Chess News

1. ChessBase for Mac
   Our database program – used by everyone, from the World Champion to lowly club players – is now available for Mac users. The new version has been developed from the ground up: modern, built for fast access to what matters. The cost: just €9.95 per month, or €99.95 per year. Make sure you don’t miss the launch of a new era in chess study on the Mac.
2. Total Chess – totally complicated
   The 2025 Chess Calendar established that there are 151 official World Chess Championships. Another will be added in 2027 – the Total Chess Championship. The pilot tournament takes place in Budapest from 10 to 20 November. The field is strong, the format is complicated, and ChessBase has gone through the Total Chess webpage in an attempt to understand it. However, it is unclear whether all the rules have been correctly understood and reproduced. The following information is therefore provided without guarantee of accuracy.
3. Remembering Mikhail Tal
   Today marks the 90th anniversary of Mikhail Tal's birth. Tal was one of the great figures in chess history, playing particularly exciting chess in his youth and becoming the youngest world champion in history in 1960. Unfortunately, he suffered from health problems throughout his life and died at a relatively young age. | Tal giving a simultaneous exhibition in 1977 (Photo: Miass City Museum Archive)
4. Pranesh wins Chola Chess Open as young talents make their mark
   Pranesh M won the inaugural Chola Chess Open in Chennai, scoring 7/9 points after finishing with two consecutive victories. The Indian grandmaster ended half a point ahead of five players, including runner-up S. L. Narayanan. The tournament also saw 16-year-old Viresh Sharnarthi earn his second GM norm in ten days, while 11-year-old Sarbartho Mani secured his first IM norm. Nine title norms were achieved in total. | Photo: Devansh Singh
5. Bavarian Championship: Four players finish tied for first, Sasikiran claims title on tiebreaks
   Indian grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran won the Bavarian Chess Championship in Gmund am Tegernsee, finishing on 7½/9 points and taking first place on tiebreaks. German GMs Frederik Svane and Roven Vogel finished second and third, while Indian FM Arun Daakshin also reached 7½ points. All four won their final-round games with the black pieces, bringing an event that attracted 548 participants to a close. | Photo: Sandra Schmidt
6. Bodhana Sivanandan joins strong field in Salamanca
   The Salamanca Chess Festival will take place from 10 to 14 November, bringing together six players for a rapid round-robin tournament. The field includes 11-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan (pictured), former world top-ten player Loek van Wely and Spanish grandmaster Paco Vallejo, who returns to top-level competition after a lengthy absence. Elisabeth Paehtz, José Martínez Alcántara and Anastasiia Hnatyshyn complete the lineup. Several side events are also scheduled. | Photo: Nils Rohde / ChessBase
7. Yu Yangyi retains Chinese Rapid Championship title after Armageddon decider
   Yu Yangyi successfully defended his Chinese Rapid Championship title in Shaoxing, defeating 18-year-old Xiao Tong in an Armageddon decider after six games had failed to separate the finalists. Xiao had previously eliminated Ding Liren and Lu Shanglei in blitz tiebreaks to reach the final. Meanwhile, Lu secured third place by defeating Xu Xiangyu. | Photo: Chinese Chess Association
8. Aaron Nimzowitsch: 140 years since the birth of a chess pioneer
   Born in Latvia, Aaron Nimzowitsch was one of the most important players and theorists of the first third of the 20th century, influencing generations of chess players with his strategic ideas. His life, however, was far from easy and sadly cut short. Today marks the 140th anniversary of his birth. | Photo: J. Graudenz
9. The young king faces his toughest challenge
   Gukesh Dommaraju will defend his world title against Javokhir Sindarov in Geneva after a remarkable rise that made him the youngest undisputed champion in history. Since his 2024 triumph, however, the Indian grandmaster has endured a more difficult period and slipped down the world rankings. The match therefore presents a different challenge: rediscovering his best form while facing a younger rival who arrives with strong recent results and considerable momentum. | Image: FIDE
10. Bavarian Championship: Sasikiran joins Gopal in the lead
    With 6 points from 7 rounds, Indian grandmasters Krishnan Sasikiran and G.N. Gopal share the lead at the Bavarian Chess Championship in Tegernsee. Their opponents' average ratings of 2413 (Sasikiran) and 2411 (Gopal) also leave them closely matched on tiebreaks, with both having faced stronger opposition on average than any other participant. Gopal drew with Elham Amar on the top board. While the games on the neighbouring boards also ended in draws, including Frederik Svane (5½/7) against Adrian Gschnitzer, Sasikiran secured a win over Rithvik Raja. | Photo: Sandra Schmidt
11. KazChess Masters Almaty 2026 - Live!
    The KazChess Masters Almaty 2026 takes place from 26 October to 3 November in Kazakhstan. The ten-player invitational tournament brings together five international grandmasters and five players from the host country. Among the best-known participants are Muhammad Muradli, Daniil Dubov and Denis Lazavik, who recently reached the Esports World Cup final. Another player to watch is 14-year-old Kazakh talent Mark Smirnov. | Live from approximately 6:15 AM ET / 3:45 PM IST / 11:15 AM CET | Pictured: Edgar Mamedov | Photo: Nils Rohde / ChessBase
12. Review: My favourite FritzTrainer courses
    For Jochen Schwarz, club player from Bremen, FritzTrainer courses have become an essential part of his hobby. Over the past ten years, he has studied numerous courses and now shares some of the favourites that have impressed him most.
13. ChessBase´26 – Tips for Beginners, part 32: Training with style
    It’s once again time to think about aesthetics in ChessBase´26 training: Have you ever noticed the “Style” option? If not, in this episode we’ll explain briefly and concisely how you can better adapt your screen display to your own taste.
14. 25 years ago  –  ChessBase news
    "Yesterday, in one of the most horrifying terrorist atrocities in history, the World Trade Center in New York was destroyed..." Those were the words with which we launched our brand new database-driven news page, on September 12, 2001. It was the very first report we filed. It had a special meaning for the world – but also for chess. Exactly six years earlier the World Chess Championship had been staged on the Observation Deck on the 107th floor.
15. ChessBase´26 – Tips for Beginners, part 30: Use "Folders"
    ChessBase´26 is amazingly versatile and often surprisingly user-friendly — as the first 29 parts of this tutorial series have already shown! One particularly important feature in this context is the “Folders” window, which lets you quickly locate anything you want to use within your storage directories. In this episode, we’ll show you how to activate the window (in case it’s been disabled) and what you can view and work with there.
16. Fridrik Olafsson Memorial
    Chess players, mark your calendars. The Icelandic Chess Federation, Goðinn Chess Club, and Reykjavík Chess Club are joining forces to present "Town and Country" – two spectacular tournaments that together offer 15 rounds of high-level chess in just 11 days, set against two of Iceland’s most contrasting backdrops. It all begins on Thursday, 19 November at 19:00. On Tuesday, 24 November, the Friðrik Ólafsson Memorial Tournament opens – honouring Iceland’s first grandmaster.
17. Hassabis on chess and AI
    In a 15-minute video, Demis Hassabis, one of the central scientists working on artificial intelligence, tells us why he worries about AI going rogue. Hassabis, head of Google AI research, is a very strong chess player who created Alpha zero, the first neural network program on which all modern chess engines are based. It is his vivid description of how AI handled chess that will be of particular interest to the readers of our news page.
18. Quo vadis, Fischer Random Chess? (1)
    As you have noticed, this form of chess is becoming increasingly popular. Everyone seems to like it, sponsors are lining up to stage high-prize tournaments, even World Championships. In this series we look back at the origin of Fischer-Random, Chess960 or Freestyle, as it is now called, and discuss the reasons for its popularity. In the end we will propose some modifications to the rules and how the game should be played. Stay tuned.
19. Sinquefield Cup Tiebreaks - Live!
    The Sinquefield Cup is taking place on 10-20 August at the Saint Louis Chess Club. It is a 10-player single round-robin with a classical time control. Besides battling for a share of the $475,000 prize fund, players battle to get one of the four spots in the upcoming Grand Chess Tour Finals. Follow the games live starting at 19.00 CEST (13.00 ET, 22.30 IST) | Photo: Lennart Ootes
20. Andrew Martin: Evans & Friends Vol.1 & 2
    IM Andrew Martin presents a complete White repertoire after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3, with the Evans Gambit as its aggressive centerpiece for tactically minded players up to around 1800 Elo. Volume 1 covers the key lines, attacking ideas and traps of the Evans Gambit, while Volume 2 provides practical answers to the Petroff, Philidor, Two Knights Defense, Hungarian Defense and several sharp gambits and traps. The aim is a ready to play repertoire that seizes the initiative early, sharpens tactical vision and puts Black under pressure from the very first moves.
21. Remembering Oleg Skvortsov
    A few weeks ago this great chess organiser and sponsor passed away at the age of 57. For many years he invited us to his "Zurich Chess Challenge", which saw some of the world's top players competing. During that time we had interesting, personal interaction with him. For us news of his passing came out of the blue, and it left us deeply saddened.
22. Help us build the next ChessBase
    We're planning the next chapters of ChessBase and we want input from the people who actually use it, before we decide what to build first. Help us by taking part in a survey that asks how you work day to day: your setup and hardware, how you use engines and databases, and which parts of the interface help or get in your way. Filling out the survey takes around three minutes. If you fill it out we will send you a thank-you voucher gift.
23. Shifts and mirrors in a chess problem
    A year ago problem composer Werner Keym issued a challenge: compose a study in which White is winning – but one that can be shifted and mirrored vertically and horizontally, with all vertically shifted and mirrored positions drawing, and all horizontally shifted and mirrored positions losing. Here is the elegant solution, which reminds us of the famous Babson task.
24. How much faster are computers today?
    In the early 1980s, as a fledgling TV journalist, I did a report on the fastest computer in the world. The Cray-1 cost eight million dollars and could do 130 million floating point operations per second. That was enough to calculate the weather, but also to win two consecutive world computer chess championships. How much faster are today's supercomputers? Take a guess – you are definitely not going to get it right.
25. Biel Festival - Live!
    The Biel International Chess Festival is taking place on 11-24 July. Following the Chess960 tournament on Saturday and the rapid chess stage on Sunday, the players in the Masters and Generations Challenge Triathlon face off in the final stage of the classical section on 21-23 July. | Follow the games live starting at 14.00 CEST (8.00 ET, 17.30 IST) | Photo: Biel Chess Festival