4/10/2017 – At the age of just twelve years and eight months, exactly the same as Magnus Carlsen, Nihal Sarin became a full IM, one of the three youngest in the world. This remarkable young chess talent from the southern Indian state of Kerala last week visited us in Hamburg, deeply impressing all and sundry in the ChessBase office. The idea was for him to get instructions in the optimum use of our software, and a little bit of GM training on the side. The only question was who learned what from whom?

4/10/2017 – While the men's event will need to wait for the playoff on Monday to decide between Wesley So and Alexander Onischuk, the US Women's championship ended in a fairy tale win for Sabina Foisor. Both she and Nazi Paikidze were tied for the lead, but while Paikidze succumbed to Jennifer Yu, Sabina Foisor ended her incredible campaign with a spectacular queen sacrifice to mate her opponent and win the championship! Report and analysis by Alex Yermolinsky | All photos by Lennart Ootes

4/9/2017 – Round ten of US championship saw a strange turn of event in both groups: in the open section Alexander Onischuk got the better of out-of-shape world junior champion Jeffery Xiong to join Akobian and Wesley So to tie for first. With a three-way tie the players will feel a lot of heat going into the last round. In the meantime, both Nazi Paikidze and Sabina Foisor lead the women’s event. Illustrated report by Elshan Moradiabadi.

4/9/2017 – This week’s pair of games are by Simon Knight, an Englishman who was born and brought up in England, but then married a Mexican and has lived there since 1994. Simon sent in two games from Gibraltar and the Mexican Open. His Agony game contains "one of my all-time worst nightmares turning a completely won position into a horrible loss and sending me out of contention for any possible prize." Jonathan Speelman dissects the submitted games.

4/8/2017 – ...the harder they fall. And what a crazy crazy round it was! Wesley So had the most comfortable game of the Big Three, as Jeffery Xiong played right into his preparation and got stomped. Nakamura was jonesing to grab his chance, but pushed too hard against Onischuk and it backfired. Still, the shocker was Caruana, who was crushing co-leader Akobian, and after losing all his advantage, he then blundered and lost! Illustrated report by Alex Yermolinsky.

4/8/2017 – Game three of the match between Hou Yifan and Vassily Ivanchuk ended in a draw in 19 moves… but what a draw! It would be a mistake to skip this short but intense battle of theoretical importance and covered with tactical veneer. If all short draws were like this, no one would ever complain. Report and analysis.

4/7/2017 – As we reach the final rounds, the 2017 edition of US championship is becoming more and more tenacious. With three rounds to go, the previous leaders were both joined by others. Wesley So drew Nakamura and was joined by Varuzhan Akobian who beat Zherebukh in a brilliant game, while Nazi Paikidze drew Feng and was joined by Sabina Foisor who won her 5th game with white! Report and analyses by GM Elshan Moradiabadi.

4/7/2017 – For a long time the London System (White plays d4, Nf3, Bf4 etc.) enjoyed the reputation of being solid but dull and boring. But World Champion Magnus Carlsen and a lot of other players have discovered the possibilities of White's set-up. On his new DVD Simon Williams shows the many advantages of 2.Bf4, looking first of all at lines that are "simple but aggressive".

4/7/2017 – Bobby Fischer's reclusiveness was legendary. But in 1971, before his Candidates Match against Tigran Petrosian, he was a guest of talkshow legend Dick Cavett. In 2008 a video of this show appeared on YouTube and by now it has more than a million views. Less known is the fact that Fischer appeared a second time on the Dick Cavett Show, this time before his match against Spassky. A video of this show was just published on YouTube.

4/7/2017 – He has written extensively about Chesthetica, an automatic and computationally creative composer of chess problems, in the past, and now would like to update interested readers and artificial intelligence (AI) researchers about a new feature he has implemented into the program. Dr Azlan Iqbal, who has a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence, thinks that his program could abide by all the requirements of a good, traditional chess problem, given a year’s additional work customizing the code.

4/7/2017 – Elegant tactical strikes to cap off positional play were a speciality of the third World Champion José Raúl Capablanca - definitely worth emulating! Can you see such a little combination in the diagram which gives White a clear advantage?

4/7/2017 – Vassily Ivanchuk took the lead by winning game two in the “MEWE Cup” 2017 World Champion Summit Chess Match, which is ongoing in Shenzhen, China. Hou Yifan had white, and proceeded to try to put pressure, but instead she was the one who felt the heat, and in a game full of swings, committed the crucial blunder on move 37.