4/13/2026 – Zhu Jiner caught Vaishali Rameshbabu in the lead after defeating her in round twelve of the Women's Candidates Tournament, with both players now on 7 points. Bibisara Assaubayeva moved to within half a point after overcoming Kateryna Lagno, while Tan Zhongyi secured her first win of the event, as she defeated Divya Deshmukh. Anna Muzychuk narrowly missed joining the leaders after allowing a stalemate in a winning rook endgame against Aleksandra Goryachkina. | Photo: FIDE / Niki Riga

4/13/2026 – Javokhir Sindarov maintained his two-point lead at the Candidates Tournament in Cyprus after a quick draw with Hikaru Nakamura in round twelve. Anish Giri missed a major chance to close the gap, drawing a long and complex game against Wei Yi. The remaining two games were also drawn, leaving Sindarov firmly in control with two rounds to play. | Photo: FIDE / Niki Riga

4/2/2026 – Anna Muzychuk and Bibisara Assaubayeva share the lead after round four of the Women's Candidates Tournament, following two decisive games on Wednesday: Muzychuk defeated Kateryna Lagno, while Zhu Jiner overcame Divya Deshmukh. Assaubayeva missed chances to take sole first place in her draw with Tan Zhongyi, while Vaishali Rameshbabu held Aleksandra Goryachkina after facing early pressure. | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza

4/1/2026 – Two decisive games in round three of the Women's Candidates Tournament saw Bibisara Assaubayeva and Kateryna Lagno move into the lead. Assaubayeva capitalised on tactical complications to defeat Zhu Jiner, who had again obtained a promising position, while Lagno overcame Tan Zhongyi after a wild encounter featuring a number of blunders and tactical shots. Aleksandra Goryachkina pressed throughout but could not convert against Divya Deshmukh, while Vaishali Rameshbabu's game against Anna Muzychuk ended in a controlled draw. | Photo: FIDE / Yoav Nis

3/31/2026 – Missed opportunities remained a recurring theme in round two of the Women's Candidates, where all four games again ended in draws. Zhu Jiner obtained a clearly superior position against Kateryna Lagno but failed to convert, allowing a perpetual check to save the game. In the all-Indian encounter, Divya Deshmukh (pictured) also let an advantage slip after overlooking a tactical resource by Vaishali Rameshbabu. | Photo: FIDE / Yoav Nis

3/14/2026 – The concept behind Chessbase's "60-minute" courses is simple: a one-hour video course for just under 10 Euros. There are also courses on middle game and endgame topics, but most courses focus on quite "specialised" opening variations. In the second instalment of a short series, Jochen Schwarz presents the most important 60-minute courses for 1.e4 players against the French Defence.

3/10/2026 – The contenders of the Grand Finals in both sections of the American Cup were confirmed in Saint Louis after the conclusion of the Elimination Bracket finals. In the open section, Levon Aronian joined Wesley So in the Grand Final after defeating Fabiano Caruana. Meanwhile, in the women's event, Carissa Yip secured a rematch with defending champion Alice Lee by overcoming Tatev Abrahamyan. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

3/6/2026 – The fight for first place tightened in round eight of the Challengers at the Prague Chess Festival. Leader Vaclav Finek defended a difficult endgame to keep the top spot, but Daniil Yuffa moved to within half a point after scoring his second consecutive win. Benjamin Gledura also prevailed and remains in contention ahead of Friday's decisive round. | Photo: Petr Vrabec / Prague Chess Festival

3/5/2026 – Three decisive games marked round seven of the Challengers at the Prague International Chess Festival. Leader Vaclav Finek held a long endgame against top seed Benjamin Gledura and retains a full-point lead with two rounds remaining. Meanwhile, Daniil Yuffa and Jachym Nemec (pictured) moved into joint second place after winning their games, while Surya Shekhar Ganguly scored his first victory of the event. | Photo: Petr Vrabec / Prague Chess Festival

3/1/2026 – Round four of the Challengers tournament at the Prague Chess Festival featured two decisive games. Benjamin Gledura (pictured) bounced back from two consecutive losses by defeating Jonas Buhl Bjerre, while Daniil Yuffa claimed his second consecutive victory as he beat Zhu Jiner. Vaclav Finek remains the sole leader of the tournament on 3/4 points after drawing Divya Deshmukh with black. | Photo: Tomáš Krist / Prague Chess Festival

2/16/2026 – Magnus Carlsen secured the 2026 FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship title in Weissenhaus after defeating Fabiano Caruana 2½–1½ in the final. The match turned on a dramatic third game in which Caruana failed to convert a completely winning position and ended up losing. In the contest for third place, Nodirbek Abdusattorov overcame Vincent Keymer to join the two finalists in qualifying for the 2027 Freestyle Chess World Championship. | Photo: Freestyle Chess / Lennart Ootes

2/15/2026 – The second day of action at the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship in Weissenhaus saw the start of the knockout phase, with the two semifinal matches deciding who will compete for the 2026 title. Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana emerged victorious and will meet in Sunday's final. In addition to a world title, a place in the 2027 FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship has already been secured by both finalists. | Photo: Freestyle Chess / Carlotta Wessel

2/10/2026 – Netflix launched a new documentary on the life of Judit Polgar, "The Queen of Chess". The documentary is extremely well-made and is definitely worth a watch if you are a chess fan. It brought back to life an incident that had happened 32 years ago in 1994, when an 18-year-old Judit took on the world number-one Garry Kasparov for the first time. It involved a famous touch-move incident. | Photo: Judit Polgar Chess Foundation

2/5/2026 – "Many players use ChessBase, it is the most popular chess software by far, writes GM Iniyan Pa. "Yet, not many people are fully aware of all of its features, and fail to utilise most of them. In this guide I have tried to show the features that I think are vital and important so that the user may gain the most out of the ChessBase. I hope it helps them in their development." We are deeply indebted to Iniyan for his remarkable five-part training review.

2/1/2026 – Young FIDE Master Bahne Fuhrmann of the Hamburger SK has taken a close look at Harshit Raja’s new video course. In his review, he examines the Indian grandmaster’s 1.e4 course and explains why viewers who study the course can confidently open with 1.e4.

1/21/2026 – Round four of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament featured three decisive games in the Masters, with Hans Niemann scoring an impressive win over Aravind Chithambaram, which included a well-timed queen sacrifice. Nodirbek Abdusattorov also won to share the lead, while Javokhir Sindarov defeated Matthias Bluebaim to stay in close contention. In the Challengers, Aydin Suleymanli kept the sole lead after defeating Lu Miaoyi with the white pieces. | Photo: Tata Steel Chess / Lenart Ootes

12/23/2025 – FIDE World Cup 2025: Analyses by Adams, Bluebaum, Donchenko, Grandelius, Shankland, Wei Yi, Wojtaszek and many more – Marshal Attack: just develop: Robert Ris praises the modern 11…Bb7!? – “Giri’s Gems”: The world-class player looks back at eight games from top tournaments of 2025 – “Hello e-file!”: Oliver Reeh poses numerous training questions on 33 games and presents four interactive videos in his tactics column – Topalov-Anand 2005: Dorian Rogozenco looks back at a theoretically important, highly tactical Queen's Indian with the spectacular 14.Nxf7!! – a “Modern Classic” and much more!

12/12/2025 – Levon Aronian won the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Finals in South Africa after defeating Magnus Carlsen in a controlled 1½–½ match, securing the event's $200,000 top prize. The final brought the four-day competition to a close, with Vincent Keymer taking third place against Javokhir Sindarov. Further down the table, Fabiano Caruana beat Arjun Erigaisi to finish fifth, while Hans Niemann prevailed over Parham Maghsoodloo in the match for seventh place. | Pictured: Levon Aronian with wife Anita Ayvazyan and their daughter | Photo: Freestyle Chess / Lennart Ootes

12/9/2025 – This week an Indian top Grandmaster 2662-rated lost a game in only 16 moves! In this week's episode we will see what went wrong in a sharp line of the Queen's Indian Defence with 5.Qc2, which includes an early pawn sacrifice. | Fast & Furious is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

12/3/2025 – Ed Schröder, pioneer of chess engine programming, has in his retirement turned his attention to a new and very exciting project: to extract games from a database collection that are especially aggressive – that are short and have daring sacrifices and king attacks. He shows us the kinds of result you can get. Best of all: you can download the utility and use it on your databases.

12/2/2025 – Round six of the London Chess Classic saw Nodirbek Abdusattorov extend his lead with a fifth consecutive win, capitalising on a mistake by Sam Shankland in a dynamic Scotch Opening. Alireza Firouzja drew against Abhimanyu Mishra after early tactical complications gave way to a simplified position, while Pavel Eljanov won against Gawain Maroroa Jones. With three rounds remaining, Abdusattorov holds a 1½-point advantage over Firouzja, sitting in sole second place. | Photo: Official website

11/29/2025 – In his new Fast & Furious show, Robert Ris looks into the FIDE World Cup which has seen a lot of interesting games, featuring spectacular openings as the KO-format forces players to take a lot of risks.| Fast & Furious is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

11/29/2025 – Robert Ris showcases José Eduardo Martínez Alcántara’s stunning World Cup win with Black against Super GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, starting from a sharp opposite-castling Philidor-type position in which White unleashes a powerful kingside attack, including an exchange sacrifice on d5 and the pawn storm with h5–h6, while Black searches for counterplay on the queenside. Ris explains how key defensive resources completely turn the tables, leading to a direct attack on the white king.

11/27/2025 – Opening videos by Ernst Sipke (Ulvestad Variation) and Adrian Mikhalchishin (‘Miniatures’ Part II – Sicilian Najdorf and Spanish). ‘Special’: Jan Werle shows highlights from the FIDE Grand Swiss 2025 in the video (including games by Anish Giri, Vincent Keymer and Matthias Bluebaum). ‘Lucky bag’ with 40 analyses by Ganguly, Illingworth, Theodorou and many more. Update service with over 40,000 new games. CBM Extra #228 can also be used as a ChessBase Book in a web browser on an iPad, tablet or Mac, etc.!