6/7/2024 – The 12th edition of the Norway Chess super-tournament is taking place from May 27 to June 7 in Stavanger. An open event and a women’s event are being played concurrently with an identical number of players, the same format and an equivalent prize fund. Both world champions — Ju Wenjun and Ding Liren — are participating, besides world number one Magnus Carlsen. | Follow the games live starting at 17.00 CEST (11.00 ET, 20.30 IST)

6/7/2024 – There are many interesting repertoire suggestions in the Opening Encyclopaedia. You'll have to try them out for yourself to see if they suit you! The best way to do this is to play against Fritz19 using the “Play against database book” function, i.e. you can load databases, games for opening articles and opening analyses directly as an opening book and play against them. Fritz 19 not only displays the very informative articles of the encyclopaedia, with Fritz you can explore the repertoire suggestions in a playful way, against different types of players! See for yourself how you can test Robert Ris' recommendation for the Max Lange Attack in the Two Knights with just a few mouse clicks using Fritz 19.

6/7/2024 – After nine rounds no less than five players finished first with 7.0/9 each at the Chess Festival in Munich: Vladimir Fedoseev, Giga Quparadze, Dmitrij Kollars, Pavel Eljanov and Frederik Svane. Fedoseev, who started the tournament as the number one seed, had the best tiebreak. | Photo: Fedoseev (left, with White) against Kollars | Photo: Katharina Reinecke/German Chess Federation

6/7/2024 – Bodhana Sivanandan is another name on the list of super talents, which you should keep in the back of your head. The 9-year-old girl, playing for England, beat WIM Mariam Mkrtchyan from Armenia. Roughly 300 Elo points, and 10 years of age, separated the two players. Robert Ris shows us how this happened.

6/7/2024 – Lei Tingjie scored a crucial classical win in round 9 of the Norway Chess Women event, as she defeated R Vaishali with white to remain in contention for tournament victory. Lei is now tied for second place with Anna Muzychuk, 1½ points behind sole leader Ju Wenjun. Ju and Lei are set to face each other in Friday’s final round. Meanwhile, Muzychuk will play white against Humpy Koneru. | Photo: Stev Bonhage / Norway Chess

6/7/2024 – Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren and Fabiano Caruana all won their round-9 encounters in Armageddon at the Norway Chess super-tournament in Stavanger. Carlsen, who defeated Alireza Firouzja, now leads Hikaru Nakamura (who lost to Ding) by 1½ points. In Friday’s final round, Carlsen will face Caruana with white, while Nakamura will play black against R Praggnanandhaa, who still has an outside chance of winning the event. | Photo: Stev Bonhage / Norway Chess

6/6/2024 – In his new Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft looks at the Magnus Carlsen vs Ding Liren from the Norway Chess Tournament. Though it had a shocking finish, it was strategically interesting. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

6/6/2024 – Three wonderful features are presented in the game, which Chris Ward has chosen for us. Interestingly, he found a game, in which "The ChessNerd" streamer Max Weidenhoefer lost against the Sicilian. In this particular game, a variation of the Dragadorf is used, in which the King stays in the centre for quite some time. And that can be excellent, at times! Chris explains it all in the video. | Photo: John Upham

6/6/2024 – The World Chess Federation has introduced a new qualification route for the Candidates Tournament in the form of the FIDE Circuit. The best player of the Circuit will play in the next Candidates Tournament. Arjun Erigaisi is currently at the top of the list. His victory at the Sharjah Masters allowed him to leapfrog Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who had previously been in the lead.

6/6/2024 – 15-year-old Banh Gia Huy is only a FIDE Master with a rating of 2384 but already has two IM-norms and is the sensational winner of the Vietnam Championship. Huy will therefore be a member of the Vietnam team at the 45th Budapest Olympiad in September this year, joining the likes of GMs Le Quang Liem, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, and Tran Tuan Minh. Peter Long knows more about this exceptional talent. | Photos: Peter Long

6/6/2024 – The Sicilian Defence is one of the most popular and sharpest replies to 1.e4. After 1.e4 c5, an exciting, unbalanced position is assured, where Black can play for a win from the very start of the game. The Open Sicilian describes all variations where White plays an early d2-d4.

6/5/2024 – Two classical games ended decisively in round 8 of the Norway Chess Women tournament, with Ju Wenjun beating Pia Cramling and Lei Tingjie beating Humpy Koneru, both with the white pieces. The remaining encounter saw R Vaishali prevailing in Armageddon against former sole leader Anna Muzychuk. These results left Ju in the sole lead, 1½ points ahead of Muzychuk. | Photo: Stev Bonhage / Norway Chess