The 8th Youth Chess Composing Challenge is on the way! The youngest contributors to chess art (born 2001 and younger) were offered three different sections to inspire their creations till June 10, with five special prizes of 500 Euros vouchers each for the best representatives of the five most successful countries. The tradition of YCCC was established in 2016 to stimulate young minds and to mentor their work. | Pictured: Christopher Woojin Yoo | Photo: Eric Rosen
BBC Factual announced a new competition format, “Chess Masters”, for BBC Two and iPlayer. Across eight episodes, passionate and highly skilled players from all backgrounds will battle it out across a series of rapid chess games before one will be crowned the title of Chess Master. The announcement comes a bit over 40 years after BBC2 aired “The Master Game”, a popular show that ran for seven series, from 1976 to 1983.
ChessBase Magazine offers a window to the world of professional chess. Our columnist Nagesh Havanur takes a look at our recent issue, CBM 218. 540 games from Tata Steel Chess and Chessable Masters 2024, 12 opening surveys, 3 opening videos, 6 demo lectures and several exercises for training. Annotators include Wei Yi, Anish Giri, Nordibek Abdusattorov, Alireza Firouzja, Vidit Gujrathi and Praggnanandhaa among others. The icing on the cake is a special feature on Richard Rapport, with 28 annotated games. | Pictured: Gukesh D playing white against Ding Liren in Wijk aan Zee | Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit / Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2024
Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books on chess training and strategy. In the 172nd episode of his ChessBase show "Understanding before moving" Herman continues his series "Chess history in a nutshell" and takes a look at the chess legacy of Boris Spassky, World Champion from 1969 to 1972. | Photo: Pascal Simon
Take a look at this picture. It is not a Hollywood star, but a chess celebrity. Can you recognize him? Capablanca, Nezhmetdinov, Frank Marshall? No, not any of them! The answer is Andor Lilienthal, an extraordinary chess grandmaster, born in Moscow, but moved to Hungary. In his career, he played against ten world champions, and defeated six of them. Retrospect by Himank Ghosh. | Photo: Edward Winter's Chess Notes archives.