Are chess super-talents generally smarter than regular kids?

11/6/2019 – Are strong chess players generally better at logical thinking than people who rarely play the game? Can super-talented youngsters, of GM strength, solve logical puzzles better than amateurs or non-chess kids of the same age? Or are both equally good, or are the chess kids perhaps worse? ChessBase chief editor emeritus Frederic Friedel is conducting an experiment to find out. Today he tells us how his experiments so far have been conducted. Perhaps you can join in and supply your own results. Or at least have fun with his problems!

Game of the Week: Dubov vs Svane

11/6/2019 – The European Team Championship is a fantastic source of fascinating battles and theoretical developments. Today IM Merijn van Delft highlights the game between GMs Banikas and Meier. The show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). Merijn is on-demand this week starting at 19:00 UTC (20:00 CET / 3 PM EDT).

Endgame Magic with Karsten Mueller and Padmini Rout

11/6/2019 – Today Karsten welcomes Indian IM Padmini Rout. Live at 13:00 UTC (14:00 CET, 8:00 AM EST) and on-demand for ChessBase account holders. Don't have an account yet? You can register a free 90-day account to watch!

Hamburg GP: Vachier-Lagrave's dream start

11/6/2019 – Four players kicked off the third leg of the FIDE Grand Prix Series with a win at the Theater Kehrwieder in Hamburg. The results of the day particularly favoured Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, as he beat Wei Yi with the white pieces, while Ian Nepomniachtchi — another big contender to get one of the two Candidates spots at stake — lost against Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Peter Svidler and Veselin Topalov also won their inaugural encounters. | Photo: Nadja Wittmann

The Weekly Show: An English Weekender

11/5/2019 – This week IM Lawrence Trent examines a fine win from Grandmaster Danny Gormally. | Puzzle time: In the diagram below, it's Black to move! | Lawrence is live for free and on-demand for a limited time, or forever on-demand with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.

University Chess Invitational comes to Nankai China

11/5/2019 – Twelve universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Moscow State University, have confirmed their participation for the 2019 World Prestigious University Chess Invitational Championship held by Nankai University of China from November 25th to 30th 2019. Watch out for reports by WGM Qiyu Zhou.

Hamburg Grand Prix: Opening press conference

11/5/2019 – German chess fans (especially those in Hamburg) can look forward to a nice chess event in the countries second largest city. Today, the opening press conference took place at the Kehrwieder Theater in the "Speicherstadt" district, the venue of the Hamburg Grand Prix tournament which runs from November 5th to November 17th. | Photos: Nadja Wittmann

A luckless pawn

11/5/2019 – Usually, having material is good. However, sometimes one's own pieces are in the way or prevent stalemate ideas. In the diagram belowm how can Black save the draw?

Proposal: A new World Championship format

11/4/2019 – When Paul Morphy played Adolf Anderssen in 1858, only two games of the eleven in total were drawn. Steinitz vs Lasker in 1894 produced four draws in 19 games, but when Capablanca played Lasker in 1921 there were already ten draws in 14 games. In the Carlsen-Caruana match last year all twelve regular games were drawn, so the title had to be decided in tiebreaks. But such tiebreaks involve rapid chess game, blitz and even the ominous Armageddon. Is there a way to decide the World Championship in classical games only? Problemist Werner Keym has proposed a format that does exactly this. What do you think?

Simon Says: Latest Developments in the London System

11/4/2019 – The latest FritzTrainer in our ever-growing library is from GM Simon Williams who returns to update his best-selling presentation of the London System. Watch live for free (or on-demand for a limited time) starting at the usual hour: 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET / 12 Noon EST).

Speelman's Agony: And the winner is...

11/3/2019 – We announce the winner of the autographed Fritz DVD, and Jon throws in two professional games feature Gawain Jones and David Howell to illustrate endgame concepts. | Send in your own games! Jon welcomes submissions from readers. If your games are selected for the Agony column, not only will you get free detailed commentary of your games by one of chess’s great authors and instructors, and former world no. 4 player, but you also win a free three-month ChessBase Premium Account!

Wesley So is the first official Fischer Random World Champion

11/3/2019 – Wesley So needed only six out of the twelve scheduled games to take down Magnus Carlsen at the final of the Fischer Random World Championship in Bærum. The final score was a resounding 13½:2½ in favour of the American, who thus became the official world champion in this format. In the match for third place, Ian Nepomniachtchi got the better of Fabiano Caruana after recovering from his painful loss against So in the semis. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / frchess.com

Double gold for Russia at the European Team Championships

11/2/2019 – Both Russian squads took clear first place at the European Team Championships in Batumi. Kirill Alekseenko scored the sole win that gave his team a final round victory over Poland in the open section. Ukraine managed only a draw against Croatia, but nevertheless got the silver medals ahead of England, who were relegated to third place on tiebreak criteria. In the Women's, Georgia and Anzerbaijan got second and third places, respectively. | Photo: Official site

Fischer Random World Chess Championship - So defeats Carlsen

11/2/2019 – Wesley So was the winner of the Fisher Random World Championship, defeating the classical World Champion Magnus Carlsen. Ian Nepomniachtchi beat Fabiano Caruana to finish third. Live game commentary from 16:30 UTC (17:30 CET / 12:30 EDT) Note: Europe has already switched to Winter time! | Photo: www.frchess.com

Chess Connects for the 5th time at the Global Chess Festival

11/2/2019 – The Global Chess Festival 2019 returned to the Hungarian National Gallery and featured all the usual events for children, including simuls and appearances by all three Polgar sisters — Judit, Sofia and Susan. Singer/songwriter Juga performed and Vladimir Kramnik gave a simul and was Judit's guest for a live question and answer session. ALINA L'AMI reports in exquisite detail from Budapest. | Photos: Alina l'Ami

European Team Championship - Round 9 - Russia wins twice

11/2/2019 – The Ukrainian team was unable to fend off the Russians as they regained 1st place in the final round at the European Teams in Batumi. Russia led the Women's tournament from start to finish and thus took double-gold. Games and live commentary of Round 9.

Fischer Random Final: So beats Carlsen twice in a day

11/2/2019 – Wesley So impressed during day two of the finals at the Fischer Random World Championship as he defeated Magnus Carlsen twice to get a whopping 10½:1½ lead, which means he only needs two more points to take the title. In the match for third place, Ian Nepomniachtchi beat Fabiano Caruana once to get a three-point edge before Saturday's 'fast rapid' and blitz games. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / frchess.com

Chess calendar: November 2019

11/1/2019 – November will kick off with the third leg of the Grand Prix in Hamburg, the penultimate stage of the FIDE series that awards two spots for the 2020 Candidates Tournament. This month will also feature the last two rapid and blitz events of the Grand Chess Tour, which will decide who will join Magnus Carlsen in the London finale. In the midst of all that elite action, the European Club Cup will take place in Montenegro. | You'll find all of these events and more covered in our live games broadcast area Live.ChessBase.com and we'll also be providing News coverage.

European Teams: Ukraine catches Russia

11/1/2019 – With one round to go at the European Team Championships in Batumi, Russia and Ukraine are sharing the lead on 13 match points in the open section. The deciding final day of action will see Ukraine facing Croatia and Russia playing against the third seeds from Poland. Meanwhile, among the women, Russia did manage to reach the final round in the sole lead, which means a victory over Turkey will be enough to secure the gold. The final round starts four hours earlier than usual. | Photo: Official site

The Power Play Show: Fischer Random World Championship

11/1/2019 – Power Play is back! On the show today: GM Daniel King takes you through games from the FIDE Fischer Random World Championship. Power Play is live most Fridays at 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST, Noon EDT) on playchess.com. You can watch the episode live for free! All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

Fischer Random Final: Wesley So leads

11/1/2019 – Wesley So has a 4½:1½ lead over Magnus Carlsen after day one of the finals at the Fischer Random World Championship in Norway. The Filipino-born grandmaster and the world champion played two remarkable games, but only So made the most of the time he had a better position. Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi, in the meantime, traded wins and go into day two with the score tied in the match for third place. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / frchess.com

A Maroczy unbound

11/1/2019 – In the diagram position the central pawns c4 and e4 guarantee White a typical space plus. But if he wants to play for an advantage, 12.b3 is not the way to go. Why?

November ratings: World Cup and Grand Swiss

11/1/2019 – The November rating list is out and reflects the performances of two of the most important tournaments on the calendar this year: The World Cup and the Grand Swiss, both qualifying events for the 2020 Candidates tournament which attracted a massive turnout of elite players. Every member of the top 40 was in action in the rating period except for the retired Vladimir Kramnik, Richard Rapport and Veselin Topalov. | Pictured: World Cup winner Teimour Radjabov, runner-up Ding Liren, third place finisher Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and fourth placed Yu Yangyi at the close of the Khanty-Mansiysk festivities. | Photo: FIDE

Fast and Furious Firouzja

10/31/2019 – The traditional chess festival in Hoogeveen concluded last weekend and IM Robert Ris was impressed by Iranian super-talent Alireza Firouzja. Tune into the live show at 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET / 2 PM EDT) which is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows. In the diagram, it's White to play and win!