6/6/2025 – From 10 to 16 June, London will host the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships, now in its third edition. With 55 teams, top grandmasters, and an expanded format including a new Blitz tournament, it promises to be one of the largest chess events ever held in the city. Notably, many teams feature rising stars, including 9-year-old Sarbartho Mani and 10-year-old Roman Shogdzhiev, reflecting a generational shift in competitive chess.

6/6/2025 – In the latest episode of his Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft presents the encounter between Hikaru Nakamura and World Champion Gukesh from the Norway Chess Tournament. Nakamura achieved a convincing victory through strong play. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

6/6/2025 – All three classical games ended decisively in round nine of the Norway Chess Women tournament, leading to a major shift at the top of the standings. Anna Muzychuk defeated defending champion Ju Wenjun to overtake Humpy Koneru, who lost to Lei Tingjie after misplaying a winning position. Sara Khadem also prevailed in her game against Vaishali Rameshbabu. With one round to go, Muzychuk holds a two-point lead going into her final game with the white pieces. | Photo: Michal Walusza

6/6/2025 – Magnus Carlsen and Gukesh Dommaraju emerged as the key winners in round nine of the Norway Chess tournament, both scoring classical victories to take the top two spots in the standings ahead of the final round. Carlsen now leads on 15 points, half a point ahead of Gukesh, with Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana still with outside chances of emerging victorious in Stavanger. The decisive round will see both frontrunners playing with the black pieces. | Photo: Michal Walusza

6/5/2025 – Aleksey Grebnev won this year’s Dubai Open on tiebreak. French Grandmaster Alan Pichot scored the same number of points but finished second. Rating favorite Nihal Sarin had to settle for sixth place after losing to Ivan Zemlyanskii in the seventh round. | Photos: Dubai Chess & Culture Club

6/5/2025 – This year, Valencia is celebrating the 550th anniversary of the birth of modern chess. The date of birth is considered to be 15 May 1475, when the book by Francesch Vicent, who came from Segorbe, was printed in Valencia. For this reason, 15 May has now been declared Chess Day in Valencia. Viswanathan Anand was the guest of honour at the celebrations.

6/5/2025 – Welcome to The Initiative – a show dedicated to the relentless battle for momentum in chess! In every game, players fight to seize control, dictate the pace, and keep their opponent on the back foot. But what does it really mean to have the initiative? How do the world’s best players maintain pressure and transform small advantages into crushing attacks?

6/5/2025 – What was the chess world like, 32 years ago? How many players were there, how strong were they, how many were grandmasters? In 1993 the newly founded Professional Chess Association, seeking to win Intel as its main sponsor, commissioned the collection of statistics. Today we look at the results, and ask you to comment on the numbers you see. The follow-up article will compare them with those of the current chess world.

6/4/2025 – Nach Weissenhaus und Paris ist das Wynn in Las Vegas die dritte Station der Freestyle Grand Slam Tour. Am 13. Juli spielen ehemalige NBA-Spieler im einem K.o.-Schachturnier gegeneinander. Vom 16. bis 20. Juli wird das Freestyle-Turnier der Schachprofis gespielt. Wer vor Ort dabei sein möchte, kann jetzt schon Tickets ab 90 US-Dollar.

6/4/2025 – The conversation with Matthias Wüllenweber about Fritz 20 highlights the numerous innovations in the new version: A key focus is on the new opponent characters, including legends like Fischer, Lasker, Capablanca, and Karpov. Another highlight is the AI-powered voice commentary, featuring over 170 chess-related themes that provide both entertainment and educational value—available in multiple languages if desired. In addition, the opening repertoires of real chess legends like Fischer have been integrated, and the new "Bullet Training" mode offers practical time-management training against realistically acting opponents. The newly improved engine is also a major upgrade and presents an independent analysis alternative to Stockfish.

6/4/2025 – Tuesday's eighth round at the Norway Chess tournament saw setbacks for Fabiano Caruana and Gukesh Dommaraju, who both lost their classical games to Arjun Erigaisi and Hikaru Nakamura, respectively. Magnus Carlsen, meanwhile, was defeated by Wei Yi in Armageddon for a second time. Despite the loss, Caruana remains the sole leader with two rounds to go, holding a slim lead in a tightly contested event entering its final stretch in Stavanger. | Photo: Michal Walusza

6/4/2025 – Last year FIDE celebrated its 100th anniversary. The book "100 Years of FIDE" is an illustrated history of the World Chess Federation. From it we excerpt passages, with kind permission, this time from the first World Championships in the post-war era – after the sudden death of World Champion Alexander Alekhine. It is a great chance to brush up your knowledge of chess history.