8/10/2020 – Ding Liren and Hikaru Nakamura kicked off the semis of the Magnus Carlsen Tour closing tournament with impressive wins. Ding defeated world champion Magnus Carlsen in Armageddon, while Nakamura also reached the tiebreaks against Daniil Dubov but managed to secure victory without needing to play a sudden-death decider. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

7/30/2020 – Vladimir Kramnik still had a theoretical chance to get into the knockout stage of the Legends of Chess had Peter Svidler lost to Anish Giri — which he did — and he defeated Magnus Carlsen — in round 9 of the preliminaries. Kramnik could not beat the world champion in the end, which means Carlsen, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Giri and Svidler are the semifinalists. The four-player knockout kicks off on Friday. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

7/29/2020 – Round 8 of the Legends of Chess online tournament was played on Tuesday. Magnus Carlsen won his eighth match in a row, this time against second-placed Ian Nepomniachtchi. Vasyl Ivanchuk defeated Anish Giri in Armageddon, but the latter nevertheless secured a spot in the semifinals. Peter Svidler, in the meantime, beat Vladimir Kramnik in a crucial matchup. | Photo: FIDE

7/25/2020 – World champion Magnus Carlsen is the sole leader of the Legends of Chess online tournament after four rounds with a perfect score. Ian Nepomniachtchi is trailing by a point, while Peter Svidler and Vladimir Kramnik complete the top 4 in the standings table — let us not forget that the preliminary stage, being played at the moment, serves only to decide which four participants move on to the semifinals. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

7/3/2020 – In this Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King takes a look at some tricky pawn endgames but the main focus of the show is on the remarkable King's Indian that Carlsen played against Ding Liren in the Chessable Masters. | 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: Lennart Ootes, Archive

7/1/2020 – The quarterfinals of the Chessable Masters were very exciting, with Carlsen knocking out Caruana, Nepomniachtchi beating Artemiev and Giri eliminating Grischuk. Ding Liren won his match against Nakamura and in his "Game of the Week" show Merijn van Delft will study Ding Liren's phenomenal handling of White's side of the King's Indian. | 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: Lennart Ootes

6/30/2020 – Ding Liren will play Magnus Carlsen in the semifinals of the Chessable Masters after taking down Hikaru Nakamura in three sets. The Chinese ace had won the first set and, after losing the second mini-match in Armageddon, scored a convincing 2½:½ victory in Monday’s decider. The semis kick off on Tuesday. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

6/27/2020 – Seven consecutive draws gave Anish Giri a first-set win over Alexander Grischuk at the Chessable Masters quarterfinals, as he split the point with his Russian opponent while playing black in the Armageddon decider. A little earlier, Ding Liren had beaten Hikaru Nakamura 2½:1½ without needing tiebreaks. The second sets of these matchups will be played on Sunday. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

6/24/2020 – Anish Giri, Ding Liren, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana reached the quarterfinals of the Chessable Masters. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Teimour Radjabov were eliminated from the competition — ‘MVL’ lost four in a row on Tuesday while Radjabov played well but could not recover from his subpar performance in the first half. Caruana is set to face Magnus Carlsen in the most anticipated matchup of the quarterfinals. | Photo: Austin Fuller

5/28/2020 – Daniil Dubov and Ding Liren won their third, deciding mini-matches of the Lindores Abbey quarter-finals and are set to face each other in the semis. Dubov won three in a row to take down Sergey Karjakin in an 11-game match-up that had 11 decisive results, while Ding drew with black in the Armageddon tiebreaker to move on to the next stage of the knockout, leaving his compatriot Yu Yangyi out of contention. | Photos: FIDE / Lennart Ootes

5/26/2020 – Speed chess king Hikaru Nakamura bulldozed his way into the semi-finals — the world's top blitz player made short work of Levon Aronian as he crushed the Armenian 3:1 in their Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge mini-match and 2:0 overall. Nakamura, already ahead in the tie after winning on Saturday, raced into the lead with a first game win in today's second best-of-three rubber. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / FIDE

5/14/2020 – In a press release World Champion Magnus Carlsen today revealed his $1 million vision for a new online chess tour designed to cement the game’s future in the public eye. Four super-tournaments culminating in a Grand Final in August will become the new "majors" for online chess, the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour. It follows the breakout success of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational which shattered all records for online viewership and now serves as the first leg of the Tour. Carlsen believes carrying the momentum into an online Tour presents the opportunity to establish chess permanently as a mass media sport.

5/8/2020 – China and Europe won both their Thursday games and are now in clear first and second places respectively at the FIDE chess.com Nations Cup. With four rounds to go, the United States and especially Russia need to rack up a streak of good results if they want to reach Sunday's final. India and Rest of the World are having a tough time in the online event. | Pictured: Ding Liren and Wei Yi. | Photos: FIDE / Amruta Mokal

4/30/2020 – The seventh round of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational saw world numbers one and two, Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana, losing to Ding Liren and Anish Giri respectively. Carlsen played some dicey openings against Ding and, despite equalizing in the middlegame, made critical mistakes in three of the four rapid games. Ian Nepomniachtchi and Hikaru Nakamura also won. The first semi-final between Caruana and Nakamura will be played on Friday. Round-up show by IM Lawrence Trent. | Photo: Official site

4/28/2020 – After Carlsen's loss on Sunday, two players joined him in the lead the very next day. Ding Liren defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi 2½:1½ to catch up with the world champion, while Hikaru Nakamura got one point in his match against Fabiano Caruana after losing on tiebreaks to also reach Carlsen's mark of eleven points. With two rounds to go in the round-robin section, there are four clear favourites to reach the semis. Round-up show by GM Daniel King. | Photo: Official site

4/26/2020 – Hikaru Nakamura and Ding Liren obtained key victories in round four of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational. Nakamura took down Ian Nepomniachtchi 2½:1½, while Ding had black and drew Anish Giri in the Armageddon decider of their match-up. Nakamura is now in sole second place a point behind Carlsen and is very likely to reach the semi-finals. Round-up show by GM Yannick Pelletier. | Photo: Official site

4/24/2020 – The third round of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational concluded on Thursday. Ian Nepomniachtchi inflicted Anish Giri's third straight match loss without tiebreaks, while Ding Liren took down Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in Armageddon after their four rapid encounters ended drawn. With four rounds to go, Magnus Carlsen is the sole leader of the event. Round-up show by IM Lawrence Trent. | 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

3/20/2020 – Grandmaster Daniel King was supposed to be in Yekaterinburg now, but will instead take a look at the Candidates from home in London. 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...

3/19/2020 – The battle between pre-tournament favourites Ding Liren and Fabiano Caruana ended up favouring the Chinese, who responded convincingly to Caruana's provocative play in the opening to get his first win of the tournament after back-to-back losses in the first two rounds. The remaining games finished drawn, which means Wang Hao, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave are sharing the lead on 2 out of 3. Expert analysis by GMs STEPHEN GORDON and DANIEL KING. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / FIDE

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

12/27/2019 – Another eventful chess year is behind us, with great events and tournaments, impressive personalities and fantastic chess games. Help us choose the player of the year, the female player of the year, the game of the year, the combination of the year and the endgame of the year in our annual ChessBase reader poll. Now: Game of the Year...

12/25/2019 – Another eventful chess year is behind us, with great events and tournaments, impressive personalities and fantastic chess games. Help us choose the player of the year, the female player of the year, the game of the year, the combination of the year and the endgame of the year in our annual ChessBase reader poll. First up: The Player of the Year...

12/10/2019 – From London IM Lawrence Trent is on the scene at both the Grand Chess Tour Finals and the London Chess Classic ancillary events, and brings you his take in this Weekly Show. | Puzzle time: In the diagram, it's Black to move! | Lawrence is on-demand this week beginning at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET / Noon EST) and free for a limited time, or forever on-demand with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.