6/4/2020 – The preparations for the 53rd International Chess festival Biel continue and take into account the Corona requirements. In a press release the organisers said that they are preparing for the key event, the Grandmaster Tournament (GMT), a main tournament (C-HTO) and a youth tournament, including Swiss championships. However, some tournaments and events including the Master Open (MTO) will be cancelled. | Photo: Biel International Chess Festival 2019

6/4/2020 – Daniil Dubov defeated Hikaru Nakamura to become the champion of the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge. In the third, deciding rubber of the final, Dubov was the first to score a full point, in game two. Nakamura bounced back with an impressive win and, after a draw in game four, Armageddon was all that was left. An opening catastrophe for Nakamura gave Dubov a winning position as early as move 13 — the Russian duly converted his massive advantage and clinched the title. | Photo: Valeria Gordienko / World Chess

6/3/2020 – In this show Merijn van Delft takes a look at the match between Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen at the Lindores Abbey Chess Challenge tournament. | Merijn's show is available at 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

5/31/2020 – Getting a spot in the World Cup is a major accomplishment for chess players. For those born in Europe, qualifying through their continental tournament is particularly difficult, given the amount of strong grandmasters in the region. Back in 2014, Constantin Lupulescu found himself in a tough spot, lagging behind in the standings with two rounds to go. Facing a higher-rated opponent, he decided to give the French Defence a go. | Photo: Fiona Steil-Antoni

5/31/2020 – Hikaru Nakamura bounced back from a 0:3 loss in the first mini-match of the semi-finals by winning the next two rubbers to knock out world champion Magnus Carlsen from the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge. The third mini-match went down to the wire, with Nakamura choosing black in the Armageddon decider and beating Carlsen after the latter first achieved a favourable position and then blundered away the game. Nakamura will face Daniil Dubov in the final, starting Monday. | Photos: Austin Fuller / FIDE

5/30/2020 – Study of the month columnist Siegfried Hornecker starts to explore the works and backstories, in as much depth as the sources allow, of composers that have created one or only a few studies. Theodorus Cornelius Louis Kok, Anatoly Tichonovich Motor, Johann Sehwers and former women's world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk are some of the composers that appear in this first instalment. | Pictured: Kok and Sehwers

5/30/2020 – Two months ago, just before his 14th birthday, Indian super-talent (Elo 2452) Leon Luke Mendonca played in the 1st Saturday tournament in Budapest, Hungary. He was scheduled to fly back on the 18th of March, but the Indian government closed the country on the 19th, when the flight was supposed to arrive. So for over two months now Leon and his father Lyndon have been separated from their family in Goa. Only comfort: they are stranded in what Lyndon called "one of the most beautiful cities in the world." And they got to meet a wonderful lady who inspired the young chess player deeply. Latest: yesterday five-time World Champion Vishy Anand was able to fly bacck to India after being stranded for over three months in Frankfurt, Germany.

5/30/2020 – The famous French musician, pianist and composer Jason Kouchak is an avid chess fan. During the time of the Corona lockdown he spends his time playing chess or watching online tournaments. But actually he wanted to be at the Holland Park Chess event, to give a live chess performance with his friend, actress Helena Bonham Carter, as white queen.

5/30/2020 – The first edition of the Clutch Chess Champions Showdown, organized by the Saint Louis Chess Club, concluded on Friday. Wesley So became the winner on tiebreaks after he and Fabiano Caruana scored nine points each throughout the twelve games. The first criterion to break the tie was the number of wins in "clutch games", with So getting two wins to Caruana's one. | Photo: Lennart Ootes