ChessBase

• Spanish Championship: Alan Pichot and Marta García claim titles

  Alan Pichot and Marta García Martín won the 2026 Spanish Absolute and Women's Chess Championships in Linares. Pichot, born in Argentina, claimed his first Spanish title after defeating Alex Villa Tornero in the final round to win the tournament outright on 7½/9. Daniil Yuffa took silver on tiebreaks ahead of Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli. In the women's standings, García defended her title with 6/9, ahead of Sabrina Vega and Adhara Rodríguez Redondo. | Photo: Spanish Chess Federation

• Grand Chess Tour Finals - Live!

  The 2026 Grand Chess Tour reaches its concluding event this weekend, with the four highest-ranked full-tour players competing in the GCT Finals at the Saint Louis Chess Club. Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Wesley So, Fabiano Caruana and Vincent Keymer take part in the knockout tournament, with runs from 22 to 27 August. | Follow the games live with expert commentary starting at 19.00 CEST (13.00 ET, 22.30 IST) | Photo: Lennart Ootes

• 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.

• 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

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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