8/17/2023 – Nijat Abasov, the 69th seed in the open section of the FIDE World Cup, has all but secured a spot in the next edition of the Candidates Tournament, as he beat Vidit Gujrathi with white to knock him out of the event. Since Magnus Carlsen, his next opponent, also reached the semifinals and is very likely to skip the Candidates, the Azerbaijani will not even need to finish among the top-3 to reach the 8-player World Championship qualifier. Fabiano Caruana also advanced to the semifinals, while Praggnanandhaa bounced back in his match against Arjun Erigaisi. Among the women, Aleksandra Goryachkina drew Tan Zhongyi and made it through to the final. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage

7/22/2023 – Ju Wenjun won the twelfth and final classical game of her match against Lei Tingjie to successfully defend the Women’s World Championship title. This is Ju’s fourth victory in a fight for the biggest title in women’s chess. The 32-year-old from Shanghai grabbed the women’s crown for the first time in 2018 and is set to continue her reign for at least one more year. | Photos: Stev Bonhage / FIDE

7/10/2023 – In about a week, on 15 July, the traditional Biel Chess Festival will begin. In a Grandmaster Triathlon eight top players will show their skills in classical, rapid and blitz chess, and this Grandmaster Tournament is embedded in a wide range of open tournaments for all tastes and playing levels. | Photo: Arjun Erigaisi | Photo: ChessBase India

7/5/2023 – The first game of the Women's World Championship will be played today in Shanghai. Defending champion Ju Wenjun will take on challenger Lei Tingjie. The match consists of 12 games and lasts three weeks. It was officially opened with a press conference yesterday.| Photos: FIDE

6/2/2023 – Once upon a time we all looked quite different - even some famous chess players. Our author has selected some childhood and youth photographs of famous chess grandmasters and invites you to guess. For example, who are the two perky new wave girls? Background singers from A-ha?

5/30/2023 – Traditionally, the Norway Chess Tournament begins with a blitz tournament to determine the pairings for the classical tournament. The big favourite to win Norway Chess is of course Magnus Carlsen, former World Champion and the clear number one in the world. Carlsen was also the favourite in the Blitz tournament, but things did not go his way. It was Nodirbek Abdusattorov who blitzed the best. He finished first with 6.0/9, half a point ahead of Alireza Firouzja and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Carlsen finished seventh with 4.5/9 and will now play five games with Black in the classical tournament, where he, however, is still favourite. | Photo: Norway Chess

5/20/2023 – FIDE and the Georgian Chess Federation are organizing a match between top Ukrainian players Mariya and Anna Muzychuk and local stars Nino Batsiashvili and Meri Arabidze. The games will take place at the Hotel Legend in Batumi, Georgia, on June 5-11. Each of the matches will consist of six classical games. | Photos: International Chess Federation

5/11/2023 – In the World Chess Championship, which still was running while this article was written but will be over when you read it, Ding Liren won the sixth game by threatening a checkmate with rook and knight. Let us see how that kind of checkmate was used in endgame studies. | Photo: Midjourney AI

5/3/2023 – The 28th edition of the TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament will take place on May 4-10 at the Elite Plaza Hotel in central Malmö. An exciting 8-player lineup mixing veterans and rising stars will compete in a single round-robin event. The likes of Peter Svidler and Boris Gelfand will battle it out against 2700+ rated youngsters Dammaraju Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi and Vincent Keymer. Former tournament champions Jorden van Foreest and Nils Grandelius, plus 14-year-old Abhimanyu Mishra, complete the field. | Pictured: Peter Svidler and Boris Gelfand at the 2013 Candidates Tournament. | Photo: Ray Morris-Hill

5/2/2023 – The sixth edition of the Salamanca Chess Festival took place on April 25-29. The Masters Tournament was the main event, with eight players (four men and four women) fighting in a single round-robin event. The time control was 40 minutes plus 5-second increments. Kirill Alekseenko and Jaime Santos were the top scorers with 5½ points. Alekseenko was declared champion based on tiebreak criteria. | Photo: Official site

4/24/2023 – Playing white, Ian Nepomniachtchi simplified the position on move 19 in game 11 of the World Championship match — a decision which led to a quick draw. Nepo still has a 1-point lead over Ding Liren, who will get three more chances to even the score. Tuesday is a rest day in Astana. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage

4/23/2023 – Pia Cramling, the Grande Dame of Chess is celebrating her 60th Anniversary today. Heartfelt congratulations! Looking back and forward, our author, who was a spectator at the tournament where she made her final GM norm to obtain the Grandmaster title as fifth woman on earth, presents fantastic facts and funny figures from an unparalleled biography. | Photo: Carolina Byrmo via hemtrevligt.se

4/20/2023 – Vladimir Kramnik recently participated at the Armageddon Series organized by World Chess in Berlin. In a 35-minute interview conducted in the German capital, the former world champion talked about his new projects, his work with Indian talents and Alireza Firouzja, and his assessment of Magnus Carlsen’s place in the history of the sport. His conclusion: “He just changed chess. Chess is Magnus Carlsen.” | Photo: World Chess

3/20/2023 – The 2023 FIDE Women's Candidates Final will be disputed in Chongqing (China) from March 27th to April 6th. Chinese Grandmasters Lei Tingjie and Tan Zhongyi will face each other in a six-game classical chess match. The winner will receive 60,000 Euros and the right to challenge the current Women's World Champion, Ju Wenjun, for the title in July.

3/7/2023 – Magnus Carlsen played three classical games over the weekend, as he helped Offerspill win the Norwegian League title for the first time. These three encounters were Carlsen’s last rated classical games before the World Championship match, where either Ian Nepomniachtchi or Ding Liren will take the world crown. If Carlsen does not choose to fight to regain the title, these could end up being his last three classical games as world champion.

3/3/2023 – Shanghai and Chongqing will host the two major Women’s events of the year. More than three years after her last defence of the title in Shanghai and Vladivostok, women’s world champion Ju Wenjun will face the winner of the Candidates’ final match between Lei Tingjie and Tan Zhongyi.

3/1/2023 – One of the most brilliant chess minds in history has reactivated his Twitch channel. Vasyl Ivanchuk launched his streaming career last year, and has recently increased the number of videos uploaded. The Ukrainian genius will be playing the European Championship starting Friday, but before that, he has shared a bit of his encyclopaedic knowledge with us. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

2/16/2023 – The name Erich Eliskases is familiar to only a few chess enthusiasts today. However, the Austrian was one of the best players in the world in the late 1930s. In 1941 he was supposed to play for the World Championship with Alexander Alekhine. But things turned out differently. 15 February 2023 is the 110th birthday of Eliskases, who was born in Innsbruck, Austria, and died in Cordoba, Argentina.

2/3/2023 – Anish Giri won the Tata Steel Chess Masters 2023 ahead of all the top players in the world - Magnus Carlsen, Wesley So, Ding Liren, Fabiano Caruana. He played some phenomenal chess throughout the event to win it with a rating performance of 2849, scoring 8.5/13 and gaining 16 Elo points. Anish has been very close to winning the tournament multiple times, but this is the first time he has clinched the trophy at Wijk Aan Zee! We invited him for a livestream to get his thoughts on winning this prestigious tournament. Check out his full interview with IM Sagar Shah below.

1/23/2023 – ChessBase India turned 7 years old on 18th of January 2023. The little baby is growing up pretty quickly. In this article, the CEO and co-founder of ChessBase India, IM Sagar Shah writes about the work done by the ChessBase India team in the last 365 days. There is so much to tell that we are splitting Sagar's report into two parts.

1/14/2023 – According to the calendar put forth by the International Chess Federation (FIDE), the World Championship match between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren is set to begin on April 7. However, FIDE has yet to announce a host or a location for the event. The pandemic, Russia’s attack on Ukraine, and the withdrawal of reigning champion Magnus Carlsen have caused many complications for the organization.| Photo: FIDE

1/13/2023 – The traditional Tata Steel international invitation tournament series, annually ongoing since the year 1938, held in Wijk aan Zee and earlier in Beverwijk, is a highlight in the calendar of classical chess. Eduard Frey presents funny Trivia from the rich history of this remarkable tournament. | Photo: Playing Hall, Organiser

1/9/2023 – From Friday, 6 January, to Sunday, 8 January, the 32nd Keres Memorial was held in the Estonian capital Tallinn and featured a blitz and a rapid tournament. GM Vitaliy Bernadskiy from Ukraine won the blitz, GM Yuriy Kuzubov (also from Ukraine) won the rapid event.

12/29/2022 – The World Rapid Championships 2022 came to an end with some thrilling action. The Gold medal in the open section went to Magnus Carlsen for the 4th time in his career, but it was not without drama. The silver medal went to the young talent Vincent Keymer who played an exquisite event and the bronze medal went to Fabiano Caruana. In the women's section Tan Zhongyi continued her good run by winning the gold. She beat Dinara Saduakassova in the tiebreaks. The local girl had to settle for silver and the bronze went to India's 15-year-old Savitha Shri.