3/15/2024 – Have you ever finished last in a tournament? Well, it happened to Vidit Gujrathi at the Prague Masters 2024. As Vidit himself pointed out, this might be the first time ever that he finished last in his entire chess career. And it happened 20 days before the most important event of his life - the Candidates, this cannot really be a good sign, can it?
2/26/2024 – Chess is often considered a calm and quiet game, where the only sound is the clicking of the pieces. But what if we could hear the heartbeat of the players, and see how their body reacts to the tension and excitement of the game? That is exactly what was done in the Freestyle Chess 2024 event in Weissenhaus, where the heart rate of some of the world’s best chess players were monitored as they faced each other! We start this series with a look back at how it all started. | Photo Lennart Ootes
2/21/2024 – The 1st Dortmund International Chess Days will take place from 10 to 18 August 2024 at the Cultural Centre Alte Schmiede in Dortmund. Frederik Sane and Leon Mendonca have already confirmed their participation in the A-Open. Elisabeth Pähtz and Dinara Wagner will play a match to find out who is the number one in German women's chess. | (From left to right) Dirk Schaufelberger (CEO of Sparkasse Dortmund), Alexander Donchenko, Frederik Svane, Leon Luke Mendonca | Photo: Michelle Lassak
1/14/2024 – The much-anticipated Tata Steel Masters kicked off on Saturday in Wijk aan Zee. A lively first round saw four players scoring full points, all with the black pieces — Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri and Wei Yi are sharing the lead after the first day of action. The Challengers also saw four players grabbing wins right off the bat. | Photo: Tata Steel Chess Tournament / Lennart Ootes
12/1/2023 – With a final-round win over Richard Rapport, Fabiano Caruana secured tournament victory at the Sinquefield Cup in Saint Louis. This was Caruana’s third victory in this event, as he had previously won it in 2014 (when he famously grabbed seven wins in a row) and in 2018. Sole second place went to Leinier Dominguez, who drew Levon Aronian with the black pieces on Thursday. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
9/30/2023 – The Isle of Man plays host once more to the chess world's crème de la crème, as the 3rd FIDE Grand Swiss and 2nd FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss tournaments are set to launch on 25 October. The return of these prestigious world championship qualifying competitions to the Isle of Man marks a momentous occasion. Over the course of 12 days, from 25 October to 5 November, the island in the Irish Sea will emerge as the epicentre of the chess world, hosting an elite assembly of top-tier players fighting for the prizes, prestige and a spot in the 2024 Candidates.
8/30/2023 – The Indian edition of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament returns for a much-anticipated fifth edition. Once again, a women’s event and a men’s event will take place one after the other. World champion Ju Wenjun will head the women’s field, while five international grandmasters will face the likes of Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa in the men’s tournament.
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
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?
5/31/2023 – The spectators were treated to an entertaining opening round of the Norway chess tournament and saw two surprises. Carlsen was defeated by Caruana. And the duel of the young stars was won by Gukesh against Firouzja. | Photos: Lennart Ootes
4/14/2023 – Tim Krabbé's 1985 book "Chess Curiosities" showed a study by the Bulgarian chess composer I. Ionchev, flawed but nevertheless interesting. Yours truly tried to follow in his footsteps. Nadareishvili explored the same concept, and it might be unfair to associate the name with Ionchev as he was neither the first, the last, nor the most important one to show it - only the most famous. | Photo: Pixabay
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
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
2/3/2023 – 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.
1/30/2023 – With Sara Khadem Iran has lost another top chess player. The 2018 rapid and blitz vice world champion has moved to Spain with her family, but plans to continue playing under the Iranian flag. The well-known Spanish journalist Leontxo Garcia met with her and published a portrait of the young Iranian woman in the Spanish newspaper "El Pais". | Photo: El Pais
1/26/2023 – It calls for a celebration: ChessBase India turned seven years old on 18th of January 2023. In the second part of his 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 – it is a wonderful success story.
1/19/2023 – Nodirbek Abdusattorov grabbed the lead at the Tata Steel Masters after inflicting Magnus Carlsen’s second consecutive loss. A memorable round, played at the Johan Cruyff Arena in Amsterdam, also saw Arjun Erigaisi finding a tactical recourse to all but force a draw from an inferior position against Ding Liren, while Levon Aronian and Parham Maghsoodloo both scored full points with the white pieces. | Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit / Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2023
1/18/2023 – Round 4 of the Tata Steel Masters saw the two highest-rated players in the world losing on adjacent boards, as Anish Giri and Praggnanandhaa defeated Magnus Carlsen and Ding Liren respectively. Giri is now sharing the lead with Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who got the better of Parham Maghsoodloo. In the Challengers, four decisive results left three players sharing the lead on 3/4 points. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2023
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
1/11/2023 – On Saturday the first round of the Masters and Challengers will be played in the traditional Tata Steel Tournament in Wijk aan Zee. The 85th Wijk aan Zee tournament promises to be exciting: In the Masters young talents such as Gukesh, Erigaisi, Abdusattorov, Keymer and Praggnanandhaa meet experienced top players such as Carlsen, Ding, Caruana, Aronian and So, and the Challengers also offers an interesting line-up. | Photos: Website of Wijk aan Zee
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.
11/23/2022 – With both the number one and number two in the world (Magnus Carlsen and Ding Liren), five top 10 players and a total of eight top 20 players, the Masters of the jubilee edition of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament has a very strong field of participants. The 85th edition promises to be a wonderful battleground, because a number of great talents are also present to compete with these world class players. The tournament will take place from 13 to 29 January 2023 in Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands.
11/12/2022 – India has seen the rise of many fine chess players who have done exceedingly well in their junior years and have even become strong grandmasters, but have stumbled on their path towards becoming world class players. There was definitely something missing when it came to development of these talents. As on today, it is widely agreed in the chess world that India has the best crop of young talents with players like Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, Praggnanandhaa, Nihal Sarin, Raunak Sadhwani and many others. In order to ensure that their potential reaches the right destination, Vishy Anand decided to start off with the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA) in December 2020. How did it all begin? How does this academy function? And how has been the journey of WACA since inception? Get to know all of this and more in this article.
9/3/2022 – The Ukrainian women's team achieved something truly spectacular when they won the gold medal in the women's section at the 44th Chess Olympiad 2022. We speak to board no. 1 and 2 of the team and two of the best chess players of the country for several years now - Mariya and Anna Muzychuk. They talk about their experience of playing in India, how tough it was to win the Olympiad, and also show us the critical moments in their games. The entire country of Ukraine has been through tough times recently. This Gold medal is a dedication to the mental strength of these champions of the nation. | Photo: FIDE/Lennart Ootes
Anyone who seriously deals with openings cannot avoid the opening encyclopaedia. Whether beginner or grandmaster. The Opening Encyclopaedia is by far the most comprehensive chess theory work: over 1,463(!) theory articles offer a huge fund of ideas!
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