10/24/2016 – Held in St. Louis, Missouri, the 2016 SPICE Cup was held from Oct 17-22 with a strong and attractive field of players that included Le Quang Liem (2723 FIDE) as top seed, as well as a number of GMs and top US juniors such as Jeffery Xiong, Samuel Sevian, and more. The event saw a strong fight right to the end when Sevian and Robson were left equal first which was decided by a tiebreak game won by Sevian. Report, photos, and games.

10/24/2016 – Abhijeet Gupta won the 2016 Hoogeveen Open after scoring a comfortable 7.5/9. Lalith Babu, who had been leading with Gupta after seven rounds suffered an unfortunate accident to end on the third spot. Sandipan Chanda jumped in with a strong finish to take the runners up position. Lucas van Foreest performed excellently and ended on the fifth spot. The matches saw vistories by both Short and Sokolov respectively. We have pictures, tactics, stories and much more – in our final report from the Hoogeveen Festival 2016.

10/23/2016 – … in the Women’s event at least. The men’s competition is now led by six players out of twelve on plus one after a full seven rounds with a massive 76% draws. It is milkmaid chess at its best. The women on the other hand have shown who is wearing the pants in the event as they go all-out at each other every round setting an example of combativeness. Nevertheless, it hasn't all been the chess equivalent of watching paint dry as there has also been a fair share of fascinating positions.

10/22/2016 – The recently finished Isle of Man tournament was one more piece of evidence of how much the professional chess landscape has changed. No longer can one describe Opens as events a top player will shun, and the Isle of Man was one of those 'super' opens where one might find the world's elite playing just a table or two away, toiling at the board no different than the rest of us. Bringing us this retrospective is Alina L'Ami with her photos and comments.

10/21/2016 – He calls it "one of the most romantic of all openings", one you can play with white when you go 1.e4. Savielly Tartakower said that this attacking opening was invented to make men understand that chess is a gift from the gods. You cannot get higher praise than that. Or a better teacher than GM Simon Williams, whose aggressive style has brought down a number of top-class opponents (like Carlsen and Gelfand). His latest DVD has 4½ hours of gripping video.

10/21/2016 – A traditional chess tournament in Netherlands has 81 players competing in the Open section. Thirteen of them are Indians, and aftere seven rounds seven of these Indians are sitting pretty on top-ten. GMs Abhijeet Gupta and Lalith Babu are both performing remarkably at over 2800, and lead the remaining field by at least one point. We have beautiful pictures and remarkable positions from the games – with some tactics for you to solve.

10/16/2016 – "I have always been hooked on the game’s history," writes IM Craig Pritchett, a leading Steinitz authority, in the British magazine CHESS. In part one he took our readers through the history of the game’s so-called ‘Romantic Age’. In this second part Craig expands on Steinitz’s more nuanced, strategically based chess understanding and primacy, and the ways in which his greatest games and writings substantively helped move chess forward towards a radically new and long-lasting, early ‘modernity’.

10/15/2016 – On Oct 5, the "Blue Arrow Training Cup" 2016 Chinese Chess Master Mixed Pairs Tournament was held in the Shanghai Haiwan National Forest Park. Eight of China's chess stars, four female players and four male players, participated in the double round-robin competition, including former Women World Champion Xie Jun and Xu Yuhua, the first Asian WGM Liu Shilan, GM Ju Wenjun, GM Ye Jiangchuan, GM Xu Jun, GM Yu Shaoteng and GM Ni Hua. This fun event had teams of two alternating moves in a showdown of stars.

10/15/2016 – The first round of this prestigeous tournament begin on Sunday. It has a very stong Open, and two amateur groups. But of greatest interest are the Hoogeveen Matches that pit Women's World Champion Hou Yifan against former WCh Challenger Nigel Short, and young Dutch star Jorden van Foreest against Ivan Sokolov. Earlier this week, on her way to Holland, Yifan was in Hamburg and visited ChessBase. Big illustrated report by Frederic Friedel.

10/14/2016 – In the chess world, Dr. Kenneth A. “Ken” Kiewra was initially known as the father of IM Keaton Kiewra. He raised Keaton in Lincoln, Nebraska, where Keaton dominated chess, winning the Nebraska State Championship nine times in a row. As Keaton’s rating soared, Ken became interested in whether his parenting experience with Keaton was unique. His research into chess prodigies and their parents led to chapters in two books and an article in a peer-reviewed journal. Alexey Root asks Ken about his experience nurturing chess talent.

10/14/2016 – It had really seemed ‘written in the stars’ as Gawain Jones had managed to combine strong play with exceptional good fortune to reach the knockout phase unscathed. He then overcame Zhou Jiangchao to meet Polish player Darius Swiercz, but that is when everything went wrong, and in a dramatic final he lost. There was no shortage of big winners though, as every section saw players leaving off with big paychecks. Jeffery Xiong also became the youngest ever American player in the Top 100.

10/14/2016 – Tactics can seem deceptively simple, particularly when seeing an engine analysing grandmaster games. Strange, however, how difficult it is to find the right move and to calculate variations properly when playing yourself. It is easier if you solve tactical puzzles regularly. In the ChessBase Magazine and his tactics column Oliver Reeh helps you to do so.