Chess Base

• Aronian beats Carlsen, wins Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Final

  Levon Aronian won the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Finals in South Africa after defeating Magnus Carlsen in a controlled 1½–½ match, securing the event's $200,000 top prize. The final brought the four-day competition to a close, with Vincent Keymer taking third place against Javokhir Sindarov. Further down the table, Fabiano Caruana beat Arjun Erigaisi to finish fifth, while Hans Niemann prevailed over Parham Maghsoodloo in the match for seventh place. | Pictured: Levon Aronian with wife Anita Ayvazyan and their daughter | Photo: Freestyle Chess / Lennart Ootes

• Who was Ludwig Engels?

  11 December 2025 marks the 120th anniversary of Ludwig Engels's birthday. He was one of the best German chess players in the 1930s. Following the 1939 Chess Olympiad, he, like many others, remained in South America due to the outbreak of the Second World War and settled in Brazil. At the height of his career, Engels defeated renowned players such as Alekhine, Bogoljubow, Keres and Maroczy. | Photo source: Friedrich-Karl Hebeker

• ChessBase tips for beginners - Enter and save your games

  Anastasia Corotcova explains how ChessBase allows beginners to easily enter, edit, and save chess games, starting from creating a new board to recording moves directly on the screen. She highlights powerful ChessBase features such as assisted analysis, automatic move recognition, colour-coded move quality, and tools for correcting or inserting moves, showing that the software isn’t just for notation but a full analytical environment. In the end, she demonstrates how ChessBase helps players organize their own databases, store complete game information, and build a personal library—capturing...