The Muscat Nights International Chess Championship brought together a strong international field in Oman's capital for nine rounds of classical play alongside a mid-event blitz tournament. In Open A, a six-way tie for first place left the title to be decided on tiebreaks, with Leon Luke Mendonca finishing ahead of fellow co-leaders after an unbeaten run. The event combined competitive depth at the top with a broad festival structure across rating sections. | Photo: Oman Chess Committee
Christian Glöckler delivered an impressive performance at the Qualifiers in Wijk and had already secured overall victory with one round to spare. In the ninth and final round of the tournament, he added another win. He outplayed Tim Grutter with remarkable ease and finished on 8.5 points from 9 games, with an Elo performance of 2851. In 2027, he will be eligible to play in the Challengers. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
What is the secret of becoming really good at chess? How can you best improve your understanding, your results and your rating? Well, use the cutting edge study and training software. But also spend some time discovering all the advantages it offers! GM Iniyan Pa has uncovered all the secrets of ChessBase 26, and presents his findings in his training/review reports.
The closing day of the 88th Tata Steel Chess Tournament settled both sections without the need for playoffs. In the Masters, Nodirbek Abdusattorov secured clear first place by defeating Arjun Erigaisi, finishing ahead of compatriot Javokhir Sindarov. Meanwhile, the Challengers title went to Andy Woodward, whose final-round win over Erwin l'Ami earned him a place in next year's Masters, while Vasyl Ivanchuk also won and finished in sole second place. | Photo: Tata Steel Chess / Lennart Ootes
The 88th edition of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament is taking place from 17 January to 1 February and once again features the traditional structure of parallel Masters and Challengers tournaments, each consisting of 14 players competing in a single round-robin. Nodirbek Abdusattorov enters the final round as the sole leader in the Masters, while Andy Woodward and Aydin Suleymanli are tied for first place in the Challengers. | Follow the games live with expert commentary starting at 12.00 CET (6.00 ET, 16.30 IST)
Young FIDE Master Bahne Fuhrmann of the Hamburger SK has taken a close look at Harshit Raja’s new video course. In his review, he examines the Indian grandmaster’s 1.e4 course and explains why viewers who study the course can confidently open with 1.e4.
ChessBase Magazine offers a window to the world of professional chess. Nagesh Havanur takes a look at the current issue, CBM 229. All games from the FIDE World Cup, 27 annotated, 11 opening surveys, 3 opening videos, demo lectures and several exercises for training. Annotators include Sam Shankland, Wei Yi, Nodirbek Yakubboev and Gabriel Sargissian among others. The icing on the cake is the Special feature "Giri's Gems", offering the Dutch star's eight best games from the year 2025.
Take a look at this relatively simple position. Can you figure out how White can win? And how many moves it will require to overcome Black's most resolute defence? You won't believe it. To relax we bring you the arguably easiest chess study ever composed, and other entertaining puzzles, many from the out-of-the-box legend Karl Fabel.
In August 2019 I spent a week in France, at the training camp I had organized (together with ChessBase India) for young Indian super talents. Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik did the chess training, while I pestered the kids with logic puzzles. Most did not involve chess, but some did. Here are a couple for you.
In rotary problems the board is rotated by 180° for a second position with a different solution. It is usually pawns that make a different when you turn the board around. Or the king/queen positions, or castling is involved. Can one devise problems where these factors do not play a role? Yes one can, as our expert for out-of-the-box problems, Werner Keym, proves.
These days it is not easy to challenge anyone with problems or studies. Loading the PGN and clicking Start will usually get you the solution in seconds. So we are trying to provide you with "computer resistant" puzzles in this year's Christmas Puzzle Week. Today the subject is taking back a move in a given position and looking for a move to fulfil the condition. As in this 100-year-old problem by Thomas Dawson: it requires you to take back one move and then mate the opponent in two. Can you think how?
There are chess puzzles which only consist of a line of text, asking you to construct a position or a game that it describes. Some can be awesomely difficult, like the puzzle we first posted 41 years ago. Two world champions were not able to solve it. We tell you about that, and present a new ones, not quite as tough, for you to solve.