10/15/2020 – If you want to compare chess achievements between men and women, writes Professor Wei Ji Ma of NYU, given their vastly unequal numbers, it is a very bad idea to focus on the top male and female players. If you do you will need to account for the participation gap using an analysis similar to the one he presents. Prof. Ma supplies the tools needed to refute the theory of female inferiority.

10/12/2020 – On Saturday, October 10, the Global Chess Festival was celebrated! The woman behind this vibrant annual gala hardly needs any introduction. The strongest female chess player of all time is the only woman to have ever challenged male hegemony in the sport. Though everyone is familiar with Judit Polgar, the chess player, we thought the world would also do good to know Judit the wife and mother. At the end of last month, ChessBase India's Amruta Mokal conducted an exclusive interview with this remarkable lady. In this article we bring you the full transcript of this candid tête-à-tête. | Photo credit: globalchessfestival.com

10/11/2020 – Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana is the top-ranked chess player in the United States and is second in the world. He was the challenger for the World Chess Championship in 2018. To show appreciation for Caruana, National Master Mike Walder presents a recipe for a dish Caruana might like and annotates one of Caruana’s wins. WIM Alexey Root tells why Caruana is a Grandmaster Chef honoree. | Pictured: Caruana at the 2018 London Chess Classic | Photo: Lennart Ootes

10/5/2020 – Mint, one of India’s premium business news publications, just published an article written by Omkar Khandekar focused on the rating gap between the top men and women chess players. The author wonders whether it has to do with conventional gender roles or unequal access. | Pictured: Harika Dronavalli observes her compatriot Humpy Koneru in action against Alexandra Kosteniuk | Photo: FIDE

10/3/2020 – A 17-year-old Hou Yifan, already the women’s world champion at the time, tied for first place with Nigel Short at the main event of the 2012 Gibraltar Chess Festival. Short won the playoff, but Hou’s performance was a milestone in her career, as she proved she could compete neck-in-neck with the very best in the world. Hou also defeated Judit Polgar in their first-ever encounter. | Photos: Zeljka Malobabic / Ray Morris-Hill

10/1/2020 – After the corona lockdown the players gradually play again over-the-board, which led to some movement on the rating lists. However, while World Champion Magnus has been very active online, he did not play a single elo-rated game. But with a rating of 2863 Carlsen is still the world's number one, and he is currently 35 points ahead of Fabiano Caruana who indeed played some over-the-board games in September.

9/28/2020 – The Covid-19 situation has presented the world with a tough time. The chess world is also affected heavily with over-the-board tournaments dwindling in number. But one thing that has received a tremendous boost is the level of chess education that has been made available in the last few months. A prime example of this is the Chess Stars Academy launched by GM Teimour Radjabov a few days ago. The World no.9 Azeri GM has launched his online academy together with two of his trainers, Vladimir Chuchelov and Igor-Alexandre Nataf, who have been responsible for his rise to the top in the last few years! Get to know more about Raja's new venture and the courses on offer.

9/20/2020 – Grandmaster Peter Svidler is an eight-time Russian chess champion. Svidler’s peak rating placed him fourth in the world. National Master Mike Walder annotates one of Svidler’s wins and has a recipe for a dish that Svidler likes. WIM Alexey Root tells why Svidler is a Grandmaster Chef honoree. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

9/5/2020 – Hou Yifan became a grandmaster at 14.5 years old. She is a four-time Women’s World Chess Champion. She earned a Rhodes Scholarship for postgraduate study at the University of Oxford. National Master Mike Walder cooks a recipe that she might like and annotates one of her wins. WIM Alexey Root tells why Hou Yifan is a Grandmaster Chef honoree. | Photo: Pascal Simon

9/1/2020 – FIDE’s world ranking has mostly stagnated since the beginning of the corona crisis and the cessation of over-the-board tournaments, especially at the top level. The best in the world have been playing, but only unrated online rapid tournaments. Nevertheless, a few “real” tournaments have taken place lately. | Pictured: Luis Engel, winner of the German Individual Championship | Photo: Frank Hoppe

8/28/2020 – Eight teams are left standing in the FIDE Online Olympiad, with the quarterfinals, semifinals and final scheduled to take place between Friday and Sunday. In the preliminary knockout to decide four of the eight spots in the quarterfinals, Armenia, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine knocked out Greece, Bulgaria, Germany and China respectively. Two matches went to Armageddon. | Pictured: Members of the Hungarian team at the 2018 Batumi Chess Olympiad | Photo: David Llada

8/24/2020 – The Top Division section of the FIDE Online Olympiad was played from Friday to Sunday this week. Three teams from each pool qualified either to the quarterfinals directly or to the preliminary stage. India, Azerbaijan, Russia and the United States are already in the quarterfinals while eight teams will fight for the remaining four spots in the first knockout stage of the playoffs. | Photos: Niki Riga / John Saunders

8/18/2020 – In 1983 rookie chess journalist Frederic Friedel wrote an article for a German magazine, defining and celebrating "Super Grandmasters" – players who were rated 2600 or higher. There were 13 such players, and they were led by World Champion Anatoly Karpov, with a young upstart named Garry Kasparov hard at his heels. The top female player in the world, Pia Cramling, was rated 2355. Today things have changed somewhat – to put it mildly.

8/13/2020 – If you are logged on with your ChessBase Premium account and if you have a moment: click on the video button on the right side of your screen! It's worth it: We have filled up the video portal massively, with fresh training videos for openings, middlegames and endgames! You don't know the video portal yet? In a short video we explain everything. There are more than 13,000 training videos to discover! Enjoy!

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

8/2/2020 – What do you get when you celebrate a birthday? What happens when it is an especially auspicious birthday, e.g. one marking that you have made it to 3/4 of a century? Champagne, gifts, family party with the grandkids (in pandemic times in the garden). Chess friends have special things in store. They will write you a column in a national newspaper, or compose "number problems" for the years you have reached.

7/24/2020 – Are you a moderately strong chess player? More importantly: someone with real ambitions to go for the top? Well, here's a chance to do an online course with one of the best trainers in the world (he has worked with Caruana, Giri, Radjabov and Hou Yifan), together with on of the world's top grandmasters (Elo 2726). Normally a ten-day 50-hour course would cost a fortune, and involve travelling to Belgium. But in pandemic online times things are much more reasonable. Anyone in the world who is rated 2300 or higher can take part.

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.