The Tata Steel Chess Tournament is taking place on January 16-31 as an over-the-board 14-player single round robin. An exciting seventh round left four players sharing the lead on 4 points namely Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri, Alireza Firouzja and Jorden van Foreest. The action kicks off at 13.00...

Irina Bulmaga is a Woman Grandmaster, an International Master, and a chess professional. She discovered her passion for chess when she was still a child, and in a short story she looks back to the start of her chess career and remembers the beginning of a life-long love affair.

This year we are launching our Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar . For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big...

Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. In the eleventh part of his ChessBase show Understanding before Moving Herman explains how important it is to learn and to remember typical...

It was an eventful seventh round in Wijk aan Zee, as five out of seven games finished decisively, including Anish Giri beating former sole leader Nils Grandelius with the white pieces. Giri, who was sharing second place before the round, was not the only player from the chasing pack to win on...

Two decisive results in round 6 left Nils Grandelius still as the sole leader and increased the number of players chasing him a half point behind to six. Jorden van Foreest and Alireza Firouzja won on Friday and are now part of the massive chasing pack on 3 points. Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen failed...

Eric van Reem, host of the Let’s talk about chess podcast, continues his Wijk aan Zee Storytellers series. In the first episode he talked to Dutch GM John van der Wiel, now he talks to Vishy Anand, five-time World Champion and five-time winner in Wijk. Anand shared a lot of stories about this...

In this Power Play Show, GM Daniel King takes a look at Magnus Carlsen’s win against Alireza Firouzja from the first round of the Tata Steel Tournament 2021 in Wijk aan Zee, in which Carlsen brought a typical pawn sacrifice to initiate a dangerous - and finally successful - attack. Power Play is...

Round 5 of the Tata Steel Masters saw Nils Grandelius retaking the lead after beating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with the white pieces in the only decisive game of the day. Grandelius showed excellent preparation and managed to convert a position a pawn up against the ever-resourceful Frenchman....

Yes, White’s king is on f4 Which Black could have exploited. But this was a rapid game, and in time-pressure Magnus Carlsen, who was playing with Black against Ian Nepomniachtchi, did not find the win. Can you do better?

Dubbed the Match of the New Century, the third confrontation between Russian and The World was played in Moscow on September 8-12, 2002. Due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a number of players from ex-Soviet countries represented The World. The match was staged over ten boards using a...

In this week’s show, well-known Dutch trainer Robert Ris pays tribute to the legendary Grandmaster and writer Lubomir Kavalek, who passed away January 18, 2021, at the age of 77. Fast and Furious is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

The Tata Steel Tournament in Wijk aan Zee has a long tradition, reaching back to 1938. To hear more about this tradition and to share stories from this famous tournament, Eric van Reem, host of Let’s talk about chess , invited a number of Wijk aan Zee Storytellers to his podcast. In the first...

In the past, many tournaments offered brilliancy prizes for particularly beautiful games, but unfortunately this fine custom has gone a little out of fashion. But the FIDE Online Cadet and Youth World Championships 2020 paid respect to this tradition and awarded a brilliancy prize. It was donated...

This week Merijn van Delft takes a look at a the fascinating encounter between Fabiano Caruana and Jan Jan-Krzysztof Duda from round 3 of the Tata Steel Tournament in Wijk aan Zee. A game with stunning tactics and fierce attacks and counterattacks. Merijn’s show is available at 16.00 UTC (17:00...

On the fourth day of play in Wijk aan Zee, all games finished drawn. In a number of games, especially the players with the black pieces had better positions but could not convert their advantage into full points. In Aryan Tari vs Alireza Firouzja, both players missed chances to win. Wednesday is a...

Frank Scott’s The Queen’s Gambit with Anya Taylor-Joy as Beth Harmon is the most successful Netflix series of all time, and despite small inaccuracies it convincingly shows how exciting and fascinating chess can be. In fact, the games Beth Harmon plays in the series were almost all taken from...

A few weeks ago, the FIDE Council approved a new set of rules to be applied to official online chess competitions. The document also established the framework for hybrid events, a format where the games are played online, but the participants are physically present in a public place like a club,...

Lubomir Kavalek was born in Prague in 1943. He left his country in 1968 and found a new home in the USA. In the 1970s he was one of the world’s best players and also successful as a second and coach, including helping Bobby Fischer in Reykjavà k. He was also a prolific writer, with dozens of well...

Pawn endings require precise calculation. Here, Black’s king is stronger than White’s outside passed pawn. Black to play and win.