9/15/2018 – There was almost no intrigue regarding the final results, but the 2018 Champions Showdown was filled with curious highlights and enterprising chess. The main attraction was Garry Kasparov's presence — the 13th World Champion lost his match against Topalov, but finished on a high thanks to a pair of wins in the last rounds. In the other matchups, Nakamura, So, Vachier-Lagrave and Aronian emerged victorious. In terms of entertainment value, the Saint Louis Chess Club hit the mark! | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

9/13/2018 – After two days of Chess960 in St. Louis, Wesley So established the largest lead in his match against Anish Giri. Perhaps that why So says he prefers the variant over "normal chess". Or is it the other way around — preference breeds success? Garry Kasparov, on the other hand, is well behind in his match against Veselin Topalov. Elsewhere the rating favourites all lead, with the exception of Hikaru Nakamura vs Peter Svidler, which is tied at 6 points apiece. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club/ Lennart Ootes, Austin Fuller

8/27/2018 – The Sinquefield Cup 2018 is not over yet but that does not stop the Saint Louis Chess Club from announcing its next big event: in about two weeks, from September 11-14, ten top players will battle it out in Chess960. Garry Kasparov is one of them! | Photo: Lennart Ootes

7/11/2018 – ChessBase co-founder Frederic Friedel was cajoled into a conversation on Ben Johnson's Perpetual Chess podcast by summer guest-host Macauley Peterson. Here we bringing you some photos and other visual aids, video highlights and transcription of some of the stories and quotes for posterity. In this first part, Frederic talks about his introduction to chess players, meeting Nigel Short and Garry Kasparov, how he came to know his co-founder, ChessBase CEO Matthias Wullenweber, and got the project off the ground, with Kasparov's help.

6/22/2018 – If Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik could learn from the great Patriarch of chess Mikhail Botvinnik, we are sure you can also learn a great deal from this great master. Hence, ChessBase has launched its tenth DVD in the Master Class series in which capable tutors like GMsYannick Pelletier, Mihail Marin, Karsten Mueller and IM Oliver Reeh dissect the play of the fifth World Champion. In this article IM SAGAR SHAH explains how studying the classics helped him to become a stronger chess player. He shows you one of his favourite games of Botvinnik and how he applied what he learnt in his own game at the under-19 nationals back in 2007!

6/12/2018 – Tactics are fun and solving tactics puzzles improves your chess. The search mask of ChessBase and Fritz allows you to quickly find games with sacrifices. And that's only one of the many options for this tool! | Drawing: ChessBase

6/8/2018 – The recent article by Qiyu Zhou on pattern recognition was very well received — by our readers and in academic circles. At the end of the article, Frederic Friedel asked readers if anyone could locate footage from a science documentary he had produced 38 years ago, in which similar experiments were conducted. Unfortunately nobody apparently could, and so this promised follow-up article will have to make do with vivid descriptions and black and white photos. | Pictured: A teenage Nigel Short, a subject of Friedel's chess experiments

5/8/2018 – Alexander Hamilton was one of the Founding Fathers of the USA and the first Secretary of the Treasury. To honour his memory the Manhattan Institute gives the Alexander Hamilton Award to public figures that are seen to incorporate the spirit of this legendary figure. 2018, Stanley Druckenmiller, Co-Founder of the Kasparov Chess Foundation, received the prestigious award. The Kasparov Chess Foundation congratulates. | (Photo: Kasparov Chess Foundation

4/13/2018 – The 13th of April is "Kasparov-day". Today, 55 years ago, arguably the best player in chess history was born and since then has shaped the history of chess like no other player — not only on the board! Andre Schulz briefly traces Kasparov's history from his first international moves, through the peak of his career in 1999, his life in politics (both in and out of the chess world) and on to his recent advocacy work. | Photo: Kasparov.com

3/30/2018 – Fabiano Caruana’s victory at the Candidates not only promises an exciting match, but will also be the first title match by a player born in the USA in 46 years, since Bobby Fischer’s famous bout against Boris Spassky in 1972. However, theirs were hardly the only ones by US players. The very first was by Frank Marshall in 1907 against none other than Emanuel Lasker. Here is a look at that chess legend and his title match with annotations by Garry Kasparov! | Photo: Chicago History Museum

3/8/2018 – Gisbert Jacoby was a chess aficionado and multiple Hamburg champion. As a national coach of the Hamburg Chess Federation, he later promoted many Hamburg talents. From 1988 to 1999, Jacoby was a Managing Director of ChessBase and set the course for the development of the young company. He was friendly with chess luminaries such as Garry Kasparov and Judit Polgar. Last Thursday he died in Hamburg.

2/28/2018 – Two weeks ago there was a World Championship — in Chess960, a variant that symmetrically shuffles the position of the pieces behind the row of pawns. The game has gained some popularity since it eliminates the staggering amount of preparation that is required in regular chess. But Chess960 has a few problems that probably prevent it from really taking off. We discuss some possible solutions to these problems.