10/28/2022 – Chess Olympiad 2022: Review with analyses by more than 20 players - Ivan Sokolov's writes about "Steps to Gold" - "Special" on World Championship candidate Ding Liren: exclusive collection of 18 annotated games + contributions on strategy and endgame - "The Indian Gambit": Daniel King presents a fresh and exciting idea in the English Opening: 1.c4 e5 2.Sc3 Sf6 3.Sf3 e4 4.Sg5 c6!? (Video) - "Practical Tips for the Tournament Player" Episode 3: How to play against a stronger opponent (Video by Jan Markos + small collection of exercises) - "Full Throttle in the Open Spanish": Robert Ris examines the highly topical Dilworth Variation, and much more.

8/16/2022 – Ding Liren had a very tough start at the 2022 Candidates Tournament. He lost his first game, and a series of seven draws ensued. At that point, the world number two began to score one win after another, ending with a very impressive 8/14 in second place. We conducted an interview with him, discussing his performance at this elite event, going through the critical positions in each one of his games. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage

7/5/2022 – The 2022 Candidates Tournament came to an end on Monday, with an eventful round that saw three decisive results and a hard-fought draw. In the most important game for the standings, Ding Liren beat Hikaru Nakamura to finish in sole second place. Teimour Radjabov and Alireza Firouzja also scored full points, while the champion, Ian Nepomniachtchi, managed to end the tournament undefeated, as he drew with black against Jan-Krzysztof Duda. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage

7/1/2022 – The two most relevant games for the standings finished decisively in round 11 of the Candidates Tournament. Ian Nepomniachtchi beat Alireza Firouzja with black, while Fabiano Caruana first failed to make the most of a better position and then went astray against Ding Liren. This was Ding’s third straight victory, which leaves him in sole second place, 1½ points behind Nepo. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage

6/30/2022 – Fighting chess was the rule rather than the exception in round 10 of the Candidates Tournament. All the players — except Ian Nepomniachtchi, naturally — chose fighting lines, attempting to win at all costs, as the event is coming to an end and first place is all that matters. In the end, Ding Liren and Hikaru Nakamura won and caught up with Fabiano Caruana in shared second place, as the latter overplayed his hand and was defeated by Jan-Krzysztof Duda. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage

6/28/2022 – Round 9 of the Candidates Tournament saw three players scoring their first wins of the event. The one drawn encounter was the showdown between Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi, in which Caruana tried an offbeat line against his opponent’s Petroff but could not make the most of the small advantage he got in the middlegame. The winners of the day were Ding Liren, Alireza Firouzja and Teimour Radjabov. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage

5/27/2022 – Ding Liren won the Chessable Masters after beating 16-year-old Praggnanandhaa in the final match’s tiebreaks. The Chinese had won the first set on Wednesday, but saw his opponent bouncing back in the second 4-game mini-match. A clear rating favourite, Ding defeated his prodigious rival in the deciding blitz tiebreaker.

5/26/2022 – The first set of the final match at the online Chessable Masters ended on Wednesday with a 2½-1½ victory by Ding Liren over Praggnanandhaa. It has been a busy few days for the 16-year-old Pragg: the Indian chess prodigy shuttles between tournament matches and school exams. A second match will be played on Thursday — a draw will then be enough for Ding to win the tournament.

5/25/2022 – Rating underdogs Ding Liren and Praggnanandhaa moved on to the finals of the Chessable Masters after knocking out Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri respectively. After drawing their first three encounters, Ding defeated Carlsen in game 4 to clinch match victory. Meanwhile, Pragg and Giri traded blows to take their match to tiebreaks. The 16-year-old Indian prodigy was stronger in blitz, and thus knocked out his famed opponent.

4/11/2022 – Ding Liren, currently the world's number three, has very good chances to play in the Candidates Tournament as the highest-rated, eligible player in FIDE’s ranking list published on 1 May. However, to qualify and to replace the suspended Sergey Karjakin, Ding needs to have played 30 FIDE-rated games from May 2021 to May 2022. When Karjakin was suspended by the FIDE for supporting Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Ding had just played four of the required 30 games, but now he is catching up: after a four-player, twelve-round tournament in Hangzhou, he played a six-game match against Wei Yi. After five draws, Ding won the last game and the match. | Photos: Imedia

4/5/2022 – Since it is likely that Sergey Karjakin will not play in the upcoming Candidates Tournament — his six-month ban is still pending a potential appeal — the spot left behind by the Russian will be filled by the highest-rated, eligible player in FIDE’s ranking list published on May 1. Ding Liren is the clear frontrunner in this race, but he only played 4 games since June 2021, with the regulations stipulating that a minimum of 30 games are needed to be eligible. Ding is quickly making up for lost ground, as three events have been organized in China to get him to play the 26 games needed by the end of the month. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

2/20/2022 – Ding Liren had the best start at the Airthings Masters online tournament. The Chinese scored 10/12 points after winning three games and drawing one on the first day of action. Ian Nepomniachtchi and Andrey Esipenko are placed second and third, while Magnus Carlsen is currently eleventh after losing in rounds 3 and 4, against Esipenko and Nepomniachtchi respectively. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

7/1/2021 – Two of the four quarterfinal matches at the Goldmoney Asian Rapid tournament were decided on tiebreaks. After winning the first set and the first game of the second set, it seemed like Magnus Carlsen was going to have an easy day at the office, but back-to-back wins by Wesley So meant it would all be decided in blitz. The world champion finally moved on to the semis thanks to a win and a draw in the 5-minute games. Levon Aronian also had a tough time against Arjun Erigaisi, but managed to advance, while Vladislav Artemiev and Ding Liren won their matches in the rapid section of the second set. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

4/28/2021 – Ding Liren, Kirill Alekseenko and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave finished the 2020-21 Candidates Tournament on a high note, scoring wins over Ian Nepomniachtchi, Anish Giri and Wang Hao respectively. Fabiano Caruana and Alexander Grischuk signed a draw. In his last interview of the event, Wang announced his retirement from competitive chess. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

4/25/2021 – An exciting round with four decisive results left two players as the main contenders to win the Candidates Tournament. Anish Giri continued his run of excellent form and beat Fabiano Caruana with the black pieces, but could not catch up with Ian Nepomniachtchi, who got the better of Wang Hao. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Ding Liren also won. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

4/21/2021 – In round eight of the Candidates, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave had a difficult endgame against Fabiano Caruna. "MVL" could have drawn but lost. In round nine, "MVL" again had a difficult endgame, this time against Ding Liren. The game ended in a draw but Ding Liren could have won. Karsten Müller took a closer look. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

12/10/2020 – The 11th edition of the Danzhou Tournament took place on December 3-9, with half the participants playing online from the Country Garden Havana Holiday Hotel in Danzhou and the other half playing from home. It was an 8-player double round robin with a time control of 15 minutes for the game and 10-second increments from the start. Hungarian GM Richard Rapport was the clear winner after collecting 8/14 points. Ding Liren got sole second place. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

11/14/2020 – China’s top-ranked player, and number 3 in the world, Grandmaster Ding Liren has twice been a Candidate, first in 2018 and again in 2020. National Master Mike Walder annotates Liren-Caruana from the 2020 Candidates Tournament and presents a recipe for a dish that Liren might enjoy. WIM Alexey Root tells why Liren is a Grandmaster Chef honoree. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Altibox Norway Chess

8/28/2020 – In this Power Play Show, Grandmaster Daniel King looks at a couple of recent online games that feature typical King's Gambit tactics — the kind that are both instructive and beautiful! | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UK (18:00 CEST, 11:00 EST) on playchess.com. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer.

8/26/2020 – In his “Game of the Week” show, Merijn van Delft relives a game played by “Viktor the Terrible”. Korchnoi was one of the top grandmasters that firmly believed that White is better against the King’s Indian Defence. In 1993, against Friso Nijboer, he proved how the strong white centre can create havoc on Black’s position. | Merijn's show is freely available at 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) for a limited time, and on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Pictured: Korchnoi in Hoogovens 1985 | Photo: Rob Croes / Anefo

8/19/2020 – In his "Game of the Week" show Merijn van Delft takes a look at a game, in which chess legend David Bronstein demonstrated the power of the pawns. | Merijn's show is freely available at 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) for a limited time, and on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Eric Koch / Anefo / Dutch National Archive

8/14/2020 – In this Power Play Show, Grandmaster Daniel King takes a look at two fascinating games with the King's Indian. One was played very recently, the other was played 70 years ago. | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UK (18:00 CEST, 11:00 EST) on playchess.com. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. | Photo: Tigran Petrosian

8/13/2020 – In his match against Magnus Carlsen in the semi-finals of the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour Ding Liren lacked fortune, and lost the match 1-3 after missing a number of good opportunities, especially in the fourth set. But Ding arguably played most the spectacular game of the entire match and had the rare pleasure to mate Carlsen's king in the middle of the board. Daniel King took a closer look.

8/12/2020 – In his "Game of the Week" show Merijn van Delft takes a look at a game in which Magnus Carlsen once again showed his phenomenal class against Ding Liren in the finals of the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour. | Merijn's show is freely available at 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) for a limited time, and on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Lennart Ootes