NATO Chess Championships

3/12/2019 – The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has organised chess tournaments for over four decades. LtCol Sławomir Kędzierski reports on the most recent championship from the perspective of the Polish Armed Forces (PAF) team to commerate the 20th anniversary of Poland’s presence in NATO. Pictured: IMCC Chairman Col Tomasz Malinowski who introduced Polish Armed Forces to NATO Chess, holding the trophy of King Canute | Photo: Wojciech Król

Good to know: stalemate tricks

3/12/2019 – Usually, a rook and a pawn win easily against a bishop. But there are exceptions. Here's a practical endgame example that could help you save a half point some day!

World Team Ch: Russian lead shrinks

3/11/2019 – Russia, the leading team at the World Team Championship, unexpectedly gave up a team match point to Azerbaijan round six. India and England are only one point behind. England scored an important win over Iran 3-1 despite the early loss of their reserve player Jon Speelman on board four. In the Women's section, China continues to lead the field. | Photos: David Llada

Xiong springs to classic first

3/11/2019 – 18-year-old American GM Jeffery Xiong (pictured, left) scored a clutch last round win to avoid a play-off and take top honours in the St. Louis Spring Classic. He finished with six points from nine games, a half point more than Ukrainian GM Illya Nyzhnyk. In the parallel "B" tournament, Chinese GM Bai Jinshi (pictured, right) was clear first with the same score, despite losing his last round game! ALEX YERMOLINSKY reports on the highlights from the past ten days of chess action in the U.S. chess 'capital'. | Photos: Austin Fuller / Saint Louis Chess Club

Duda leads in Prague

3/11/2019 – Five rounds of the Prague Chess Festival have been played so far, both in the Masters and the Challengers. Jan-Krzyztof Duda leads the main event on 3½ out of 5, but has Nikita Vitiugov and Radoslaw Wojtaszek breathing down his neck a half point behind. The Challengers had women's world champion Ju Wenjun in the lead until round four but, after her loss against Praggnanandhaa, she now shares first place with three other players. | Photo: Vladimir Jagr / Official site

St. Louis Spring Chess Classic 2019

3/10/2019 – The Spring Chess Classic is a pair of 10-player round-robin tournaments at the Saint Louis Chess Club. After eight rounds, Jeffrey Xiong, Ray Robson and Illya Nyzhnyk are leading with 5 points. Vassily Ivanchuk and Rustam Kasimdzhanov are surprisingly in the last two places. Live games from 19:00 UTC (20:00 CET, 2 PM EDT) / Live commentary webcast from 21:30 UTC (22:30 CET 4:30 PM EDT). | Pictured: Commentary hosts Ben Simon and GM Aman Hambleton

Accentus Young Masters: Studer wins, Yankelevich grabs GM norm

3/10/2019 – The Swiss Grandmaster Noel Studer confidently won the Accentus Young Masters, which took place from February 27th to March 7th at the Hotel Schloss in Bad Ragaz in Switzerland. He started with 5 out of 5 and finished with 7½ out of 9. One point behind was Lev Yankelevich and Nikita Petrov who shared places two and three, while Yankelevich also achieved a GM norm. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

World Team Ch: China beat Russia in key women's match-up

3/10/2019 – Two devastating attacks gave the Chinese women a crucial victory over the defending champions from Russia, who now need other teams to cooperate — by beating China — in order for them to take gold. Meanwhile, in the open section, Russia took down Kazakhstan despite Sergei Karjakin's loss on board one and are still the sole leaders. England and India tied their direct encounter and are the only chasers, two match points behind. | Pictured: Lei Tingjie | Photo: David Llada / Official site

Spring Classic: Youth leads

3/9/2019 – The Spring Chess Classic is a pair of 10-player round-robin tournaments at the Saint Louis Chess Club. After four rounds, the A group field was surprisingly tight with five out of the ten players tied on 3 points. But after seven, Jeffrey Xiong (pictured) and Illya Nyzhnyk have taken the lead. Vassily Ivanchuk and Rustam Kasimdzhanov, meanwhile, are struggling. | Photo: Austin Fuller

World Team Ch: Russians undefeated

3/9/2019 – After four rounds, the Russian players in Astana have yet to give up a full point. In the open section, they are alone at the top of the standings, while in the women's they share first place with China — the co-leaders are set to face each other on Saturday. India, United States and England trail by one match point among the men, with the Olympic champions from China far behind on the leader board. | Photo: David Llada / Official site

Advice from the "Chess Educator of the Year"

3/8/2019 – Elizabeth Spiegel is a public school chess teacher in Brooklyn, New York. Her program at IS 318 was the subject of the 2012 documentary film "Brooklyn Castle". Recently she was given an award as "Chess Educator of the Year" by the University of Texas at Dallas, which has published her 55-minute talk that contains useful advice for parents and chess teachers gleaned from her 20 years of experience teaching chess. Video and highlights... | Photo: UT Dallas Eugene McDermott Library

The Power Play Show

3/8/2019 – Friday at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, Noon EST) Daniel King will go on air 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...

GRENKE Chess Classic with Carlsen, Caruana and Keymer

3/8/2019 – Over Easter, from April 18th to 22nd, one of the strongest open tournaments in the world takes place in Karlsruhe: the GRENKE Open. At the same time, ten of the world's best will face off in the GRENKE Chess Classic. Carlsen, Caruana, Aronian, Anand and Vachier-Lagrave are all confirmed, but also Vincent Keymer, the surprise winner of the 2018 GRENKE Open, who will have a prime opportunity to show what he can do against the world's best. Details via the tournament press release.

The king's discipline

3/8/2019 – The good news for Black in the diagram position is that 20...Nxf3+ 21.Bxf3 Qxf3! leads to victory. The downer is White has many checks which must be answered with the right king moves to bring the game home. Will you manage?

NIC: Sadler on books and Botvinnik

3/8/2019 – Courtesy our friends at New in Chess: GM MATTHEW SADLER gives his assessment of ChessBase's tenth volume in the Master Class series on the sixth World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik. Sadler annotates Botvinnik's win in an English Opening over Bent Larsen and concludes this Master Class makes for "a very interesting and entertaining DVD!"

Fast and Furious: Iceland teams tour

3/7/2019 – Today's topic: Highlights from the Icelandic Team Championships, live at 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET 1 PM EST) The live show 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.

NEW: Marin’s English Love

3/7/2019 – A two-volume series on the English Opening from opening theoretician and Grandmaster MIHAIL MARIN who offers a complete repertoire for White after 1.c4! For many great players from different generations the English opening has been a logical complement to 1.d4. By delaying the advance of the d-pawn White can avoid certain popular defences such as the Nimzoindian or the Grünfeld, to return to the 1.d4 paths a few moves later. But White can go further and build up a purely English repertoire, based on 1.c4 and 2.g3, which is the aim of these two DVDs.

Stanley Kubrick: Inspired by chess

3/7/2019 – Stanley Kubrick was a giant in film history. Almost all of his films were milestones in their genre. He was also a great chess lover. In almost every one of his films, there is at least an allusion to the game of chess. He died 20 years ago today, on March 7, 1999, at the age of 70. We take a brief look at his career use of chess and chess imagery. | Photo: On the set of Dr. Strangelove | SK Film Archives LLC, Sony Colombia, the Kubrick family, and University of the Arts London

World Team Ch: USA upset China, share the lead with Russia and England

3/7/2019 – Team United States dazzled in round two by defeating China despite not having taken any of their stars to Astana. They now share the lead on a perfect score with Russia and England, and are set to take on the latter in the next round. In the women's event, the American team is also over-performing, as they drew Ukraine and defeated higher-rated Hungary in the first two days of competition. Nonetheless, the favourites from Russia and China are leading with 4/4. | Photo: David Llada / Official site

Game of the Week: Williams vs Lopez

3/6/2019 – Ideas and strategies in Grandmaster games can be quite instructive. IM Merijn van Delft presents games like these every Wednesday at 19:00 UTC (20:00 CET, 2 pm EST). On this week's show: Jasel Lopez win over Simon Williams from Round 2 of the Batavia tournament. The live show 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.

Tutorial CB 15: Finding critical moves (1)

3/6/2019 – Critical moves are, well, critical. They decide about win, loss or draw. To feel when a critical position arises is crucial to improve your game. ChessBase 15 helps you to find and to analyse these critical critical moments in your games or games by others – and to turn your findings into training questions which you save in a database with critical moves. | Drawing: ChessBase
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Golden Age of US Chess, for players ages 50 and older

3/6/2019 – A “golden age” for tournament players ages 50 and older has arrived in the United States. In the past three years, US Chess has authorized new tournaments and prizes restricted to seniors. However, women ages 50 and older have not been affected. That may change in March 2019, when US Chess begins grant applications for women’s chess programs. WIM ALEXEY ROOT explains... | Photo: Alex Yermolinsky (with Dmitry Gurevich)

Hou Yifan leads Oxford to victory over Cambridge

3/5/2019 – Hou Yifan played her first rated classical game since December, as she led her team from Oxford University to their third consecutive win over varsity rivals Cambridge. It was the first time the top-rated woman in the world participated, and the 137th such match overall. Cambridge clings to a tiny (and shrinking) lead of 59-56 wins (with 22 draws). Cambridge alumnus GM DANIEL FERNANDEZ takes a look at the games. | Pictured: Oxford's team Andrew Rogozinski (reserve), Daniel Abbas, Hou Yifan, Joris Gerlagh (captain), Benjamin Foo, Lisa Schut, Gordon Scott, Filip Mihov, Isaac Sanders | Photo: John Saunders

The Weekly Show: Batavia

3/5/2019 – IM Lawrence Trent brings you the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments every Tuesday at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, Noon EST). This week he looks at games from the ongoing 11th dMP Batavia Amsterdam Chess Tournament. Free to watch on-demand for a limited time with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.