5/4/2020 – The first Magnus Carlsen Invitational was won by none other than world champion Magnus Carlsen. The Norwegian defeated Hikaru Nakamura 2½:1½ in a closely disputed final match. The confrontation was highly technical, as all the games went relatively deep into the endgame. Nakamura almost tied the score in the fourth game, but failed to make the most of his advantage. Round-up show by GM Yannick Pelletier. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

5/3/2020 – The second semi-final of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational was a tension-filled affair. Carlsen and Ding Liren traded one-move blunders in games two and three, before the Chinese rejected a threefold repetition and ended up losing in the fourth encounter. Carlsen will play online-blitz specialist Hikaru Nakamura in Sunday's final, when US$25,000 will be at stake — the winner gets 70K and the loser 45K. IM Lawrence Trent recapped the action of the day. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

5/1/2020 – In this Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King takes a look at pawn endgames and the King's Gambit Magnus Carlsen tried against Ding Liren in the Magnus Carlsen Invitational. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archive) | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 18:00 UK (19:00 CEST, Noon EST) on playchess.com. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer.

4/29/2020 – Merijn van Delft takes a look at the match and games between Alireza Firouzja and Anish Giri at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational. | Merijn's show is available at 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Alireza Firouzja in Wijk 2020 | Photo: Alina l'Ami

4/28/2020 – Day eleven of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational was ripe with strange occurrences. Carlsen was lost after merely seven moves in his first game against Ian Nepomniachtchi, but ended up winning the match in Armageddon, while Alireza Firouzja both wasted winning chances and managed to swindle Anish Giri before getting a 2½:1½ victory. Carlsen is already qualified to the semi-finals, while Nepomniachtchi is no longer in contention to reach the knockout stage. Round-up show by GM Yannick Pelletier. | Photo: Official site

4/25/2020 – World numbers one and two, Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana, won their round-four matches without needing tiebreaks, thus collecting three points each. Carlsen has won all his confrontations so far and is the clear leader with eleven points. He defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, while Caruana inflicted Alireza Firouzja's fourth straight loss. | Photo: Official site

4/24/2020 – In today's Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King takes a look at the games of Tony Miles, England's first grandmaster and a very original player. | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UK (18:00 CEST, Noon EST) on playchess.com. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

4/22/2020 – This week Merijn van Delft takes a look at a game Alireza Firouzja played against Magnus Carlsen at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational to judge the strength of the 16-year old who currently has an Elo of 2728 and is number 21 in the world. | You can register a Premium account here. Merijn's show is available at 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

4/21/2020 – In his weekly show IM Lawrence Trent takes a look at some of the games Magnus Carlsen and Alireza Firouzja played against each other at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational 2020. | Lawrence' show is available at 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST, 12 Noon EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

4/20/2020 – After Monday's round, the Magnus Carlsen Invitational has a sole leader in the world champion himself. Magnus Carlsen got a 2½:1½ victory over 16-year-old Alireza Firouzja, thus gaining three points for the overall standings. Firouzja did get to win a game, when Carlsen blundered the game away in one move. In the other match of the day, Hikaru Nakamura defeated Anish Giri. Round-up show by GM Daniel King. | Photo: Official site

4/18/2020 – The Magnus Carlsen Invitational kicked off with two stellar match-ups. The world champion traded blows with Hikaru Nakamura and won the Armageddon decider to get two points for the overall standings table, while Ding Liren defeated Alireza Firouzja without needing a tiebreaker. There was no lack of drama, as a small technical glitch and an intervention by the arbiter distracted Nakamura — the American grandmaster was understanding and accepted defeat. Round-up show by Yannick Pelletier. | Photo: Official site

4/17/2020 – In today's Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King presents a game by Mir Sultan Khan, the Indian player who was virtually unknown when he came to London in 1929 but quickly became one of the world's best players. | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UK (18:00 CEST, Noon EST) on playchess.com. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

4/16/2020 – With no over-the-board action, online playing has gained strength among chess fans. Moreover, the world champion himself has decided to make the most out of a dire situation by organizing an unprecedented elite tournament to be played over the internet. Eight of the strongest players in the world will fight for a $70,000 first prize. The tournament will run from April 18th to May 3rd.

4/10/2020 – In today's Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King first presents an interesting position from a current game and then takes a look at a spectacular blitz game that Magnus played online a few days ago. Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UK (18:00 CEST, Noon EST) on playchess.com. -for a limited time you can watch the episode for free! All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

4/10/2020 – Alireza Firouzja is 16 years old and with a rating of 2728 currently number 20 on the FIDE World Ranking List. Many people believe that he will soon challenge Magnus Carlsen for the world title. But for now, at the beginning of April, the two first met for an online blitz marathon match in which they played 194 bullet (1+0) games. And the winner was...

4/9/2020 – Fans, professionals and anybody who follows the world of professional chess agree on the fact that Magnus Carlsen is on a class of his own. Besides reigning as World Champion in all three formats (classical, rapid and blitz), the Norwegian has managed not to lose a single classical game in over twenty months. Let us recap Carlsen's astounding — and ongoing — streak! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

4/3/2020 – Grandmaster Daniel King reflects on some online games between Carlsen vs Firouzja and wonders if this is the chess of the future. Power Play is live most Fridays at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, Noon EST) on playchess.com. You can watch the episode live for free! All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

4/3/2020 – This new series of articles will focus on reliving some of the best chess events from a relatively recent past. We will go back eleven years in the first instalment, to the 2009 edition of the Linares Tournament. Viswanathan Anand was the world champion at the time and headed an eight-player field set to play a double round robin. In the end, seventh seed Alexander Grischuk got the title, after scoring 8/14 and edging Vassily Ivanchuk on tiebreaks (most wins). An 18-year-old Magnus Carlsen finished third. | Photos: Frederic Friedel

3/26/2020 – Looking at the games of the Candidates one could see the influence of AlphaZero on modern chess, as in various games a quick launch of the h-pawn was seen. IM Robert Ris elaborates...Live from 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET / 14:00 EDT) and free to watch on-demand for a limited time (or forever for ChessBase Premium account holders. To chat when Robert is live, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows. In the diagram, it's Black to play!

3/18/2020 – The renowned American business magazine "Forbes" is famous for its lists and rankings. Recently, the magazine released its "30 under 30" list, naming 30 people under 30 years of age who have made a significant impact on modern life as entrepreneurs, sport stars, activists, artists or in other fields. Magnus Carlsen is one of them! | Photo: Magnus Carlsen by Alina L'Ami

3/1/2020 – With the 2020 Candidates looming, there were few tournaments held in February to attract the world's top grandmasters, with two notable exceptions in Prague and Saint Louis. Alireze Firouzja (pictured) was the winner at the Prague Masters and Humpy Koneru took the second annual Cairns Cup. Gibraltar was also rated in February and provides the only change to the top 10: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave notched up one spot back to number eight, while Shakhriyar Mamedyarov slips to the tenth position after withdrawing prematurely due to illness. | Photo: Vladimir Jagr

2/20/2020 – Easter is still a bit less than two months away, but it is already clear that the Easter holidays will be a boon for chess fans. From April 9th ​​to 13th the GRENKE Chess Open, the largest open tournament in Europe, takes place in Karlsruhe, Germany. And on Easter Saturday, April 11th, the GRENKE Chess Classic begins — with Carlsen and Caruana leading the field. To get in the mood for the tournament, the organizers have prepared a small video with the highlights of the past years.

2/19/2020 – The Grand Chess Tour, which was announced one month ago, is a standard-bearer for world-class events. In the latest press release, the organizers have now announced dates, confirmed participants and venues for this year's tour. There will be two tournaments with classical time controls and three rapid and blitz tournaments. The three best players in the world — Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Ding Liren — all take part. | Picture: Grand Chess Tour

2/1/2020 – Fabiano Caruana did phenomenally at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee and was able to reduce his Elo distance to World Champion Magnus Carlsen from 50 to 20 points — Carlsen now stands at 2862 and Caruana at 2842. Ju Wenjun remained Women's World Champion, and world number two. Firouzja won the Juniors battle in the Tata Steel Masters, and Zhansaya Abdumalik maintains a healthy lead in among the top girls. | Pictured: Caruana watches the game Firouzja vs Dubov | Photo: Alina l'Ami