FIDE Grand Swiss 2025: Lists of qualified players announced

6/7/2025 – The 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss and Women's Grand Swiss will take place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, from 3 to 16 September. With 170 players set to compete in the 11-round Swiss events, the tournaments serve as key qualifiers for the 2026 Candidates and Women’s Candidates. An increased prize fund - $625,000 for the Open and $230,000 for the Women's event - adds further significance to one of the most important competitions in the chess calendar.

Robert Ris' Fast and Furious: A good old gambit!

6/7/2025 – In his new Fast & Furious show, Robert Ris has fun analysing a game in which White tried an old line of the Flohr-Mikenas System (1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3.e4 c5), which led to wild and entertaining play! | Fast & Furious is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Magnus Carlsen salvages draw in dramatic final round, wins seventh Norway Chess title

6/7/2025 – Magnus Carlsen claimed his seventh Norway Chess title in a dramatic final round, drawing with Arjun Erigaisi from a losing position to secure overall victory by the narrowest of margins. Fabiano Caruana nearly snatched first place after building a winning position against Gukesh Dommaraju, but late mistakes left both players short of the top. Gukesh finished third ahead of Hikaru Nakamura, who lost to Wei Yi in Armageddon, capping off a fiercely contested edition of the tournament in Stavanger. | Photo: Michal Walusza
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Voluntary pin

6/7/2025 – The diagram position saw 29...Rd8 30.Rd1, after which the two rooks in the d-file are only separated by the black Nd7. Who will benefit from this constellation? Your assessment, please!

Anna Muzychuk finishes undefeated in classical chess, wins Norway Chess Women tournament

6/7/2025 – Anna Muzychuk secured outright victory in the second edition of the Norway Chess Women tournament in Stavanger, finishing with 16½ points after ten rounds of play. The Ukrainian grandmaster entered the final day as the sole leader and confirmed her win by drawing both games against Vaishali Rameshbabu. Lei Tingjie and Humpy Koneru completed the podium, while Muzychuk ended as the only undefeated player in classical chess across both tournament sections. | Photo: Michal Walusza
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Svitlana's Smart Moves - Excellent Norway chess tactics

6/6/2025 – In this episode of Svitlana's Smart Moves, WGM Svitlana Demchenko dives into some of the most exciting tactical moments from Norway Chess 2025. She challenges viewers to sharpen their calculation skills by solving real-game puzzles featuring top grandmasters. Get ready to put your tactics to the test!

Norway Chess - Live!

6/6/2025 – The 13th edition of the Norway Chess super-tournament is taking place from 26 May to 6 June in Stavanger. An open event and a women's event are being played concurrently with an identical number of players, the same format and an equivalent prize fund. Both world champions — Ju Wenjun and Gukesh Dommaraju — are participating, besides world number one Magnus Carlsen. | Follow the games live starting at 17.00 CEST (11.00 ET, 20.30 IST)
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Rising stars shaking up the WRB Team Championships in London

6/6/2025 – From 10 to 16 June, London will host the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships, now in its third edition. With 55 teams, top grandmasters, and an expanded format including a new Blitz tournament, it promises to be one of the largest chess events ever held in the city. Notably, many teams feature rising stars, including 9-year-old Sarbartho Mani and 10-year-old Roman Shogdzhiev, reflecting a generational shift in competitive chess.
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Game of the Week #674: H. Nakamura - Gukesh, Norway Chess 2025

6/6/2025 – In the latest episode of his Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft presents the encounter between Hikaru Nakamura and World Champion Gukesh from the Norway Chess Tournament. Nakamura achieved a convincing victory through strong play. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
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Norway Chess Women: Muzychuk beats Ju, tops the standings

6/6/2025 – All three classical games ended decisively in round nine of the Norway Chess Women tournament, leading to a major shift at the top of the standings. Anna Muzychuk defeated defending champion Ju Wenjun to overtake Humpy Koneru, who lost to Lei Tingjie after misplaying a winning position. Sara Khadem also prevailed in her game against Vaishali Rameshbabu. With one round to go, Muzychuk holds a two-point lead going into her final game with the white pieces. | Photo: Michal Walusza

Norway Chess: Carlsen and Gukesh collect 3 points, enter last round as frontrunners

6/6/2025 – Magnus Carlsen and Gukesh Dommaraju emerged as the key winners in round nine of the Norway Chess tournament, both scoring classical victories to take the top two spots in the standings ahead of the final round. Carlsen now leads on 15 points, half a point ahead of Gukesh, with Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana still with outside chances of emerging victorious in Stavanger. The decisive round will see both frontrunners playing with the black pieces. | Photo: Michal Walusza
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GM Aleksey Grebnev wins Dubai Open on tiebreak

6/5/2025 – Aleksey Grebnev won this year’s Dubai Open on tiebreak. French Grandmaster Alan Pichot scored the same number of points but finished second. Rating favorite Nihal Sarin had to settle for sixth place after losing to Ivan Zemlyanskii in the seventh round. | Photos: Dubai Chess & Culture Club
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Valencia: 550th anniversary of the birth of modern chess

6/5/2025 – This year, Valencia is celebrating the 550th anniversary of the birth of modern chess. The date of birth is considered to be 15 May 1475, when the book by Francesch Vicent, who came from Segorbe, was printed in Valencia. For this reason, 15 May has now been declared Chess Day in Valencia. Viswanathan Anand was the guest of honour at the celebrations.
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The Power of Initiative: Episode 4

6/5/2025 – Welcome to The Initiative – a show dedicated to the relentless battle for momentum in chess! In every game, players fight to seize control, dictate the pace, and keep their opponent on the back foot. But what does it really mean to have the initiative? How do the world’s best players maintain pressure and transform small advantages into crushing attacks?

Historical chess statistics (1)

6/5/2025 – What was the chess world like, 32 years ago? How many players were there, how strong were they, how many were grandmasters? In 1993 the newly founded Professional Chess Association, seeking to win Intel as its main sponsor, commissioned the collection of statistics. Today we look at the results, and ask you to comment on the numbers you see. The follow-up article will compare them with those of the current chess world.

Freestyle Chess’ Grand Slam Tour Will Make its U.S. Debut at Wynn Las Vegas

6/4/2025 – Nach Weissenhaus und Paris ist das Wynn in Las Vegas die dritte Station der Freestyle Grand Slam Tour. Am 13. Juli spielen ehemalige NBA-Spieler im einem K.o.-Schachturnier gegeneinander. Vom 16. bis 20. Juli wird das Freestyle-Turnier der Schachprofis gespielt. Wer vor Ort dabei sein möchte, kann jetzt schon Tickets ab 90 US-Dollar.
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Matthias Wüllenweber on Fritz 20: More Fun, More Style, More AI

6/4/2025 – The conversation with Matthias Wüllenweber about Fritz 20 highlights the numerous innovations in the new version: A key focus is on the new opponent characters, including legends like Fischer, Lasker, Capablanca, and Karpov. Another highlight is the AI-powered voice commentary, featuring over 170 chess-related themes that provide both entertainment and educational value—available in multiple languages if desired. In addition, the opening repertoires of real chess legends like Fischer have been integrated, and the new "Bullet Training" mode offers practical time-management training against realistically acting opponents. The newly improved engine is also a major upgrade and presents an independent analysis alternative to Stockfish.
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Norway Chess: Classical wins for Arjun and Nakamura, Caruana still leads

6/4/2025 – Tuesday's eighth round at the Norway Chess tournament saw setbacks for Fabiano Caruana and Gukesh Dommaraju, who both lost their classical games to Arjun Erigaisi and Hikaru Nakamura, respectively. Magnus Carlsen, meanwhile, was defeated by Wei Yi in Armageddon for a second time. Despite the loss, Caruana remains the sole leader with two rounds to go, holding a slim lead in a tightly contested event entering its final stretch in Stavanger. | Photo: Michal Walusza
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FIDE history: Era of Soviet Domination

6/4/2025 – Last year FIDE celebrated its 100th anniversary. The book "100 Years of FIDE" is an illustrated history of the World Chess Federation. From it we excerpt passages, with kind permission, this time from the first World Championships in the post-war era – after the sudden death of World Champion Alexander Alekhine. It is a great chance to brush up your knowledge of chess history.
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