7/30/2119 – From July 20th to the 31st, the Swiss watch metropolis of Biel/Bienne will once again be a focus of chess activity in Europe. The festival features many interesting and young players as well as a new format that combines rapid, classical and blitz chess. Vidit won again with Black adding to his immpressive run. Shankland is second. Live games and commentary from 12:00 UTC (14:00 CEST / 8:00 AM EDT).

6/4/2020 – The preparations for the 53rd International Chess festival Biel continue and take into account the Corona requirements. In a press release the organisers said that they are preparing for the key event, the Grandmaster Tournament (GMT), a main tournament (C-HTO) and a youth tournament, including Swiss championships. However, some tournaments and events including the Master Open (MTO) will be cancelled. | Photo: Biel International Chess Festival 2019

4/13/2020 – ChessBase offers a window to the world of professional chess. The current issue offers a bird’s eye view of three major events, Jerusalem Grand Prix, London Grand Chess Tour and Wijk aan Zee 2020, including 1249 games, 11 opening surveys, demo lectures and exercises for training. Games annotated by Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Romain Edouard, David Navara, Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Igor Stohl, Jorden van Foreest and Peter Heine Nielsen, to mention a few. PROF. NAGESH HAVANUR takes a look. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

3/1/2020 – There will be plenty of action to keep chess enthusiasts entertained in March. The month will kick off with the third leg of the Women's Grand Prix in Lausanne, and four days after that event comes to an end the long-awaited Candidates Tournament will begin in Yekaterinburg. Team tournaments (Nutcracker and Senior Teams), strong opens (HD Bank and Dubai) and a couple of invitational events in Saint Louis will serve as first-rate complements. | You'll find all of these events and more covered in our live games broadcast area Live.ChessBase.com and we'll also be providing News coverage.

8/2/2020 – The virus is not gone, but here and there chess players have ventured out of domestic isolation and played a few games “over the board”. The International Chess Festival in Biel/Bienne only ended a few days ago. The changes in the world ratings list published by FIDE on August 1st compared to the one published on April 1st are nevertheless still minimal - but they do exist! Pentala Harikrishna [pictured] gained 13 points, while Alexander Donchenko is now the higest-rated German player. | Photo: Simon Bohnenblust

7/1/2020 – The International Chess Federation just announced the FIDE Online Olympiad 2020. The international team event, in which all federations affiliated to FIDE, have the right to participate will be held between July 22nd and August 30th, 2020.

7/18/2020 – International Chess Day will be celebrated next week, on July 20th, a date that also marks FIDE’s 96th anniversary. The International Chess Federation has a simple but ambitious plan: we want to make an appeal to the members of our chess community and ask you to teach someone how to play chess to mark this day.

4/19/2020 – Want to know an expert statistical opinion about which FIDE-strength players you should avoid facing? The Elo system is supposed to be fair toward players of all strengths, but Jeff Sonas sees major problems with the current state of the FIDE Elo rating pool, and it's getting worse each year. It will take multiple articles to walk you through the analysis, but here is chapter one of the story.

7/21/2020 – The virtual meeting between the United Nations and FIDE on the occasion of the International Chess Day was held on July 20. Top chess personalities and representatives of the U.N. gathered to exchange views and insights to strengthen the productive collaboration. Top chess grandmasters present at the meeting, Viswanathan Anand, Hou Yifan, Vladimir Kramnik and Levon Aronian, shared the valuable insights into the abilities and life lessons that chess taught them.

7/17/2020 – To celebrate the International Chess Day, on 20 July (10:00-12:00 EST), top chess personalities, including the FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich (pictured), Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, and Hou Yifan, will take part in a high-level virtual event - "Chess for Recovering Better".

6/30/2020 – In an interview with the Russian news agency TASS, FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich has announced that the match for the World Chess Championship will be postponed until 2021. Originally it was supposed to take place in Dubai at the end of the year. | Photo: FIDE/ Alexander Scherbak (TASS)

3/26/2020 – The Candidates Tournament is postponed! In a statement from March 26, 8:42, the FIDE announced that the "FIDE President decided to stop the tournament. It will be continued later, with the exact dates to be announced as soon. ... The results of the 7 rounds played remain valid, and the tournament will be resumed in the same composition starting with the games of the 8th round."

5/16/2020 – Online chess has become very popular in the last couple of years and more and more people participate and try to win games and achieve a higher rating. Rating matters so much that it can turn into an obsession. Ratings appear to represent the value of the person. We take a closer look at how the ego can become the curse of the rating system and how we feel about it.

5/15/2020 – Would you like to learn the art of chess training from the Russian national team coach, or from the coach of the former Women's World Champion? Or would you like to learn from a former World No. 3? How about all of them? Wouldn't it be too expensive? No! From 29th to 31st of May 2020 you can do it, online. The seminar is open to trainers, and players (!), world-wide. A great opportunity.

5/1/2020 – The lockdowns prompted by the coronavirus outbreak have created a sense of timelessness for those staying at home day in and day out. Time does go on, however, and FIDE continues to update the ratings lists every first day of the month. We will keep sharing the lists as they are published.

4/23/2020 – In a press release the International Chess Federation FIDE and Chess.com just announced the Online Nations Cup, a team competition held May 5-10, 2020. Six teams are due to take part in this competition: Russia, USA, Europe, China, India, plus a team representing the "Rest of the World." Garry Kasparov will be the captain for the European team, Vishy Anand will defend the first board of the Indian team.

4/29/2020 – Covid-19 has changed the world of chess drastically. All over-the-board tournaments have been cancelled and the action has shifted to the online format of the game. But what is FIDE's online policy for the next few months? ChessBase India got in touch with FIDE Director General Emil Sutovsky for an exclusive interview about the current situation and FIDE's response to it, the Candidates Tournament 2020, the Radjabov conundrum, the World Championship Match 2020, and much more.

3/30/2020 – French Grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who jointly leads the now suspended 2020 Candidates is back in Paris. After an eventful fortnight, that included a surprise call to the event, the consequent last-minute scramble for a visa, an impressive performance at the tournament and returning home after passing through an empty airport. In an exclusive interview with Dhananjay Khadilkar, MVL, as he is popularly known, speaks about his surreal experience. | Photos: Lennart Ootes/FIDE

3/25/2020 – Originally, the 44. Chess Olympiad was scheduled to take place from 5-17 August 2020 in Moscow and Khanty-Mansiysk. But yesterday, 24 March, the FIDE declared in a statement that it decided to postpone the Olympiad "to the summer of 2021 at the same locations".

11/19/2119 – When Magnus Carlsen decides to leave the Norwegian Chess Federation or gives interviews in Norway or plays for his new club in Norway's second league it is usually Tarjei Svensen who shares the news with the world, via his twitter account @TarjeiJS, which has thousands of ardent followers. STEFAN LOEFFLER spoke with the Norwegian chess journalist about Carlsen, chess in Norway and his wish to be always up-to-date. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

9/22/2119 – The 2019-2020 FIDE Women's Grand Prix, part of the Women's World Championship cycle, takes place in Skolkovo, a business centre in Moscow also known as the Russian Silicon Valley. Twelve players are competing in the first of four single round-robin events that will grant two spots at the next Women's Candidates Tournament. In the final round, Humpy Koneru earned the final half point needed to clinch victory ahead of Ju Wenjun. | Photo: Official site

8/13/2020 – How far away are you from the World Champion, in terms of handshakes, we asked our readers? At least one traced his handshake route all the way back to Philidor. Now we have a new challenge: have you beaten someone who has beaten someone who has beaten a World Champion? Prof. Christian Hesse describes the idea. You are invited to participate.

6/15/2020 – The final match of the Clutch Chess International was as exciting as can be! Out of the last six games, five were decisive, with Magnus Carlsen getting a clutch win in game 12 to defeat Fabiano Caruana. Caruana only needed a draw in the last encounter to win the event, as he came from scoring an impressive victory in the previous clutch game, but it was not meant to be. Carlsen bagged US$ 75,000 for his efforts. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

8/4/2020 – After sensationally winning the Interzonal Tournament 1962 in Stockholm Bobby Fischer travelled to Copenhagen to play a TV exhibition game against Bent Larsen - which was relatively easy - and a simul against 41 Danish players - which was difficult. Tom Skovgaard knows more. | Photo: Jørgen Hvenekilde

7/29/2020 – Bobby Fischer obtained an astounding 18½ out of 23 score to win the 1970 Interzonal Tournament in Palma de Mallorca. In round 5, the American genius defeated Vlastimil Hort with black in an opposite-coloured bishops endgame, but it is not clear whether the ending was always winning or not! Endgame specialist Karsten Müller asks for your help.

8/8/2020 – Grandmaster Viswanathan “Vishy” Anand was World Chess Champion from 2000-2002 (FIDE) and 2007-2013. To show appreciation for Anand, National Master Mike Walder provides a recipe for a dish that Anand likes and an analysis of one of Anand’s wins. WIM Alexey Root tells why Anand is a Grandmaster Chef honoree. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

7/30/2020 – Vladimir Kramnik still had a theoretical chance to get into the knockout stage of the Legends of Chess had Peter Svidler lost to Anish Giri — which he did — and he defeated Magnus Carlsen — in round 9 of the preliminaries. Kramnik could not beat the world champion in the end, which means Carlsen, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Giri and Svidler are the semifinalists. The four-player knockout kicks off on Friday. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

8/10/2020 – Ding Liren and Hikaru Nakamura kicked off the semis of the Magnus Carlsen Tour closing tournament with impressive wins. Ding defeated world champion Magnus Carlsen in Armageddon, while Nakamura also reached the tiebreaks against Daniil Dubov but managed to secure victory without needing to play a sudden-death decider. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

4/2/2020 – The ten best players of the Soviet Union play against the ten best players from the "Rest of the World". Today we will see the decisive fourth and last round. After three rounds the Soviet team leads 15.5-14.5. Live transmission of the games starts at 17.00 pm CEST (11.00 EDT, 15.00 UTC). With commentary by IM Merijn van Delft.

8/5/2020 – Bobby Fischer was the star of the show at the 1970 Interzonal Tournament in Palma de Mallorca, before starting an amazing run that led him to challenge Boris Spassky for the World Championship title in Reykjavík 1972. But was he always winning in the endgame he played against Vlastimil Hort? Or could have Hort defended? We asked our readers to help settle the historical debate. And they helped endgame expert GM Karsten Müller to settle the question! | Drawing of V. Hort: Otakar Masek

7/15/2020 – Many experts think that Garry Kasparov is the greatest chess player of all time, and though he retired from the tournament arena in 2005 he still tirelessly promotes chess and supports and trains promising young players. But how to train these talents in the times of corona? The Kasparov Chess Foundation found a way. | Photos: Kasparov Chess Federation

4/5/2020 – Last month, on March 9 2020, Bobby Fischer would have turned 77. We could have commemorated it with a detailed biography of the 11th World Champion – but who doesn't know all the details of the life of the most charismatic and enigmatic player in the history of the game? So instead I would like to retell one of my favourite stories, a birthday present to Fischer, wherever he might be. It is a lovely story, and has ideas that you can use in your own games.

8/13/2020 – The fourth set of the semifinal match between Magnus Carlsen and Ding Liren saw the Chinese grandmaster missing one opportunity after another to level the score and force a fifth set. Magnus Carlsen kept his cool while under heavy pressure and managed to win the match and get a spot in the final. The world champion will face Hikaru Nakamura in a best-of-7 final showdown starting Friday. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

8/3/2020 – Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi moved on to the final of the ‘chess24 Legends of Chess’ online tournament. While Carlsen made quick work of Peter Svidler, beating him in straight sets, Nepomniachtchi missed chances in the second set and only got the victory over Anish Giri in the blitz tiebreakers of the third. The final will be played from Monday to Wednesday (or Tuesday, if someone wins the first two sets). | Photo: Niki Riga

7/21/2020 – The fourth tournament of the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour kicks off on July 21. As the name indicates, the “Legends of Chess” online event will include six illustrious players from the previous generation — Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Vassily Ivanchuk, Boris Gelfand, Peter Leko and Peter Svidler. The legends will be joined by Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren, Anish Giri and Ian Nepomniachtchi. Not to be missed!

4/26/2020 – Today, the 2. Tournament of Peace comes to an end. Before the 17th and last round tournament winner Bobby Fischer leads with 12.5/16 (+10, =5, -1) and is two points ahead of Vassily Smyslov and Vlastimil Hort who share second and third place with 10.5/16 each. In the final round Fischer will play against Tigran Petrosian who might want to end the tournament with a win against Fischer. Transmission of round 17 starts at 17:00 CEST (15.00 UTC, 11:00 EDT).

8/12/2020 – Hikaru Nakamura needed only three sets to knock out Daniil Dubov in their best-of-5 semifinal match. ‘Naka’ will get two rest days before the final, where he will face either Ding Liren or Carlsen, with the latter now the favourite to advance after scoring a second consecutive 2½:½ victory over his Chinese colleague. | Photo: Justin Kellar

6/14/2020 – Neural network (NN) engines – Leela Chess Zero, Fat Fritz – have become superbly strong, and provide fascinating positional analysis. However, in order to unleash the full power of the NN algorithms, we must use some kind of GPU accelerator device. The problem is that a compact laptop often can’t sustain the running NN engines and will crash. Here is a super elegant solution to this problem!

4/1/2020 – Although ChessBase is the international standard for top players, it also facilitates teaching chess to groups of children. For the past 15 years, for 10-20 hours per week, US Chess Master Jeff Ashton has taught using ChessBase. Ashton’s Panda Chess Academy transitioned from in-person classes to online instruction, due to his city’s closure of non-essential businesses. WIM ALEXEY ROOT interviews Jeff Ashton.

8/12/2020 – With 5.h3 and 6.Be3 Fabiano Caruana hat set a new trend against the King's Indian. "A challenging positional setup, which has the further advantage of still being relatively fresh, uncharted and not overanalysed yet", writes Igor Stohl in ChessBase Magazine #196 - the current issue. In his article about this promising setup Stohl explains, among other things, why the typical King's Indian move 6...e5 here plays into White's hands.

8/14/2020 – In the diagram White threatens Rh3 with vicious intentions down the open h-file. Black to play: three lines, two results, one person to make all the difference - you!

8/5/2020 – In the last two decades I have probably played about 100.000 games online, most of them in blitz and bullet. And I have often wondered about my win/loss ratio in certain openings: Is my personal anti-sicilian system 2. c4 really working so well? How often do I win with 1...e5? Did I really win more than 50% of my games with my favourite opening, the Naselwaus Gambit? ChessBase knows the answer to these questions!

8/4/2020 – Far advanced connected passed pawns are often very dangerous in the endgame.

8/11/2020 – Due to the colour blindness of the bishop there are often fortresses in pure endgames. In the following case White can either reach the saving corner h1 or Ponziani's old fortress.

8/7/2020 – In the diagram position Black played 26...Rc6!? and then both the white rook and the black rook invaded enemy territory: White played 27.Ra8, Black countered with 27...Rc1. But which of the two rooks is more dangerous for the opponent?

7/31/2020 – Refuting White's 27.Rxf5 in the diagram position may take time, which Black in this (rapid) game simply didn't have and failed. Not pressed by the clock, can you do better?

7/2/2020 – Neural network (NN) engines – Leela Chess Zero, Fat Fritz – have become superbly strong, and provide fascinating positional analysis. However, in order to unleash the full power of the NN algorithms, we must use some kind of GPU accelerator device. The problem is that a compact laptop often can’t sustain the running NN engines and will crash. Here is a super elegant solution to this problem– with full instructions for the installation.

7/21/2020 – This is a crucial question in chess. After all, once pieces have been exchanged they can never return. There are times when you need to keep them on the board, and others when you need to part with them at once. Yet another instructive lesson by endgame specialist Karsten Muller.

7/22/2020 – The Catalan is a tough nut to crack. Lars Schandoff's article on the opening, included in ChessBase Magazine #196, challenges the solid setup with a fine solution — activity! Deviating from the practice of elite Grandmasters, he suggests a "more entertaining variation" with 5...a6 and the risky 6...Nc6!? Exciting and recommended to everyone who is not satisfied with playing for a draw when having the black pieces!

7/24/2020 – With his forces fully mobilised, White shatters any faint hope that Black had to survive with his exposed king. Go for it!

7/28/2020 – Pawn endgames always must be calculated carefully. | Endgame theory constitutes the foundation of chess. You realize this in striking clarity once you obtain a won endgame but in the end have to be content with a draw in the end because of a lack of necessary know-how. Such accidents can only be prevented by building up a solid endgame technique.

7/27/2020 – Some might say chess is at its peak of popularity due to the coronavirus. People who have never played chess before are thinking, “There is no better time than now to learn how to play chess”. And they are right! I myself have been asked by a lot of friends if I could teach them how to play. Thanks to PlayChess.com I can teach more than one student at a time with ease. I quickly explain the steps needed to set up a coaching session in a short video!

7/7/2020 – In the endgame the king often gets active – after all, when only a few pieces remain on the board mate is less likely. However, the king often still needs protection from checks and attacks. But sometimes it can use enemy pawns as an "umbrella" to run for shelter.

7/17/2020 – In the diagram position White is under immense pressure, and if 28.f3 (blocking the long diagonal and hitting the knight on g4) does not work, White sure is busted. Well, 28.f3 in fact does not work - but why?

7/14/2020 – Usually an extra bishop can easily draw against two pawns. But if the two pawns are supported by their king things might get tricky for the defender. Especially if his own king is too far away to help.