3/19/2018 – At the midway point, Fabiano Caruana took the sole lead after beating Levon Aronian in a wild game. Aronian seemed to be ina bit of a panic, while Caruana played very precisely, staved off the attack and took the point. Sergey Karjakin won his first game beating Wesley So and moves out of last place. Ding Liren, usually such a fighter, seems content to not lose, and drew Vladimir Kramnik after creating good winning chances. Here is the report and analyses by GM Alex Yermolinsky | Photo: World Chess

3/17/2018 – The fifth round of the Candidates Tournament in Berlin brought the first round of all draws, but Levon Aronian missed a huge chance against Alexander Grischuk. Friday was a day full of surprises: Vladimir Kramnik overplayed his hand against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and was dealt a painful loss, while Wesley So managed a fantastic comeback against Aronian, whose confidence looks shaken. Fabiano Caruana played a double-edged game against Grischuk and now shares the lead with Mamedyarov. | Photo: World Chess

3/14/2018 – The fourth round of the Candidates Tournament in Berlin brought some serious drama. Kramnik vs Caruana was a wild back-and-forth battle. Caruana was much better, then Kramnik was close to winning before finally blundering it all away on move 59. Grischuk missed a killer chance against Ding Liren and played to a draw. Aronian won with Black thanks to good preparation against Karjakin, and Mamedyarov and drew an unspectacular game against So. Caruana is now in the sole lead with 3.0 / 4.

3/12/2018 – The big winner of round 3 of the Candidates Tournament in Berlin is Vladimir Kramnik. With a powerful and brilliant attack, he won a crucial game with Black against Levon Aronian. The other three games of the round ended in a draw. With 2½/3 Kramnik is now sole leader. Tuesday is the first rest day in Berlin. The tournament resumes on Wednesday at 15:00 CET (10:00 AM EST) | Photo: World Chess

3/12/2018 – Round 2 of the Candidates Tournament in Berlin brought one win and three draws. Alexander Grischuk bounced back from his loss against Vladimir Kramnik in round 1 and won an energetic attacking game against Wesley So. Mamedyarov and Aronian, Kramnik and Karjakin, and Ding Liren and Caruana all drew their games. | Photo: André Schulz

3/11/2018 – An unusual start to the Candidates tournament in many respects. Three winners, three losers, and several players troubled by their first-round experience in the "Kuehlhaus" Berlin. The good news is, the first round games were great, amid many teething problems. Fans and professionals alike are eagerly awaiting round two to see how the situation develops. | Photo: Frederic Friedel

3/10/2018 – And so it begins. The eight candidates were presented on the ground floor of the Berlin "Kuehlhaus" last night to a crowd of assembled guests including the keynote speaker, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan. Highlights from the opening press conference and party, along with live games of round one starting at 15:00 CET (9:00 EST). | Photo and drawings by World Chess

3/9/2018 – The long-anticipated Candidates tournament starts tomorrow! You can watch with live video on WorldChess.com or the games on ChessBase via live.chessbase.com. We'll be having daily coverage, including the popular video round-up shows with well known contributors like Daniel King, Lawrence Trent, Simon Williams, Erwin l'Ami and Oliver Reeh. | Photo and drawings by World Chess

1/10/2018 – The results are in! Find out how ChessBase readers rated our nominations for Player of the Year, Female Player of the Year, Game of the Year, Endgame of the Year and Move of the Year. From Anand to Zhongyi, we look back at the highlights of 2017, as selected by ChessBase editors and voted on by members!

1/7/2018 – At the end of our survey of 2017, we will be voting for the "Player of the Year 2017". We picked ten players who stood out over the past 12 months, excelling in one way or another. Choose your player of the year in our poll.

11/25/2017 – Levon Aronian survived the pressure from Hikaru Nakamura, making a draw that ensured him a share of first place. He was somewhat surprisingly joined by Dmitry Jakovenko, who beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with the black pieces. MVL was in a must win situation, so had to go for broke. All other games ended in draws including the remaining key game for the Candidates qualification: Teimour Radjabov vs. Richard Rapport. In the end Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Alexander Grischuk maintained their lead in the overall Grand Prix standings and secured the final two Candidates tournament spots.

11/21/2017 – After the tempestuous round the day before, round five was an understandable anticlimax with draws on all boards. For the top two boards in particular, this was quite expected, as it pitted the leaders against each other. Lions don't attack other lions for the 'challenge', they wait for easier prey. Still, it was not all dull games or lack of theoretical ideas as shown by GM Alex Yermolinsky in his round five report. | Photo: Valerij Belobeev

11/20/2017 – What an exciting round it was! Round four not only saw a plethora of decisive games, but spectacular ones at that. Levon Aronian was once more his brilliant best as he defeated Anish Giri in a beautiful game with sacs coming from all directions. Ding Liren's imaginative attack against Ernesto Inarkiev was also a joy to watch, and even Hikaru Nakamura's endgame squeeze over Radjabov started with a sparkling queen sac. Report and analysis by GM Alex Yermolinsky. | Photo: Valerij Belobeev

11/15/2017 – The last day of the match between Magnus Carlsen and Ding Liren continued the trend of the previous days: Ding had chances but failed to realise them. Carlsen, however, was able to exploit chances he did not really seem to have. No wonder Carlsen won the blitz-match by a huge margin. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/14/2017 – Today, the Champions Showdown in St. Louis will end. Ding Liren and Magnus Carlsen will play 12 blitz games with a time-control of 5 minutes for the whole game. After three days Carlsen leads by 50-18 and thus secured the match. Even if Ding Liren won all 12 blitz games today he would not catch up. But no matter the result, 12 high-class blitz games are still worth watching. The games begin at 18:00 CET (11 am in Saint Louis) on Tuesday. You can follow the action live.

11/14/2017 – One match is still running at the Champions Showdown in St. Louis: Magnus Carlsen vs Ding Liren. In round three, on November 13, the World Champion and China's first World Championship Candidate had to play eight 10-minute games. Ding Liren started well but then suffered a debacle. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/13/2017 – Three matches of the Champions Showdown in St. Louis are over: Hikaru Nakamura crushed Veselin Topalov, Wesley So needed an incredible comeback to defeat Leinier Dominguez, and Fabiano Caruana won a close match against Alexander Grischuk. Magnus Carlsen and Ding Liren still play, but Carlsen dominates. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/12/2017 – Day 4 featured impressive comebacks from both Caruana and So, who won their respective matches. Meanwhile Nakamura had locked up his $60,000 winner's prize already with nine games to spare! Carlsen put the the screws to Ding in the Game 20 portion of their match and has a sizeable lead. Three matches are in the books but the fourth continues Monday and Tuesday in Saint Louis, USA. Games begin at 20:00 CET (1 pm in Saint Louis) Monday, and at 18:00 CET (11 am in Saint Louis) on Tuesday.

11/11/2017 – Ding Liren, the Chinese number one and participant in the Candidates Tournament 2018 in Berlin, enjoys the reputation of being a solid positional player. But in round 18 of the Yingmei Cup — the Chinese Team Championship — he showed that he is also a world class attacking player by demolishing Bai Jinshi with Black in one of the most beautiful and most spectacular games of the year. Grandmasters Daniel King and Rustam Kasimdzhanov both had a closer look. Enjoy! And tell us about your favourite games of 2017. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

10/17/2017 – A detailed review from Prof. Nagesh Havanur. Among other things this issue includes all games from super tournaments, Altibox Norway Chess and FIDE Grand Prix tournaments with winners, Levon Aronian and Ding Liren annotating decisive battles. Our reviewer re-examines the Aronian-Carlsen encounter and also sets up a little test for young readers. The magazine offers a bonanza for lovers of rapid play. There are games from Norway, Paris and Leuven blitz events. 1968 games with 11 opening surveys from Spanish to Semi-Slav. Not to be missed.

9/30/2017 – World Cup runner-up, Ding Liren, the chess player, is well known to everyone. But what about Ding Liren the person. Not much is known about his personal life, his education, his likes, dislikes, hobbies, his girlfriend, daily routine, future aims and so on. It was with the aim to fill this void that IM Sagar Shah met with Ding after his World Cup 2017 journey and interviewed him. The answers of Chinese player show you the kind of person he is. To put it succinctly: his feet are firmly secured to the ground, but his mind thinks big and he aims high — very high! | Photo: Ding Liren's archives

9/28/2017 – Every evening at 9 pm CEST we offer you a round-up show of the games played at the World Cup in Tbilisi. Yesterday Daniel King showed the highlights of the tiebreak between Ding Liren and Levon Aronian. Aronian did win the World Cup for the second time in his life. Have a look here...

9/27/2017 – It could all have ended today had it not been for some heroic defence by Ding Liren. After getting an extremely bad position out of opening, it seemed as if the Chinese player had no chances of survival. But he started to make his moves quickly and confidently and Levon Aronian who was clearly under pressure, couldn't find the best possible way to make most of his advantage. With all the four classical games ending in draws we are now going into the tiebreaks to decide who will win the World Cup 2017. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

9/25/2017 – Every evening at 9 pm CEST we offer you a round-up show of the games played at the World Cup in Tbilisi. Yesterday Daniel King showed the highlights of game 2 between Ding Liren and Levon Aronian. Who will win the World Cup in Tbilisi 2017? Have a look...