Twenty-three years ago an unknown player took part in the World Open in Philadelphia. He called himself John von Neumann, beat a FIDE master, and drew grandmaster Helgi Ólafsson from Iceland. His opponents became suspicious when they heard something in his pocket buzzing. The player fled the tournament after the tournament director asked to test […]
Monthly Archives: April 2026
The Latin expression memento mori, meaning “remember [that you have] to die”, has long been associated with humility and reflection on the brevity of life. Chess offers a fitting metaphor for this idea: every game begins with possibilities, unfolds through choices and conflict, and ends inevitably. The clock, the sacrifices and the final checkmate all […]
In an extensive interview after winning the Candidates, Javokhir Sindarov reflected on the key moments behind his victory, his preparation methods and his ambitions for the future. The Uzbek grandmaster discussed the importance of his draw against Fabiano Caruana in Cyprus, his work with coach Roman Vidonyak and his long-term goal of becoming world number […]
In the world of Indian chess, few stories are as cinematic as the rise of Vaishali Rameshbabu. While the world watches her exploits, the man who has spent a decade moulding her talent, GM R.B. Ramesh, provides an intimate look at the sacrifice, ethics and the psychological sides of India’s newest Women’s World Championship challenger. […]
As we reported, 14-year-old Yağız Kaan Erdoğmuş has just become the the youngest player in history to surpass the 2700 rating mark. By beating former world champion Veselin Topalov 5-1 he reached a live Elo rating of 2709.4 and is clearly on his way to join the group of the top-ten players in the world. […]
Were you able to handle the four rook endgame studies we showed you recently? They were a little bit harder to solve than they looked. We now bring you all the intricacies and subtleties in short videos by IM Gauri Shankar, who works as a chess trainer in Chicago. And of course we give you […]
Roman Dehtiarov produced a huge surprise at the European Championship in Katowice by defeating David Anton in the final round to win the title outright with 9/11 points. The 17-year-old Ukrainian entered the tournament as the 126th seed and an international master rated 2452. He finished with eight wins, two draws and one loss, defeated […]
The 2026 World Senior Team Championship has begun in Durrës, with 90 teams competing across the 50+ and 65+ sections. Top seeds include USA 1, England 1 and Kazakhstan in the younger category, while England I and Lasker SGK head the 65+ field. The event has attracted a number of leading veterans, among them Michael […]
The Opening Encyclopedia 2026 has been released. Countless hours of detailed work have gone into creating the latest edition of this annual compendium. The encyclopedia is impressive and a must-have for effective tournament preparation. Further new releases come from experienced ChessBase authors: Elisabeth Pähtz on her speciality, the London System, and Andrew Martin, who focuses […]
ChessBase´26 offers great possibilities for analysing with several menu windows at the same time. Having been introduced to the practical options in the last tutorial, today you will learn about options that will take your analysis to a new level.