One of the world’s strongest women’s super-tournaments returns to Saint Louis this summer as the 2026 Cairns Cup welcomes ten of the world’s top women chess players to compete for a $250,000 prize fund – one of the largest in women’s chess. The tournament will take place on 10-19 August at the recently expanded Saint […]
Category Archives: News
It’s often the small tricks that make training clearer and more effective. One such feature in ChessBase´26 is the ability to insert null moves. This can be especially helpful in chess training or analysis. In this short and concise tutorial, you’ll learn how to use null moves effectively.
Following three days of group-stage competition and Friday’s quarterfinals of the inaugural FIDE World University Team Championship, the original field of sixteen universities had been reduced to four: Kazakh National University of Sports (KNUS), Ural State Mining University, Saint Louis University, and The University of Texas at Dallas. On Saturday, the finalists were confirmed: Saint […]
Shreyas Royal has taken the sole lead at the British Chess Championship after seven rounds in Coventry. The 17-year-old followed a draw against Svyatoslav Bazakutsa with consecutive wins over Bodhana Sivanandan and top seed Luke McShane to reach 6/7. Bazakutsa is among five players half a point behind. Royal will face nine-time British champion Michael […]
Reversed-colour Benoni, Blumenfeld and Benko structures are the focus of Volume 14 of Ivan Sokolov’s Understanding Middlegame Strategy series. Hannes Langrock, an International Master, editor at a fiction publishing house and player for ESV Nickelhütte Aue, reviews the course. | Photos: ChessBase
Day four of the FIDE World University Team Championship Finals began away from the chessboard, as participants traded the playing hall for the mountains surrounding Almaty. Before the start of the quarterfinals, players had an opportunity to visit Shymbulak, one of the city’s best-known mountain destinations. After three intense days of group-stage competition, the morning […]
In this episode, Svitlana explains why controlling the centre remains important throughout every phase of a chess game. Using an instructive encounter between Vassily Ivanchuk and Anatoly Karpov, she shows how central control creates space, restricts the opponent’s pieces and provides clear plans. The game also demonstrates how powerful central pawns and an active king […]
Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu won the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz after leading the tournament from start to finish. The Indian grandmaster secured the title with a round to spare by holding Javokhir Sindarov in their penultimate-round encounter, before finishing 1½ points clear. The result moved Praggnanandhaa into second place in the Grand Chess Tour standings ahead […]
The group stage of the inaugural FIDE World University Team Championship Finals came to an exciting conclusion on Thursday in Almaty, Kazakhstan, with the eight quarterfinalists now confirmed after three days of intense competition. With all sixteen participating universities in action for the final time, the last rounds determined which teams would continue their quest […]
In the early years of the British Championship, Henry Atkins won the title seven times in succession between 1905 and 1911, before adding two more victories later on. This made him the record holder until the 1960s. What makes this achievement especially remarkable is that Atkins was essentially an amateur player who rarely competed in […]