4/24/2024 – The top duels in the fifth round of the Women's European Championship ended in draws. This allowed 15-year-old Ukrainian WCM Bozhena Piddubna (pictured) to catch the leaders with a win. Piddubna is now sharing the lead with Ulviyya Fataliyeva (Azerbaijan) and Marta Garcia (Spain). Piddubna will play black against Fataliyeva in Thursday’s sixth round. | Photos: European Chess Union

4/21/2024 – Grandmaster Adrian Mikhalchishin, a living legend in the chess world, began his journey in the 1960s and launched a serious chess career in the following decades. Renowned not only for winning numerous tournaments, writing several chessbooks, and creating lots of Fritztrainers, but also for coaching chess masters like Karpov, Beliavsky, Ivanchuk, and the Polgar sisters, Mikhalchishin's life is steeped in chess. In our interview with him reveals a treasure trove of anecdotes and insights from his illustrious career.

4/9/2024 – He was born on 3 June 2011 in Bursa, Turkey. On April 1st (no April Fool's joke) the twelve-year-old, playing in the very strong GRENKE Chess Open, Yagiz Kaan Erdpgmus scored 7.0/9 points with a 2646 performance. With that he had fulfilled his final GM norm and become the youngest grandmaster in the world – the fourth youngest in chess history. We will be watching this young boy carefully. | Photo Ugur Medya

1/18/2024 – In real life, staying safe is often a good idea. A human being has almost always more to lose than to gain. By being a daredevil, you might gain fame or wealth, but you might also lose health, or even your life. And what is more important? Health or wealth? Life or fame? Therefore, most of us mortals are quite fearful, and rightly so. Fear protects us from unnecessary harm. However, in chess the situation is rather different.

1/6/2024 – Some topics in chess strategy are more fashionable than others. This can happen for various reasons. For example, some topics may be easy to explain and understand. This is the case with the "good and bad bishop" theory. Or it might happen that some strategic phenomenon becomes a favourite topic of a famous chess writer. This happened, for example, with Nimzowitsch and the art of blocking passed pawns. In the following article we will look at a very striking example of this phenomenon. | Photo: Tigran Petrosian 1973, Dutch National Archives, The Hague, Algemeen Nederlandsch Fotobureau (Anefo)

11/15/2023 – It can happen so quickly. Yesterday Vincent Keymer was the second best 18-year-old chess player in the world, today he is the world's best 19-year old - today, 15 November 2023, Keymer is celebrating his 19th birthday. As befits a chess professional, at the board.

11/10/2023 – The first round of the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz will take place on 14 November. This will be followed by three days of rapid chess and two days of blitz. After a short break, the Sinquefield Cup, a ten-player round-robin with classical time control, begins on 21 November. Last year's match between Magnus Carlsen and Hans Niemann caused quite a stir. Neither will be taking part this time. | Photo: Grand Chess Tour

11/8/2023 – The European Team Championship for small nations is held every two years. This year it took place in Jersey. Ten teams from small European countries took part. This year's winners were Andorra, ahead of the Faroe Islands and Luxembourg. | Photos: ECU

9/22/2023 – Nymphenburg Palace was the venue of an international rapid xiangqi tournament on September 9. As part of the festive event, Xiangqi Grandmaster Sun Yongzheng gave a simultaneous exhibition against ten opponents. Oliver Breitschädel reports. | Pictured: Andrea Trombettoni, with his daughter Giulia, observed by Xiangqi Master Dong Xubin. Andrea Trombettoni is a physics professor and travelled from Italy with his daughter especially for this event. | Photos: Oliver Breitschädel

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

6/29/2023 – ChessBase Magazine offers a window to the world of professional chess. The latest issue, CBM #214 is out. Meanwhile our columnist, Nagesh Havanur takes a look at a recent issue. 2651 games (47 annotated) from WR Masters and European Championship among others. 12 opening surveys, 3 opening videos, 9 demo. lectures and several exercises for training. Annotators include Levon Aronian, Alexey Sarana, Kirill Shevchenko, Vincent Keymer, Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa among others. The icing on the cake is a feature on Viswanathan Anand with 26 annotated games.

6/3/2023 – Today, 3 June 2023, Nils Grandelius celebrates his 30th birthday. Grandelius is known as his country's long-time leading player, an important member of the Swedish team, and has won several major international tournaments in his career to date. Grandelius worked as Magnus Carlsen's second for the World Chess Championship matches in 2016 and 2018, and is also a well-known author and teacher. | Nils Grandelius at the TePe Sigeman & Co. tournament in 2023 | Photo: David Llada

5/12/2023 – Grandmaster András Adorján died yesterday after a long illness. He was the runner-up at the 1969 World Junior Championship behind Anatoly Karpov, and reached the quarterfinals of the Candidates Matches in the 1979-1981 World Championship cycle. As a coach, he worked with Garry Kasparov and Peter Leko, among others. András Adorján was 73 years old. | Photo: Dutch National Archive

5/10/2023 – What happens when you find yourself in a lost position? Many chess players - as Jan Markos states in his video for ChessBase Magazine #213 - react to this realisation with a loss of energy or even inner resignation. They make a few more normal moves, and a little later the game is over. In the sixth part of his training series for ChessBase Magazine, Jan Markos explains what it takes to get the maximum out of a lost position in a practical game. Take a look at an excerpt from his video!

5/8/2023 – The play of the 15th World Champion is appreciated from different perspectives in the current ChessBase Magazine: In Mihail Marin's article "Anand as a positional ace" you will find selected strategic masterpieces (and two interactive training videos). Karsten Mueller presents Anand's best endgames (including a detailed video introduction). And last but not least, our CBM authors Adhiban Baskaran, Imre Hera, David Navara, Igor Stohl, Yago Santiago and others present their favourite games of the "Tiger of Madras" - an exclusive collection of 26 victories from the period 1985 to 2022. You can watch Adhiban's analysis of the game Anand-Baron (2019) here! | Photo: Thomas Schloemann

5/7/2023 – In ChessBase Magazine #213 you can find three video analyses of current opening variations: Christian Bauer recommends the trendy 5...Nh5 against the London System. Leon Mendonca uses one of his games from the current Bundesliga season to show how one should play against the King's Indian sideline 6...Bg4. And Mihail Marin takes the game Esipenko-Aronian from the WR Masters 2023 as an opportunity to take a closer look at a Catalan variation that was popular in the 80s and 90s. You can watch an excerpt from Christian Bauer's video here!

5/4/2023 – The new ChessBase Magazine #213 offers, among many other things, 48 extensively annotated games, from the WR Masters 2023 as well as the EICC 2023, and in the "Special" our authors present their favourite games of Vishy Anand. From the WR Masters tournament winner Levon Aronian as well as Vincent Keymer and Jan-Krzysztof Duda annotate their best games. In addition, Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa each present one of their games in the video! You can watch Aronian's analysis of his first round game with Praggnanandhaa in abbreviated form here - enjoy!

5/2/2023 – The new ChessBase Magazine #213 once again delivers a big swing of ideas for your repertoire in eleven opening articles - from Caro-Kann to the King's Indian! Sergey Grigoriants examines a new idea on move four that has become the latest fashion thanks to Magnus Carlsen, among others: 4...h6 in the French Defence! Black offers a pawn sacrifice – after the exchange on f6 the pawn on d5 is simply hanging. Can this be any good? The new engines and Sergey Griogoriants show that Black gets "compensation and great piece activity in all lines". Take a look!

4/28/2023 – WR Masters 2023: The tournament winner, Levon Aronian, comments on two of his games. Plus analyses by Keymer, Duda and others. Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa each present one of their games in video! - European Individual Championship 2023: The winner Sarana comments on his groundbreaking game against Korobov, plus analyses by Shevchenko, Esipenko, Ponomariov and many others - "Special" on Vishy Anand: exclusive collection of 26 annotated games + contributions on strategy and endgame - French Gambit á la Carlsen: Sergey Grigoriants examines 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 h6!? – 0-0-0 against Bogo-Indian: Spyridon Kapnisis shows how White gets good play after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Bb4+ 4.Bd2 a5 5.a3, long castling not excluded! – “Fundamental Endgame Knowledge” Part 3: King and Pawn against King and much more!

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

4/5/2023 – Nils Grandelius scored an impressive 7½ out of 9 to become the outright winner at the 2023 edition of the Reykjavik Open. The Swedish grandmaster, who was the second seed in Iceland, beat Quentin Loiseau in the final round to claim first place. With over 400 participants in the traditional event, it was not surprising that seven players finished a half point behind the winner. Mustafa Yilmaz from Turkey and Abhijeet Gupta from India got second and third place on tiebreak criteria, respectively. | Photos: Hallfríður Sigurðardóttir

4/1/2023 – There was only one change in the top ten places in the world rankings in March: Hikaru Nakamura climbed to fifth place after his success in the American Cup. Nakamura now has a 7-point lead over Anish Giri in sixth place. Vincent Keymer has risen from 2699 points to 2700 thanks to two games played in the German Bundesliga and now occupies the 38th place in the world ranking.

3/28/2023 – Close to 250 games were played daily for 11 rounds at the European Championship that came to an end two weeks ago. The players were fighting for an entrance to the World Championship cycle via the World Cup, which made for very competitive struggles. Karsten Müller kept an eye on the games, and sent us many notable endgames with instructive analyses. Replay here ten of his finds! | Pictured: Bulgarian grandmaster Ivan Cheparinov | Photo: European Chess Union

3/25/2023 – The participants of the European Women’s Championship in Montenegro had a rest day on Friday. After six rounds in the 11-round Swiss tournament, Polish IM Oliwia Kiolbasa is leading the standings with 5⅕ points. Defending champion Monika Socko and Estonian IM Mai Narva stand a half point back, while fifteen players are still within close reach of the leader on 4⅕ points. | Photos: Official site