9/10/2017 – Round three of the World Cup 2017 witnessed the biggest upset of the tournament — World Champion Magnus Carlsen was outplayed and defeated by China's Bu Xiangzhi. Carlsen's task of making a comeback is further complicated by the fact that he will be black on September 10th. Bu would require only a draw to make it to the next round. In the other results of the day, Wesley So managed to beat Francesco Vallejo Pons and Levon Aronian showed some of his class to get the better of Maxim Matlakov. We have analysis of all three of these encounters, plus some interesting posts about the "shorts incident" involving Anton Kovalyov. | Photos: Amruta Mokal

9/8/2017 – It might be appropriate to call this an end of an era. After nearly two decades, we will not be seeing Vishy Anand fighting for the Candidates as he was knocked out in the second round of the World Cup 2017 by Anton Kovalyov. Defending champion Karjakin did not fare better as his opponent Dubov showed deep preparation which led to a convincing win. Michael Adams is another world class player who was eliminated. Ten players qualified for round three, 22 matches go into the tiebreaks. | Photos: Amruta Mokal

8/23/2017 – Modern top players are "universal players". They know and play a large variety of openings, they master brilliant attacks, difficult defenses and patient positional play equally well. However, the chess of Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen is still quite different. Can you recognize the style of these four World Champions?

8/22/2017 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won the Sinquefield 2017 convincingly. In a very strong field he won three games, drew six and became sole winner with 6.0/9, half a point ahead of Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian. But what distinguished his play, why was he so successful? Venkatachalam Saravanan took a close at his games and tries an answer. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

8/22/2017 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave registered the biggest win of his career at the 2017 Sinquefield Cup ahead of a strong field of players that included world champion Magnus Carlsen. In an exclusive interview with Dhananjay Khadilkar, the 26-year-old French Grandmaster talks about his performance in the tournament, including the epic encounter against Carlsen that took a toll on him. | Photo: Dhananjay Khadilkar

8/12/2017 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave wins the Sinquefield Cup, the first classical event of the 2017 the Grand Chess Tour. He settled the matter without consideration for tiebreak rules by winning over Ian Nepomniachtchi to reach 6 points. Magnus Carlsen gave it his best shot by beating and leapfrogging Levon Aronian to reach 5½ points. Viswanathan Anand earlier drew with So, and only reached 5½ | Photos: Lennart Ootes

8/11/2017 – Anand is still in the joint lead after draw with Vachier-Lagrave, as Aronian drew with Svilder. Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin are lurking a half point back and will have to win in round 9 to have any chance for tournament victory | Photos: Lennart Ootes

8/10/2017 – We now have a three-way tie for first, after wins by Anand and Aronian. Vachier-Lagrave only drew, and Magnus Carlsen remains a half point back. Garry Kasparov arrived and delighted fans with an appearance on the live commentary webcast! | Photos: Lennart Ootes

8/9/2017 – Levon Aronian was the sole winner of the sixth round, impressively defeating Wesley So and moving into shared second place with Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen. The latter missed chances to beat Hikaru Nakamura in a long drawn-out rook endgame, but had to settle for a draw after six hours of play. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave remains in the lead. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

8/8/2017 – Magnus Carlsen is back in the black! It was a day when Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen showcased brilliant calculating skills and self belief in order to win their games against Caruana and So respectively. When your opponent makes a move which you have thought was impossible, it is natural to doubt your own calculation. But great players go beyond that doubt and play confidently if they can find no refutation. Anand did just that, and so did Carlsen to score the only victories of the day. Blow by blow analysis of both the games. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

8/6/2017 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave became "the Frenchman with two names...and three points"! On Saturday he eked out a win with Black over World Champion Magnus Carlsen. He now leads Fabiano Caruana, who drew, and five players with an even score a point back. Hikaru Nakamura slipped to -1 with a loss to Neponiachtchi. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

8/5/2017 – It was a calmer day in St. Louis with all games in Round 3 ending in draws. Still plenty of interesting chess, as the tournament heads into the weekend. The main attention was on Anand-Carlsen. | Photo: Austin Fuller

8/4/2017 – The Sinquefield Cup continues to delight the spectators and chess fans, with its indomitable fighting games and typical drama. The second round too saw three games ending decisively and near-complete effort from all the players. | Photos: Lennart Ootes (Grand Chess Tour)

8/4/2017 – It was a remarkable month for ratings, with notable results all over. A few standouts are 18-year-old Wei Yi, who is now no. 14, 14-year-old Alireza Firouzja poised to become a GM at 2518 FIDE, and 13-year-old WFM Bibisara Assaubayeva, who flew to 2421 and will get her IM title soon. If that's not enough, Magnus Carlsen has now opened an 80-Elo gap in the Blitz ratings. Still, the nod must go to Teimour Radjabov, the second youngest player ever in the Top 100, for his win at Geneva.

8/3/2017 – Aronian’s creativity, Karjakin’s precision in an advantageous position, and full-fledged fights in all the boards were the talking points of the first round at Sinquefield Cup which started today at Saint Louis, USA, the 4th leg of the Grand Chess Tour. So Wesley fell for the time immemorial classic zeitnot tragedy when he blundered on the 40th move and lost to Vachier-Lagrave from a difficult position. | Photos: Lennart Ootes (Grand Chess Tour)

7/24/2017 – Today, FIDE announced the list of participants for the World Cup 2017, which will be played from September 2nd to 28th in the city of Tbilisi. One name on the list was particularly surprising — Magnus Carlsen. Two years ago the World Champion revealed that he is a fan of the knock-out-mode. Now he's gunning for one title he does not yet have. | Photo: Anastasiya Karlovich, dubai2014wrb.com

5/27/2017 – James Altucher is an American hedge fund manager, entrepreneur, bestselling author, venture capitalist and podcaster, founder of more than 20 companies. Also a chess master, Deep Blue trainer. His fondest wish was to play Garry Kasparov, which he recently did, during a podcast with the Champion. A one-hour discussion that provides unique insights into Kasparov's career, his match against Karpov, his training with Botvinnik, and a lot more. Miss this incredible discussion at your own peril.

5/16/2017 – English Grandmaster Simon Williams is a popular commentator and author who recently published a DVD about the London System with 2.Bf4. In an interview with ChessBase he explains why this seemingly quiet line is dangerous and also talks about effective opening study and reveals why it is sometimes a good idea to break rules.

4/27/2017 – Magnus Carlsen was born in 1990, in 2010 he became the youngest number one in the history of chess, in 2013 he was World Champion, and in May 2014 he reached an Elo-rating of 2882, the highest Elo-rating of all time. The new Fritztrainer Master Class DVD invites you to study and to enjoy Carlsen's chess. It contains all games of the World Champions and on videos with a total running time of 7 hours and 39 minutes experts explain the characteristics of Carlsen's play.

4/7/2017 – For a long time the London System (White plays d4, Nf3, Bf4 etc.) enjoyed the reputation of being solid but dull and boring. But World Champion Magnus Carlsen and a lot of other players have discovered the possibilities of White's set-up. On his new DVD Simon Williams shows the many advantages of 2.Bf4, looking first of all at lines that are "simple but aggressive".

3/30/2017 – The ChessBase Magazine offers current news about top events, with lots of high-level analyses by the world's best players. These analyses make each issue timeless. ChessBase Magazine #176 took a look at the World Championship Match between Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin in New York 2016. Professor Nagesh Havanur liked what he saw.

3/1/2017 – Adhiban's challenge at the Tata Steel Masters 2017 didn't begin so well, but suddenly picked up speed as he defeated Karjakin. This was followed by wins over Wojtaszek, Andreikin and Rapport. He was also very close to beating Magnus Carlsen. In the second part of the interview we continue the dissection of the key moments in Adhiban's games along with his views on them.

1/11/2017 – We asked, you voted: who was player of the year 2016, who was female player of 2016, what game was the best of 2016 and what move? And which endgame did the chess fans like best? Here are the results.

1/10/2017 – The tournament in Wijk aan Zee that starts on Friday, January 13 - the first round begins one day later, January 14, 1.30 pm - promises attractive chess but also offers a lot besides chess. For instance, a football match with the chess stars.