Chess Base

• Dragon Chilling narrowly win World Team Rapid Championship

  Dragon Chilling won the 2026 World Rapid Team Championship in Hong Kong after a tense final day, taking gold on tiebreaks ahead of Team MGD1 and Hexamind Chess Team. Ding Liren scored in the last round as the Chinese squad recovered from two consecutive match defeats. Mr Birdie and Friends narrowly missed the podium, while favourites WR Chess finished 17th after a difficult rapid event - Magnus Carlsen, suffered two losses on Friday and was not in the lineup in the final two rounds. | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza

• A Game That Outlasted the Day (7)

  In the comments on Part 5 of the series, readers pointed out that this was not a “master game” (as stated on the Guinness page), since Arsović had an initial rating of 2200 (which by today’s standards may correspond to a rating of 1400), while Nikolić’s rating was only 15 points higher. Now in Part 7 the author examines the remaining “competitors” to the Gorkov–Golubenko game for the title of the longest game by number of moves.

• Under the Hammer

  It isn't easy to weave Sotheby’s, Queen Isabella of Spain, Fischer-Spassky 1972, Michael Caine and a vigilante killer into the same article. But that is exactly what John Henderson does, in this piece that appears in the June issue of CHESS magazine. He tells us how the vast collection of chess memorabilia of GM Lothar Schmid, considered to be the largest and most important of its kind in private hands, went under the hammer recently at Sotheby’s in London. You will not believe the prices they received.