7/12/2024 – The second season of the Global Chess League will be held at Friends House in London from 3 to 12 October 2024. The six "franchises" of the second edition of the tournament and the companies behind the teams were unveiled in a press release. | Photo: The Triveni Continental Kings, the winners of the Global Chess League 2023

7/12/2024 – It was announced today that Magnus Carlsen’s mother, Sigrun Øen, died on Monday after a long illness surrounded by her family. Sigrun Øen was a chemist, but gave up her profession after the birth of her children, and accompanied her son Magnus Carlsen together with her husband and daughters to numerous chess tournaments. Sigrun Øen was 61 years old.

7/12/2024 – Fabiano Caruana emerged as sole leader after rounds 4-6 were played on Thursday at the SuperUnited Tournament in Croatia. Wesley So, who grabbed 1 win and 2 draws for a second consecutive day, stands in sole second place, while a resurgent Gukesh is now tied for third with Alireza Firouzja and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

7/11/2024 – From 10th to 18th August 2024 Dortmund will host the Sparkassen Chess Trophy with the strong Sparkassen A-Open and a six-game duel between Elisabeth Pähtz and Dinara Wagner, who will fight for the title of Germany's best female player.

7/11/2024 – We all love the dragon for it's attacking play against the king on the queen-side. But how can one attack the king on the king-side? Chris Ward has not only an answer to that, but actually dives deep into the the psychology of king-side attacking, and how to actually get an advantage on the queen-side instead. Furthermore, the example game shows nicely how a material imbalance harmonizes against White. | Photo: John Upham

7/11/2024 – The first three rounds of rapid action at the SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz Tournament in Croatia saw Maxime Vachier-Lagrave scoring two wins and one draw to become the early sole leader in Zagreb. MVL defeated Levon Aronian and Ivan Saric in the first two rounds before holding a draw in a pawn-down endgame against Wesley So. Tied for second place at a 1-point distance (wins are worth 2 points in the rapid) are So and Fabiano Caruana. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

7/8/2024 – After six rounds, Iceland is leading the 50+ tournament at the World Senior Team Championship in Krakow. In the 65+ tournament, the Chess Club Strasbourg, with the Roos brothers, is in the lead. The French have so far only conceded one team point - against top favourites England. FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich opened the 6th round. | Photos: Mark Livshitz

7/8/2024 – Tigran Petrosian was a very conservative player. On the other hand he could see tactics and combinations far in advance, so he went about countering them before even his opponents smell anything! Chess trainer GM Efstratios Grivas has always told his students to study the games of the former World Champion and try to understand what he had seen and why he chose his moves. You too can learn from the great master.

7/8/2024 – In the 12th round of the Bangladesh Championship, 50-year-old GM Ziaur Rahman suffered a heart attack after his 25th move in his game against GM Enamul Hossein. He died before he could be taken to hospital. Rahman was Bangladesh's second grandmaster after GM Niaz Murshed, and he was also a 15-time national champion and represented Bangladesh in 17 Chess Olympiads. The sudden death of the popular grandmaster and coach caused consternation throughout the chess world. FIDE published an obituary. | Photo: FIDE/Madelene Belinki | Foto: FIDE/Madelene Belinki

7/7/2024 – Trapping the pieces of the opponent has a particular charm. When thinking back to the first days of ChessBase and looking at a game Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Alireza Firouzja recently played at the Superbet Classic in Bucharest, Jon Speelman (pictured) remembered a number of famous and entertaining games, in which pieces were caught. | Photo: David Llada

7/7/2024 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books on chess training and strategy. In the 185th episode of his ChessBase show "Understanding before moving" Herman continues his series "Chess history in a nutshell" and continues to look at the life and games of Garry Kasparov who many consider to be the best player of all time. | Photo: Pascal Simon

7/7/2024 – The new ChessBase Magazine #220 again provides plenty of ideas for your repertoire with ten opening articles, from the Reti Opening to the Jobava London System and the King's Indian! In his search for a weapon against the Semi-Slav (1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6), our author Yago Santiago came across the move 5.Qc2!? with which Matthias Bluebaum, among others, has achieved impressive results! The article in CBM #220 consists of an introductory text and nine extensively annotated games (with an outright 9:0 in favour of White!), including no less than five games by the German grandmaster. This week we invite you to take a look at the article with all our author's analyses as a free reading sample - directly via your web browser in ChessBase Books format.