6/22/2024 – GQ magazine is conducting a series of video portraits of celebrities in which they are asked to name their ten “essentials”. For the English striker Harry Kane, chess is one of them. The Queen’s Gambit series has inspired him, and he regularly plays online, with his family and the other Bayern professionals. Kane also revealed who the best Bayern professional in chess is — not him. | Photo: Video GQ

6/22/2024 – Nowadays, White's play from the diagram position is part of the standard repertoire of every attacker - though White has two promising options in the current position. Can you pick the right one?

6/22/2024 – Tan Zhongyi has a 1-point lead going into the final round of the Cairns Cup in Saint Louis. Alexandra Kosteniuk, who stood in sole second place before Friday’s eighth round, was defeated by Anna Muzychuk. This crucial result left five players tied for second place a full point behind the leader: Anna and Mariya Muzychuk, Kosteniuk, Nana Dzagnidze and Harika Dronavalli. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

6/22/2024 – The English Championships are taking place on June 20-23 at the Holiday Inn Kenilworth-Warwick in Kenilworth. Each event is a 7-round Swiss open. After 4 rounds, the open section has 5 players sharing the lead, including top seeds Michael Adams (pictured) and Gawain Jones. In the women’s tournament, defending champion Katarzyna Toma is the sole leader with a perfect 4/4 score. | Photo: English Chess Federation

6/21/2024 – Along with the usual puzzles, this week GM Daniel King takes a look at a recent game from Tan Zhongyi - the winner of the women's candidates - who demonstrates remarkable confidence in going for a kingside attack right from the outset. The strategy works perfectly as she demolishes her experienced opponent in just 20 moves. But Tan Zhongyi wasn't the first to execute this plan. | Power Play is on air most Fridays. Watch it on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer.

6/21/2024 – Four games ended decisively in round 7 of the Cairns Cup, with Tan Zhongyi keeping the lead thanks to a victory over Elisabeth Paehtz and Alexandra Kosteniuk climbing to sole second place after beating Anna Zatonskih. Nana Dzagnidze and Mariya Muzychuk also scored full points, and are now tied for third place with Harika Dronavalli, who barely escaped with a draw against Anna Muzychuk. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

6/18/2024 – FIDE has announced the venue for the 2024 World Rapid and Blitz Championships. The tournament will take place in New York in the last week of December this year. | Photo: FIDE

6/18/2024 – The new ChessBase Books series offers quick and easy access to all content: read, watch videos explaining the ideas, replay sample games, take tests. It's that easy to learn openings with the opening tutorial in CB Books format.

6/18/2024 – This rule by Dr. Tarrasch is a good guideline in rook endings - when supporting your own pawns and when fighting against enemy pawns. In the diagram position, which is from a game Nurgyul Salimova and Vaishali Rameshbhabu played at the Women's Candidates 2024, it is Black to move and win. What should she do?

6/18/2024 – Arjun Erigaisi won the 5th Stepan Avagyan Memorial in Jermuk, Armenia, with one round to spare. After 8 of 9 rounds he leads the field with 6.0/8 and is 1.5 points ahead of Samuel Sevian and Amin Tabatabaei who both have 4.5/8. The ninth and final round starts at 11.00 local time (9.00 CEST, 3.00 ET).

6/18/2024 – The Madrid Chess Festival came to an end on Saturday. Two 10-player closed tournaments and a 48-player Swiss open took place concurrently. The main event was won by Spanish IM Julio Suárez, who beat former sole leader Levy Rozman in their round-8 encounter. The Closed B tournament was won by Venezuelan FM Pedro Martínez. Argentine rising star, 10-year-old Faustino Oro (pictured), needed to score 5½ points to become the youngest IM in the history of the game, but missed the goal by a mere half point after finishing the tournament undefeated in sole third place. | Photo: chess.com / Federico Marín

6/17/2024 – Our beloved WIM from Canada picked up streaming chess games online a couple of months ago, and became a Twitch partner in no time. Thousands of chess friends are watching her, playing blitz and bullet games, or solving puzzles. Svitlana gained nearly 6000 followers, who she even plays against on stream, at times.