3/3/2025 – After almost twenty years, Rainer Knaak handed over his CBM column ‘Topical opening traps’ to Micheal Prusikin at the end of last year. With the new author, not only the face but also the concept of the section has changed: Michael Prusikin will regularly present three traps from a specific opening in video form in his articles. The current ChessBase Magazine #224 starts with three traps for White in the French Advance Variation. You can watch his first contribution to CBM with all three videos this week as a free sample directly in your web browser in the ChessBase Books format - enjoy!

3/3/2025 – Boris Spassky died last Thursday, 27 February 2025. An exceptionally fine obituary by Leonard Barden appeared in the Guardian the following day. At 95, Barden continues to write chess columns for The Guardian and Financial Times, demonstrating his enduring passion and expertise in the field. Chess historian Edward Winter likewise presents some excellent material on Spassky.

3/3/2025 – In his new Fast & Furious show, Robert Ris presents a game that might inspire you to pick up the Najdorf or confirm your belief in this opening: a model win by Danish Grandmaster Jonas Buhl Bjerre, played at the Challengers Tournament in Prague. | Fast & Furious is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

3/3/2025 – A trapped piece is a piece that has no escape squares or squares where it can safely move without being captured. Even ‘heavier’ pieces can become ensnared, as can minor pieces. Today GM and International Trainer Efstratios Grivas shows us what can happen to such pieces if you are not careful. Annotated games.

3/2/2025 – The 2025 Grand Chess Tour marks its 10th anniversary with a record $1.6 million prize fund and the return of the GCT Finals - held for the first time in South America, in São Paulo. Featuring an elite field, including world champion Gukesh Dommaraju and past GCT winners, the tour will span classical and rapid and blitz events across multiple cities. With legendary support from the Saint Louis Chess Club and Superbet Foundation, this milestone edition promises thrilling battles at the highest level of chess.

3/2/2025 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books on chess training and strategy. In episode 219 of his "Understanding before Moving" show Herman looks at the career of Peter Leko. | Photo: Pascal Simon

3/2/2025 – When you work with a programme on a regular basis, you should make that work as pleasant as possible. ChessBase 18 offers endless possibilities - and that goes for the look too. Make your workspace individual and pleasant. In part 4 of our new series of tutorials we will show you how easy it is to design your individual notation so that analysing with it is a maximum pleasure.

3/2/2025 – Vincent Keymer continues to go all-in at the Masters section of the Chess Festival in Prague: the German went for an attack against Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, and lost. As a result, Pragg caught up with his compatriot Aravindh Chithambaram in the lead. Meanwhile, Wei Yi bounced back from his loss on Friday with a win over David Navara. | Photo: Petr Vrabec

3/1/2025 – A loud machine, an empty battery - that's the usual result when powerful chess engines perform deep analysis on a notebook. A tough test for the hardware. With the ChessBase Engine Cloud you avoid these problems and have access to powerful computers that do the calculations for you. We present two of our remote engine providers, where you can rent top performance for ducats. | Photos: Ranch Computing / Rechenschieber

3/1/2025 – After laying the foundation in Volume 1, it's time to dive deeper into key strategic concepts that will elevate your middlegame play. But don't expect long theoretical explanations - this course is all about active learning!

3/1/2025 – In view of the double attack against Bc5 and Rh1, White needs a good idea in the diagram position. Anything up your sleeve?

3/1/2025 – Aravindh Chithambaran grabbed a second win in a row to grab the sole lead at the Masters section of the Prague Chess Festival. Meanwhile, Vincent Keymer continues to play all or nothing - after his round-one win against Wei Yi, he lost to Aravindh, and has now defeated Sam Shankland with black. The third decisive game of the day in the Masters saw Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu beating Thai Dai Van Nguyen. | Photo: Petr Vrabec