10/20/2025 – The European Club Cup continued in Rhodes with the favourites showing no signs of slowing down. After two rounds, all leading teams in both the open and women's sections remain unbeaten, setting the stage for decisive clashes in the coming days. Alkaloid and Paul Keres #1 lead the open standings with strong individual performances, while in the women's competition, Sirmium Sremska Mitrovica's flawless 8/8 start keeps them ahead of Monte Carlo (pictured), Turkish Airlines, SuperChess and Tajfun Ljubljana. | Photo: Patricia Claros

10/20/2025 – Can you imagine writing about rising chess stars who are up to 86 years younger than you? The indefatigable Leonard Barden, who at 96 still fills his weekly London Guardian column, has been keenly following the youngest talents, players between ten and sixteen playing at GM levels. If you want to keep up-to-date on some mind-boggling developments in the game, it is definitely advisable to put Fridays on your schedule to read what Barden has to say.

10/20/2025 – In October and November 2000, the World Championship match between Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik took place in London under unusual circumstances. With the rediscovered Berlin Defence, Kramnik neutralised Kasparov’s attacking power and became the 14th world champion. A look back. | Photo: Ben Bartels

10/20/2025 – Round seven of the US Chess Championships unfolded like a day of redemption and resolve. Fabiano Caruana struck back with a fierce kingside attack to defeat Hans Niemann, a day after missing a winning blow, while Wesley So calmly ended Andy Woodward's hot streak to stay level with Caruana atop the standings. In the women's Championship, Alice Lee edged ahead by outlasting Atousa Pourkashiyan, while Anna Sargsyan bounced back from two consecutive losses with a win over Thalia Cervantes. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

10/20/2025 – Gerd Densing, captain of the Luxembourg club De Sprenger Echternach, attended the opening ceremony of the European Club Cup at the Grand Master's Castle on Rhodes. In his photo report, he shares impressions. | Photos: Gerd Densing

10/20/2025 – Karsten shows 2 recent endgames from Samarkand. | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

10/17/2025 – Take a look at this position. In order to have any winning chances, White must clearly move his rook. There are nine squares it can safely occupy, but only one retains the win. Can you find it? Today we have four problems that will challenge your endgame skills. Try to solve them by moving pieces on our interactive diagrams. The video solutions will be provided in a week.

10/16/2025 – Wilhelm Steinitz, born in Prague in 1836, is regarded as the first official World Chess Champion after winning the historic 1886 match against Johannes Zukertort. He founded modern chess theory by replacing romantic, attacking chess with strategic and positional thinking, formulating numerous principles that still shape the game today. The Master Class, featuring four international experts, presents his most important openings, strategic ideas, endgames, and combinations through engaging video lessons.

10/16/2025 – Hans Niemann was the sole winner in Round 4 of the Open section at this year’s U.S. Championships. Playing Black, he defeated Sam Shankland to move into a tie for second place with defending champion Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian, half a point behind leader Wesley So, who drew his game against Abhimanyu Mishra. In the Women’s Championship, by contrast, five players scored victories. With second-placed Alice Lee drawing against defending champion Carissa Yip, leader Anna Sargsyan extended her lead to a full point thanks to her win over Megan Paragua. Thursday is a rest day in St. Louis. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / St. Louis Chess Club

10/16/2025 – In the diagram position, Black found a brilliant way to give his attackers access to the white king h1. Please copy!

10/16/2025 – Richard Rapport had the best individual result at the European Team Chess Championship in Batumi. Playing on board 1 for Hungary, he scored 5.5 points from 7 games and had a performance rating of 2869, the highest of all players in Batumi. In the final round, he won a nice and theoretically interesting game against Maksim Chigaev. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archiv)

10/15/2025 – The European Team Championship was exciting from start to finish and in the end the well deserved winner was Ukraine. Their top scorer Igor Kovalenko has a very impressive life story, having served at the front lines of the war for 2.5 years and now returning to top level chess. Our Game of the Week is his positional masterpiece from the important seventh round encounter against the Netherlands, in which he outplayed Loek van Wely with a very creative manoeuvre. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.