9/14/2024 – The third round of the Women's Chess Olympiad in Budapest delivered excitement and surprises, with both upsets and closely fought draws reshaping the tournament landscape. The mix of expected results and surprises left 16 teams tied sharing the lead, all with perfect scores of 6/6. The biggest upset was suffered by the local squad, as Hungary were defeated by Uzbekistan. | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza

9/13/2024 – One of the many attractions of chess Olympiads is the clash between top players in top teams and amateur players who take part out of enthusiasm and often at their own expense. ChessBase introduces some of these teams and follows their progress and adventures in Budapest.

9/13/2024 – Most of the top-seeded teams grabbed a second consecutive match victory on the second day of action at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest. There were, however, three top-20 squads which were held to draws by lower-rated opposition: Norway (with Magnus Carlsen sitting out), the Czech Republic and Israel. They drew against Canada (seeded 50th), Mongolia (63rd) and Ireland (64th). A number of elite GMs, including World Championship contenders Ding Liren and D. Gukesh, started their Olympic campaigns on Thursday. | Pictured: Munkhdalai Amilal (Mongolia) v. Jan Vikouk (Czechia) | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza

9/13/2024 – The second round of the Women's Chess Olympiad saw most matches ending with expected victories for the tournament's rating favourites. In terms of team results, the biggest upset of the round took place on board 36, where Singapore (the 77th seeds) stunned Latvia (36th) with a 2½-1½ victory. There were also surprises on a few individual boards, as the margin for error narrows in Budapest. | Photo: FIDE / Maria Emelianova

9/12/2024 – Technology has been evolving by leaps and bounds most especially in the last couple of years with the advent of image generating AIs and of course ChatGPT and its numerous rivals. We decided to ask the AIs to help produce some images in homage to the Chess Olympiad in Budapest, and as you can see here, some creative and entertaining results ensued. Read on to learn more!

9/12/2024 – In his new Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft shows an amazing game, in which Daniil Dubov again demonstrated that he is one of the most creative players in the world. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

9/12/2024 – Imagine you are playing with your national team in an important team event. It is just before the first round and the tension is building. Suddenly, a man pretending to be a journalist comes up to you and asks you some crazy questions. How do you react?

9/12/2024 – Deutsche Welle is a German public international broadcaster that produces news and information to a global audience in 30 languages. This week they had an article on the domination of a new generation of young Asian superstars in chess. The favourites at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest, according to DW, are China, India and Uzbekistan. Only the US have a chance to compete with them.

9/12/2024 – Obviously, Alireza Firouzja cannot be considered an Underdog, right? But who would have guessed that he could play so brilliantly against one of the best players in the world with the Black pieces? Fabiano Caruana is still considered one of the best prepared players ever, and just like Magnus Carlsen, can rarely be beaten, when leading the White pieces. Robert Ris presents an unusual Underdog, which can rise back to his "overdog" status, end of 2021!

9/12/2024 – FIDE and the Singapore Chess Federation have announced that search giant Google is the Title Sponsor of the FIDE World Chess Championship in Singapore, which takes place at Resorts World Sentosa in November. This is the first time the World Championship has been sponsored by a global technology leader. Congratulations to FIDE for arranging this groundbreaking sponsorship.

9/12/2024 – The 45th edition of the Chess Olympiad kicked off on Wednesday in Budapest. Out of the 197 teams that registered to participate in the open, 20 were unable to play in the first round, most likely due to visa issues. The many matches that did take place saw rating favourites prevailing without much difficulty. A few elite GMs, however, escaped with draws or swindled their way into wins after misplaying positions against lower-rated opponents. | Pictured: Wafia Al Maamari from the United Arab Emirates | Photo: FIDE / Mark Livshitz

9/11/2024 – In the early rounds of the major international team tournaments, the top teams will play against nominally weaker teams in the middle of the seedings. However, it is important to get off to the best possible start in order to build up a good position for the next rounds and to build up spirit. Team USA, the number one seed, plays against Panama, India faces Morocco and China has to overcome the Dominican Republic.