8/15/2020 – Hikaru Nakamura kicked off the final of the Magnus Carlsen Tour with a 2½:1½ victory over the world champion, after winning game 2 with the black pieces and drawing the remaining three encounters of the day. The match is played to the best of 7 sets and has no scheduled rest days. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

8/12/2020 – Hikaru Nakamura needed only three sets to knock out Daniil Dubov in their best-of-5 semifinal match. ‘Naka’ will get two rest days before the final, where he will face either Ding Liren or Carlsen, with the latter now the favourite to advance after scoring a second consecutive 2½:½ victory over his Chinese colleague. | Photo: Justin Kellar

8/11/2020 – Hikaru Nakamura defeated Daniil Dubov for a second set in a row, which means he only needs one more win in the coming three days to move on to the final of the Magnus Carlsen Tour closing event. Meanwhile, Carlsen evened the score in his matchup against Ding Liren by scoring a clear 2½:½ victory on Monday. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

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

7/1/2020 – 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

6/29/2020 – On his 26th birthday, Anish Giri reached the semifinals of the Chessable Masters by defeating Alexander Grischuk 3:1 in the second set of their quarterfinals matchup. Meanwhile, Hikaru Nakamura tied the score with Ding Liren after winning the Armageddon decider of the second set — the final set will be played on Monday. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

6/26/2020 – In this Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King takes a look at the King's Gambit and shows how Alexander Morozevich (pictured) defeated Vishy Anand with this old but exciting opening. | 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: Chess Festival Biel (Archive)

6/23/2020 – In Group A of the Chessable Masters preliminary round-robin, Daniil Dubov was sharing the lead after 8 (out of 10) rounds, but back-to-back losses against Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura left him out of the competition. Pentala Harikrishna was also eliminated, as Vladislav Artemiev, Carlsen, Nakamura and Alexander Grischuk moved on to the quarterfinals. | Photo: Abu Dhabi Masters Tournament

6/19/2020 – In this Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King will present an interesting endgame and a problem by Sam Loyd. But he will also look at the current form of Hikaru Nakamura who hopes to win the Chessable Masters, the next Magnus Carlsen Tour event will start tomorrow, Saturday, June 20. | 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

6/10/2020 – In this show Merijn van Delft takes a look at a game between Magnus Carlsen and Jeffery Xiong from the Clutch Chess International. | 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.

6/3/2020 – In this show Merijn van Delft takes a look at the match between Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen at the Lindores Abbey Chess Challenge tournament. | 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.

6/2/2020 – Hikaru Nakamura stormed ahead in the first leg of the $150,000 Rapid Challenge final today. The American, fresh from toppling World Champion Magnus Carlsen in the semi, showed all his cool, calm skills to race into a 2:0 lead almost without breaking a sweat. After four games Nakamura was leading 2½:1½. Tomorrow, former World Rapid Champion Daniil Dubov will be back gunning to turn the match around. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

5/31/2020 – Hikaru Nakamura bounced back from a 0:3 loss in the first mini-match of the semi-finals by winning the next two rubbers to knock out world champion Magnus Carlsen from the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge. The third mini-match went down to the wire, with Nakamura choosing black in the Armageddon decider and beating Carlsen after the latter first achieved a favourable position and then blundered away the game. Nakamura will face Daniil Dubov in the final, starting Monday. | Photos: Austin Fuller / FIDE

5/30/2020 – Hikaru Nakamura beat Magnus Carlsen in the second mini-match of their semi-final at the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge, scoring a win in the first encounter and drawing the remaining three games. The match will be decided in Saturday's third rubber. Meanwhile, Daniil Dubov defeated Ding Liren for a second day in a row to secure a spot in the final. | Photos: Niki Riga / Lennart Ootes

5/27/2020 – Yesterday, the Clutch Chess Champions Showdown began. The top four players in the US play an online blitz tournament in knockout mode. But some games in their matches are "clutch games" – they are especially important because they count more than the other games. This scoring system allowed Hikaru Nakamura to take the lead in an even match against Wesley So while Fabiano Caruana dominated Leinier Dominguez at will.

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

5/23/2020 – The first mini-matches of the Lindores Abbey quarter-finals went down to the wire, as Hikaru Nakamura and Yu Yangyi got wins over Levon Aronian and Ding Liren in Armageddon tiebreakers. While Yu and Ding drew all four rapid games prior to the sudden-death decider, Nakamura came back from behind to tie the score in the fourth game of regulation. Aronian and Ding will get a chance to bounce back on Monday, when the second pair of mini-matches will take place. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

5/21/2020 – Four players dropped out of the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge after the preliminary single round robin finished on Thursday. Alexander Grischuk was eliminated on tiebreaks despite getting a last-round win over Wei Yi. Wei, Alireza Firouzja and Jan-Krzysztof Duda are also out of contention. The round robin was won by Hikaru Nakamura, who collected 7½ points in 11 games. The quarter-finals kick off on Saturday. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Vladimir Jagr

5/21/2020 – No one scored more than 2½ points on day two of the Lindores Abbey Chess Challenge, as Hikaru Nakamura and Sergey Karjakin remain as co-leaders after round eight. Magnus Carlsen had a subpar performance, losing to Yu Yangyi and Jan-Krzysztof Duda, and is now sharing third place with Wesley So. In the fight to get a pass to the quarter-finals, Alireza Firouzja and Wei Yi will need to step up their game in the last three rounds of the preliminaries in order to stay in the tournament. | Photos: Georgios Souleidis / Amruta Mokal

5/20/2020 – The four first rounds of the Lindores Abbey Chess Challenge were played on Tuesday, and four players are sharing the lead on 3 points. Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura won with white and drew with black, Wesley So also won two despite playing three times with black, while Sergey Karjakin won three games and lost one. The twelve-player round-robin that continues until Thursday will eliminate the bottom four before the knockout kicks off after a rest day. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

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.

5/12/2020 – "Billions" is an Award-winning and critically acclaimed TV series about power and politics in the world of New York high finance. In the second episode of the fifth season, "The Chris Rock Test", Hikaru Nakamura has a cameo appearance. It is the first time a top player appeared in an Award-winning American network show since Magnus Carlsen's was part of "The Simpsons" three years ago. | Photo: Hotstar Stream

5/6/2020 – Merijn van Delft takes a look at the dramatic final of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational match where Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura showed their skills in rapid chess. | 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.

5/2/2020 – Hikaru Nakamura is the first finalist of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational. The American defeated his compatriot Fabiano Caruana 4:2 after drawing in the four-game rapid section and winning both blitz tiebreakers. Nakamura will face either Carlsen or Ding Liren, who will play the other semi-final on Saturday. Round-up show by GM Yannick Pelletier. | Photo: Amruta Mokal