8/26/2026 – Bibisara Assaubayeva won the rapid tournament at the European qualifier for the WR Women's Chess Tour Finals in St Tropez. In the first round, she knocked out Elisabeth Paehtz in an Armageddon game. In the final, she defeated Mariya Muzychuk. Today, eight of Europe's strongest women players will compete in the blitz tournament. | Photo: WR Chess

8/26/2026 – 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?

8/26/2026 – Fabiano Caruana took the early lead in the Grand Chess Tour final by beating Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu in the first classical game, capitalising on a single tactical error to collect six points. In the third-place match, Vincent Keymer and Wesley So split the points after a complicated London System ended in a draw. Both matches continue on Wednesday with the second classical games. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

8/26/2026 – At its meeting on Monday, the FIDE Council rejected the Russian Chess Federation's application for its teams to take part in the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russian teams have been barred from international sporting events. Russia, however, has continued to push for this decision to be relaxed.

8/25/2026 – Dear chess friends! This week's Summer Special offers you a real powerhouse: The Fritz 21 and the Fritz Powerbook 2026 are available this week (until August 30, 2026) for €99.90 – save around €60!!

8/25/2026 – "Even stronger. Even more beautiful. Even more direct." That is the slogan ChessBase uses to promote the latest edition of its well-known Fritz series. But what does the new version actually offer? Who is Fritz 21 designed for? Lukas Köpl took a close look at the latest release to find out what really lies behind the promises of being stronger, better looking and more direct.

8/25/2026 – Dance of the kings: Pawn endings should be calculated precisely: White to move and draw.

8/25/2026 – Fabiano Caruana and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu booked their places in the deciding match of the Grand Chess Tour Finals after prevailing in Monday's rapid and blitz section of the semifinals in Saint Louis. Praggnanandhaa clinched his match against Vincent Keymer with four games to spare, while Caruana completed an 18-12 win over Wesley So. The finalists will start from scratch on Tuesday, as Keymer and So contest the third-place match. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

8/25/2026 – Looking for an interesting over-the-board chess tournament to play, attend, or simply watch? There are plenty being staged all over the world, and we bring you an overviews of the most interesting of them – focused mainly on the period after the Chess Olympiad, with events from early October through the beginning of November. We do this in cooperation with MyChess.events, a global platform that helps players discover upcoming events, check dates, venues, formats, prize funds and registration details.

8/24/2026 – GM Dominik Horvath successfully defended his title at the 2026 Austrian National Championship. With 6½ points, he edged out IM Laurenz Borrmann on tiebreaks, who also scored 6½ points and achieved a grandmaster norm. In the Oberbank Challenger Open, young German IM Ruben Gideon Köllner triumphed with 7½ points. Olga Badelka was the top performer in the Open and thus claimed the women's national title. | Pictured (from left): Laurenz Borrmann, Dominik Horvath and Valentin Baidetskyi | Photo: Peter Kranzl

8/24/2026 – Drama in the second game of the semifinals at the Grand Chess Tour Finals: Vincent Keymer had black against Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, and after a relatively quiet opening the position became increasingly complicated as both players ran short of time. Keymer reached a winning position, but in an almost hopeless situation Praggnanandhaa managed to capture the German star's rook with a king move and went on to secure the point. There was plenty of tension in the other semifinal as well. Wesley So found himself under severe pressure after a novelty by Fabiano Caruana, but Caruana allowed his opponent to escape with a draw. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

8/24/2026 – In 1997, World Champion Garry Kasparov was defeated 3½–2½ by Deep Blue, an IBM supercomputer in New York. The loss in their second encounter marked the first time a machine beat a world champion in a standard tournament play. It was an historic moment that reshaped global perceptions of artificial intelligence. Almost three decades later, Kasparov has described his perception of AI and what he thinks about its future, in a Washington Post interview. Here are some excerpts.