ChessBase

• A chess journey along the Silk Road: Visit Uzbekistan during the Chess Olympiad

  From 21 to 29 September 2026, a group tour to Uzbekistan will combine cultural exploration with top-level chess. The journey includes visits to Samarkand, Bukhara and Tashkent, coinciding with the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand. Alongside attending the Olympiad, participants will take part in special chess events and training sessions, while discovering the architectural and historical legacy of the Silk Road. | Photo: Mosque Bibi-Khanum in Samarkand, via Wikimedia Commons

• Prague Chess Festival - Live!

  From 25 February to 6 March 2026, the eighth Prague International Chess Festival is taking place at the Don Giovanni Hotel, bringing together elite competition and a wide programme of side events. In the first round on Wednesday, the Masters section kicks off with several attractive match-ups: top seed Vincent Keymer (pictured) has Black against Jorden van Foreest; World Champion Gukesh has White and faces Hans Niemann, and Nodirbek Abdusattorov, winner of the Tata Steel Tournament in Wijk aan Zee, also plays White against Aravindh Chithambaram, winner of the Chess Festival Prague 2025. | Follow the action live starting at 15.00 CET (9.00 ET, 19.30 IST)

• Netflix announces "Untold: Chess Mates", documentary on the Carlsen–Niemann controversy

  Netflix has announced "Untold: Chess Mates", a new documentary examining the controversy surrounding Hans Niemann's victory over Magnus Carlsen at the 2022 Sinquefield Cup. The film revisits Carlsen's withdrawal, the subsequent allegations of cheating and the intense public reaction that followed. It also places the dispute within the broader context of modern chess, including the growth of online play and the challenges it has created for trust and governance at the elite level. | Photo: Netflix

• ChessBase´26 – Tips for Beginners, Part 4: Figurines and Colours

  When you work with a programme on a regular basis, you should make that work as pleasant as possible. ChessBase´26 offers endless possibilities - and that goes for the look too. Make your workspace individual and pleasant. In part 4 of our new series of tutorials we will show you how easy it is to design your individual notation so that analysing with it is a maximum pleasure.

• News on the 1896 Schiffers vs Steinitz Match

  Wilhelm Steinitz had lost his World Championship title to Emanuel Lasker in 1894, but he still retained the right to a return match. That rematch was scheduled to take place in Moscow at the end of 1896. Before that, however, Steinitz played a training match against Emanuel Schiffers. Join us on a brief journey back in time to Rostov-on-Don in 1896.

• Endgame Challenge Solutions

  Were you able to solve the challenge positions we gave you last week? Were you able to defeat the diagrams, which defended tenatiously? Today we bring you all solutions, with very instructive video explanations by Jared Modica, a chess content creator from Austin, Texas. He shows us how to solve tatical lines of play, and how to handle pawns in endgames.

• Review: New releases in January!

  We have a new author at ChessBase: Harshit Raja. And the Indian grandmaster is ambitious – he offers a complete 1.d4-repertoire! In addition, new episodes of Ivan Sokolov’s Middlegame Strategy series were released in January, and ChessBase Magazine fans can look forward to CBM Extra #229, packed with a rich "Lucky Bag". | All photos: ChessBase

• Most attractive chess players

  Who is your favourite chess player – of all time, from the history of chess? Whose games do you enjoy the most? Is it one of the greats from the 19th century, the world champion legends of the twentieth? Or is it a player who is still active? Tell us your choices – and we will compare them with what a chess AI chooses, after evaluating millions of games.

• ChessBase´26: A Players Guide (5)

  "Many players use ChessBase, it is the most popular chess software by far, writes GM Iniyan Pa. "Yet, not many people are fully aware of all of its features, and fail to utilise most of them. In this guide I have tried to show the features that I think are vital and important so that the user may gain the most out of the ChessBase. I hope it helps them in their development." We are deeply indebted to Iniyan for his remarkable five-part training review.

• The Chess World in 2026

  The chess world has undergone a significant transformation in recent years. From a game on the fringes of public interest, it has become part of the media mainstream. This year will see several major events and developments that promise to have a profound impact on the future of chess. Milan Dinić, editor of The British Chess Magazine, has described the main driving factors and what we can expect in 2026.