About a month ago, the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament concluded in the picturesque village of Pegia, near Paphos, Cyprus. Yevgeny Levanzov had the privilege of spending an extended time at the event and delivering three lectures there. In the following review, he covers the tournament both from a professional chess perspective and by describing the […]
Monthly Archives: May 2026
Frederik Svane won the Sardinia World Chess Festival outright with 7½/9 points, defeating Karthikeyan Murali in the final round after both had entered the day tied for first place. The event in Orosei also saw 12-year-old Faustino Oro secure his third grandmaster norm, completing the title requirements and becoming the second-youngest grandmaster in chess history. […]
With a superb performance, a 15-year-old prodigy dominated the international Baku Open: Sina Movahed (pictured left in the title photo) won seven games and drew twice. The young Iranian GM thus won the strong tournament with 8/9, finishing a point and a half ahead of the rest of the field. The best tiebreak scores among […]
In this ChessBase training course, Ivan Sokolov explores the fascinating world of colour-reversed Benoni, Benko, and Blumenfeld structures, showing how Black’s active piece play and dynamic counterplay can fully compensate for White’s extra tempo. The course focuses heavily on understanding pawn structures, long-term middlegame plans, open files, and queenside pressure, giving players practical strategic guidance […]
Following Javokhir Sindarov’s victory at the Candidates Tournament, GM Jon Speelman examines the emergence of a new generation of World Championship contenders ahead of his expected title match against Gukesh Dommaraju. Particular attention is given to Sindarov’s defensive draw against Fabiano Caruana, a game presented as a key moment of the tournament and an illustration […]
2026 Super Chess Classic Romania brings elite classical chess to Bucharest, Romania, from May 12 to May 24. The tournament takes place at the National Bank of Romania Museum in the historic Lipscani district. The event is the first classical tournament of the 2026 Grand Chess Tour season. It features a 10-player round robin, with […]
Today we have a special guest on Svitlana’s Smart Moves: Leon Mendonca. Since we all got to know each other well during the Biel Chess Festival 2024, we decided it was finally time to record a show together. In this episode, Svitlana Demchenko introduces the tricky Cowboy Attack in the Sicilian, and surprisingly, Leon turns […]
When you are on the move, it is particularly important that your computer does not consume too much power when analysing. With ChessBase´26, you can conserve your battery and connect to top-quality hardware via a remote engine whenever you need it. This means that the engine installed on your computer can remain off and the […]
Fabiano Caruana scored 7/9 points on the final day of blitz action at the Super Rapid & Blitz Poland tournament. In the end, he fell half a point short of catching Hans Niemann in the overall standings. Alireza Firouzja made a strong start in the blitz tournament on Friday, but his gap to Niemann in […]
Winning against the reigning world champion is always difficult. The first German player to achieve this feat after the Second World War was Wolfgang Unzicker, for many years the number one player in the Federal Republic of Germany. At the 1961 European Team Championship, he outplayed the then world champion Mikhail Botvinnik. Wolfgang Uhlmann, for […]