10/20/2021 – Going into Wednesday’s final round in the Russian Superfinals, both the open tournament and the women’s championship have a sole leader with a half-point edge over two players sharing second place. In the open, Nikita Vitiugov leads, with Maxim Matlakov and Vladimir Fedoseev standing close behind; among the women, Valentina Gunina is the frontrunner, with her closest chasers being Evgenija Ovod and Polina Shuvalova. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

12/11/2020 – After six rounds Sergey Karjakin and Ian Nepomniachtchi continue to share the lead in the Superfinal of the Russian Championship - both won their games in round 6. In the women's tournament Polina Shuvalova continues to win and with 6.0/6 she is now 1½ points ahead of the field. | Photos: Eteri Kublashvili

12/10/2020 – Round 5 of the Open Tournament of the Russian Championship brought five draws and one win: Maksim Matlakov defeated Maksim Chigaev but this did not affect the standings at the top. With 3.5/5 Ian Nepomniachtchi and Sergey Karjakin still share the lead. In the Women's Tournament Polina Shuvalova extended her winning streak and won her fifth game in a row and now leads with with 5.0/5. | Photos: Eteri Kublashvili

12/9/2020 – After four rounds Ian Nepomniachtchi and Sergey Karjakin share the lead at the Russian Superfinals. In round 4 Nepomniachtchi scored a fine win with Black in the Najdorf, while Karjakin drew. In the Women's Tournament Polina Shuvalova continues to win and now leads the field with 4.0/4. | Photos: Eteri Kublashvili

12/8/2020 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent takes a look at the Russian Superfinals and presents a fine game by Polina Shuvalova. | Lawrence's show is available at 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET, 14:00 ET) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

1/3/2020 – At the end of 2019 ChessBase readers were invited to vote for the player, the female player, the game, the combination, and the endgame of the year. A lot of readers took part in the votes and here are the results — the favourites of our readers. | Photo: Maria Emelianova

12/28/2019 – 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. Next up: the Combination of the Year...

10/27/2019 – The World Junior Championships officially came to an end on October 26th 2019 when players from over 50 countries left for home. Two new World Champions were crowned: Evgeny Shtembuliak in the Open section and Polina Shuvalova in the Girls' section. The silver and the bronze medal in the Open section went to the Armenians, Shant Sargsyan and Aram Hakobyan respectively. In the Girls' section it was Mobina Alinasab from Iran who won the silver and Elizaveta Solozhenkina who won the bronze. We take you to the moments of the final rounds where the six medals were decided in a huge report from New Delhi by Sagar Shah, Amruta Mokal, Niklesh Jain and Angela Franco. | Photo: Niklesh Jain

10/24/2019 – He read the Zurich Interzonal 1953 book written by Bronstein and Gelfand's Positional Decision Making to improve his positional understanding. He goes to the gym and swims every day to stay fit. He is the sole leader in the open section with a score of 7½/9 and has a performance rating of 2783. She won the under-18 world championship 2019. She's sure to go the gym every morning, and she enjoys each and every moment she spends on the chess board. She has an Elo performance of 2585 and is leading the girls section at the World Junior with 8.0/9. That's Evgeny Shtembuliak and Polina Shuvalova for you! These two youngsters are looking unstoppable at the World Juniors 2019.

10/23/2019 – Polina Shuvalova is on fire at the World Junior 2019. After her pretty queen sacrifice at the World Youth 2019 that went viral, the Russian youngster yet again sacrificed her queen, this time at the World Junior. This one wasn't as deep or beautiful as what we saw in Mumbai in her game against Afonasieva, but to beat a player like Assaubayeva with a queen sacrifice is never easy! In the open section we have two leaders: Shtembuliak drew his game against Shant Sargsyan. This let Miguel Santos Ruiz catch up. The Spaniard beat Praggnanandhaa in pretty fashion to join Shtembuliak at the top. IM SAGAR SHAH brings a detailed report from New Delhi.

10/16/2019 – The World Junior Championships 2019 began with great excitement on Tuesday in New Delhi, India. FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich visited the event and boosted the spirit of the participants. This is the second big event happening in India in the month of October after the successful completion of the World Youth Championships. It is perhaps for the first time in the history that the number of male participants in the open section is exactly equal to the number of female participants in the girls section — 94 each! In the first round both the top seeds — Amin Tabatabaei (2642) and Zhu Jiner (2507) — were held to a draw. IM SAGAR SHAH brings you detailed coverage from the venue in New Delhi. | Photo: Niklesh Jain

10/13/2019 – Six new World Youth Champions were crowned on October 12th 2019: Aydin Suleymanli and Meruert Kamalidenova won the under-14 open and girls section respectively, under-16 was won by Rudik Makarian and Leya Garifullina and under-18 titles went to Praggnanandhaa and Polina Shuvalova. How tense was the last round? In four sections things went as per plan, however in the under-14 girls and under-16 girls everything changed completely in the final round. IM SAGAR SHAH brings you a detailed report of how things panned out on the final day of the World Youth Championships 2019. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

10/9/2019 – Russia came to the under-14 open section with two medal hopefuls Volodar Murzin (2433) and Andrey Tsvetkov (2382), but both were beaten by the same Indian player — Abinandhan R. His rating? Just 1830! IM SAGAR SHAH shows you how in this report from Mumbai, plus Hans Neimann's fine win over Rudik Makarian in under-16 open and Aryan Gholami's victory to snatch sole lead in under-18 open. But that's not all — the game of the day was definitely Polina Shuvalova's rook and queen sacrifice! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

10/6/2019 – At the end of the fourth round of the World Youth 2019, we have one section where a sole leader has emerged. In under-14 open, Srihari LR (pictured) claimed the pole position by beating top seed Sreeshwan Maralakshikari. The game was so good that it was given the "ChessBase Game of the day prize"! Divya Deshmukh, the top seed in under-14 section lost her game to a player rated over 400 points below her. Rudik Makarian, Aronyak Ghosh in under-16 open and Leya Garifullina and Nazerke Nurgali in under-16 girls are the four other players on a perfect score of 4.0/4. IM SAGAR SHAH brings you a detailed report with pictures, game, analysis from the Hotel Renaissance in Mumbai. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

3/1/2019 – FIDE's March ratings reflect changes from the Gibraltar Masters, the Cairns Cup and Champions Showdown in St. Louis. Vladislav Artemiev took a big step up the classical list after his Gibraltar win. Valentina Gunina can point to her fine performance in the USA to justify her re-entrance into the top 10 among women. And Fabiano Caruana showed that he really has worked on his rapid chess. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

4/20/2018 – Valentina Gunina won the European Championship 2018 with a full point lead. Nana Dzagnidze and Anna Ushenina top the list of second on eight points. The top fourteen players qualify for the next World Championship tournament. | Pictured: Gunina with tournament director Eva Repkova and chief arbiter Ivan Syrovy (right) | Photo: europchess.org