2/27/2019 – Which are the commonest words in the English language, which are the most common girls' and boys' names? Today it is possible to calculate these things fairly easily, but it becomes really useful if you are able to present the results in a comprehensible way. Like with dynamic graphs and bubbling. This was done very nicely for historical chess strength in 2016 by Abacaba, a site that makes videos about data and math. Now a YouTube channel called TheRanker has published a 10-minute video visualisation tracking official FIDE ratings from 2000 to the present. It is informative, interesting and even relaxing to watch.

2/19/2019 – For almost three decades Vladimir Kramnik has been one of the world's best players, and from 2000 to 2007 he was World Champion, the 14th in the history of chess. Kramnik has inspired countless players, from amateurs to grandmasters, and the new ChessBase Masterclass reviews the career of this outstanding player, improves your game and invites you to enjoy chess with Vladimir Kramnik.

2/8/2019 – The 53rd Annual Greater New York Scholastic Team and Individual Chess Championships and a similar event in Chicago were held recently, and the Greater Mid-Atlantic Scholastic Championships is coming up in a just over a week. All are in cooperation with the Kasparov Chess Foundation. | Pictured: (Seated) Michael Khodarkovsky and Garry Kasparov (standing) scholastic coach Michael Ellenbogen and New York scholastic players | Photo: Kasparov Chess Foundation

2/5/2019 – The recent World Championship in London was closely followed by Europe's largest (and most influential) news portal. Der Spiegel had live coverage and game commentary. They also posted a three-part series on the history of chess programming, authored by Frederic Friedel, emeritus editor of this news page. In the early 1980s Frederic was instrumental to bringing computer chess to the attention of the German public, and in 1987 he co-founded ChessBase. Here is part one of his series.

2/2/2019 – The story of Tal can never be finished and his fans always want more. Only this series has to end for now. In the concluding installment here our columnist offers his final observations on Team Tal, the last testament of Valentin Kirillov. | Photo: chesspro.ru

1/31/2019 – AlphaZero became a worldwide sensation when it defeated the world's strongest chess engine in a long match just hours after being fed the rules of the game. At the time, Garry Kasparov said that it had shaken chess to its roots. In the opinion of Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan, the authors of the book 'Game Changer: AlphaZero's Groundbreaking Chess Strategies and the Promise of AI' this all-new silicon monster developed by DeepMind has helped us discover that there is lots of fresh potential in chess. ADITYA PAI spoke with the authors about their book, the impact AlphaZero has (and will have) on our royal game and whether chess will be solved one day in the light of such technological advancements.

12/15/2018 – Here's a handy guide for future reference. We present one-click access to all the special guests that you may have missed from the great 'Today in Chess' shows, courtesy the Saint Louis Chess Club. Garry Kasparov was a regular, but they also received virtual visits from Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Peter Leko and more. Plus all the ChessBase contributors (video and text) annotations in once place.

12/13/2018 – The Kasparov Chess Foundation (KCF) and The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis (CCSCSL) have run the very successful Young Stars program for 'Team USA' for the past six years. Meet the latest crop of talented kids from the recent New York training session. Plus, In a new article, Garry Kasparov reminds us that the recent World Championship match did not represent "a contest between the two strongest chess players on the planet, only the strongest humans." Brute force programs have long exceeded human playing strength. But that does not end the historical role of chess as a laboratory of cognition. A new pure AI system has superseded even those programs. Kasparov evaluates AlphaZero's play in Science Magazine and gives a political interview in the prestigious magazine The New Yorker. | Photo DeepMind Technologies, Igor Khodzinskiy

12/11/2018 – The 10th London Chess Classic is underway with the semifinal played at the headquarters of Google's DeepMind. Demis Hassibis (pictured in the background) joined tournament director Malcolm Pein and a schoolgirl — learning chess under the Chess in Schools and Communities umbrella — on stage at the start of the first classical game. Yesterday, at the London Pro-Biz Cup, chess-loving business people or celebrities joined grandmasters taking turns in a tandem chess team tournament. Garry Kasparov was among the professionals, but it was the team of Roiko Vujatovic and David Howell that won. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

12/7/2018 – It was a long time coming, but the wait is over. After nearly a full year, being ping-ponged from one peer reviewer to the next, the final paper on AlphaZero is out, shedding light on a number of hitherto unknown or misunderstood elements in its construction, not to mention some clarifications and corrections. These include sample code to help implement their work and all the games of the match against Stockfish, of which 20 were specially chosen by GM Matthew Sadler. | Graphic: Deep Mind

12/3/2018 – The match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana was the fourth World Chess Championship which took place in London. The contest was previously played in the English capital in 1986, 1993 and 2000. We take a brief pass through the history of World Championship matches between Kasparov and Karpov, Kasparov vs Short and Kasparov vs Kramnik. | Photo: Ben Bartels

11/27/2018 – Two years after Magnus Carlsen openly went for a draw with White in the last classical game of his match against Sergey Karjakin, the World Champion offered a draw in a playable — slightly superior — position to take the struggle to rapid tiebreaks. Fabiano Caruana understandably agreed to split the point and now everything will be decided on Wednesday, when four rapid games — and blitz and Armageddon if the tie is not broken — will determine the champion. Guest analysis by GM WESLEY SO and GM ERWIN L'AMI. | Photos: World Chess