The Norwegian Bishops’ new wood

7/18/2021 – In his third column examining who is the best chess player in history — and his 150th overall — Jon Speelman fast forwards to the present champion, Magnus Carlsen. Speelman considers that Carlsen’s greatest strength is in the endgame, and dares to call him the best ever for this stage of the game. | Photo: Anastasiia Korolkova / FIDE World Cup

Understanding before Moving 36: Development advantage (2)

7/18/2021 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. In the 36th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to explain why it is so important to develop one's pieces as soon as possible. | Photo: Tommy Grooten

Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Trophy - Final round

7/18/2021 – The final round of the Deutschland Grand Prix is taking place concurrently with the fourth and last game of the Vishy Anand vs Vladimir Kramnik match in No Castling chess. In the Grand Prix, three players — Pavel Eljanov, Dmitrij Kollars and Daniel Fridman — are sharing first place on 5/8. Vincent Keymer stands a half point back. | Follow the games live.

World Cup: Firouzja and Dominguez knocked out

7/18/2021 – Two matches, one in each section, went the distance in the playoffs of round 2 in Sochi: Ivan Cheparinov and Olga Badelka (pictured, right) scored wins with white in Armageddon to advance to round 3 in the longest matches of the event so far. Alireza Firouzja and Leinier Dominguez were knocked out by two Uzbek players, Javokhir Sindarov and Jakhongir Vakhidov respectively. | Photo: Eric Rosen

No Castling Chess: Anand misses his chance

7/18/2021 – Vishy Anand is still leading the No Castling chess match against Vladimir Kramnik. The Indian took the lead in game 1 and could have secured match victory in game 3, as he had a much better position with the white pieces. However, Kramnik managed to hold the draw in the end. The last game is set to take place today at 13.00 CEST.

Dortmund: Bartel wins, Eljanov sacrifices a queen

7/17/2021 – Polish grandmaster Mateusz Bartel had a difficult time in the first rounds of the Deutschland Grand Prix, but he could land a nice attacking win with Black against Andreas Heimann. The remaining four games ended drawn, but had a lot to offer, with leader Pavel Eljanov sacrificing a queen against Ruslan Ponomariov. | Pictured: Bartel facing Eljanov in round 4

World Cup: Withdrawals, comebacks

7/17/2021 – Day 5 of the World Cups in Sochi saw four players withdrawing from the competition due to health-related issues — including third seed Levon Aronian. Plenty of exciting chess was also seen, with eight players winning on demand to take their matches to tiebreaks. | Pictured: An (extremely young) Indian contingent: Nihal, Aravindh and Praggnanandhaa. | Photo: Eric Rosen

Make it work!

7/17/2021 – In the diagram position Black just played 21...Rxd4!, capturing a knight. However, this move looks dangerous because White has 22.Qc3, pinning the rook on the long diagonal and threatening 23.e3. But Black knew exactly what he was doing. Can you follow his thoughts?

Daniel King’s Power Play Show: Highlights from the World Cup

7/16/2021 – In this Power Play Show, GM Daniel King takes a look at highlights from the World Cup in Sochi and presents two interesting endgames and a brilliancy with echoes of a famous Fischer victory. | Power Play is on air most Fridays. Watch it on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer.

News Review - Smelly chess opponents, Corona World Cup, and other upsets

7/16/2021 – This was an exciting week of chess upsets, and not only because of some lower rated players winning their games in the World Cup. First, chess is being played in Dortmund, with the two veterans Anand, and Kramnik, battling it out, without castling. Second, in the same city, the German Grand Prix takes place, with Pavel Eljanov in top form. Third, the World Cup in Sochi has unfortunate covid cases to deal with. Lawrence Trent also has an anecdote, why he had a hard time to play against a smelly chess opponent, and how he dealt with it.

World Cup: Health-related issues

7/16/2021 – The second round of the World Cups kicked off on Thursday, with the top seeds in both sections starting their campaigns after getting byes in the first round. A couple of health-related issues arose on Thursday, as Levon Aronian showed symptoms of fever and withdrew from his game against Bobby Cheng, while later on, with the games already in play, FIDE announced that another player had tested positive for Covid-19. | Pictured: Irine Sukandar | Photo: Eric Rosen

Dortmund: Eljanov takes the lead, Kramnik and Anand draw second "No Castling" game

7/16/2021 – After five rounds Pavel Eljanov leads the Deutschland Grand Prix in Dortmund with 4.0/5. On Thursday he won his morning game against Mateusz Bartel and in the afternoon he drew against Daniel Fridman. Vincent Keymer won a fine endgame against Gata Kamsky and Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik drew the second game of their "No Castling" match. Chess legend Artur Jussupov made the ceremonial first move. | Photo: Christian Lünig

Robert Ris’ Fast and Furious: Painful losses for Kasparov in the Najdorf

7/15/2021 – This week, well-known Dutch trainer Robert Ris takes a look at the problems Garry Kasparov faced in the Najdorf, when he tried it in his blitz games of the Croatia Grand Chess Tour. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

World Cup: The big guns are coming

7/15/2021 – Two matches — out of the 28 that went to playoffs in round 1 — reached the third set of tiebreaker games at the World Cups in Sochi: in the open, Neuris Delgado knocked out Niaz Murshed, while in the women’s section, Gulnar Mammadova eliminated Mai Narva in the longest matches of the inaugural round. Youngsters Volodar Murzin (14 y.o., pictured), Gukesh (15), Nurgyul Salimova (18) and Jennifer Yu (18) also made it through to round 2 on Wednesday. | Photo: Eric Rosen

NC Masters in Dortmund: Anand starts with a win

7/15/2021 – Wednesday afternoon "No Castling" chess premiered at the highest level in Dortmund's Westfalenhalle. In the first game of their "No Castling" match Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik engaged in an uncompromising fight in which Anand eventually had the better of it. In the Deutschland Grand Prix Dmitrij Kollars and Pavel Eljanov share the lead with 2.5/3 each, but the big news of the day was the torrential rain that currently is causing havoc in large parts of Germany and also affected the players in the Westfalenhalle.

Dortmund: An entertaining start

7/14/2021 – Yesterday, 13 July 2021, the 48th Schachtage Dortmund began in Dortmund's Westfalenhalle. In the opening round of the Deutschland Grand Prix the young German Dmitrij Kollars (pictured) defeated the even younger German Vincent Keymer. Pavel Eljanov (against Andreas Heimann) and Daniel Fridman (against Mateusz Bartel) also won their games. | Photos and video: The Organiser

World Cup: Twelve players bounce back

7/14/2021 – Day 2 of the first round at the World Cup and Women’s World Cup in Sochi saw 12 players winning on demand to take their matches to tiebreakers. Those are not the only confrontations that are to be decided in rapid and blitz chess, though, as 16 other matches finished with both games drawn. | Photo: Eric Rosen

The Weekly Show: Brilliancies at the World Cup

7/13/2021 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent will take a look at the World Cup and the glorious game the Chilean GM Pablo Salinas won with Black against GM Mads Andersen from Sweden. Lawrence will also do a roundup of what happened at the Swedish Championships, the San Fermin Masters and the Grand Chess Tour tournament in Croatia. | Lawrence's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

World Cup: Salinas’ astounding win and endgame analyses

7/13/2021 – The World Cup kicked off on Monday with a crowd of chess players even larger than usual — the main tournament has now 206 participants, while the Women’s World Cup is taking place concurrently for the first time. Not surprisingly, a number of exciting games were seen in Sochi. We take a look at a very good-looking win by Chilean GM Pablo Salinas, and we share instructive endgame analyses by GM Karsten Müller. | Photo: Eric Rosen

Jung Min Seo wins Swedish Championships

7/13/2021 – Pia Cramling had the best start at the Swedish Championships in Helsingborg, but she could not keep up the pace. This allowed the young (born in 2002) IM Jung Min Seo to catch up and to become Swedish Champion 2021. | Photo: Swedish Chess Federation

Breaking the wall

7/13/2021 – Pawn endings must be calculated precisely and the activity of the king is very important. In the diagram position White has a protected passed pawn on b6 but it is not immediately apparent whether this is enough to win. Do you have an idea how White can overcome Black's defensive set-up?

Magnus Carlsen wins San Fermin Masters

7/12/2021 – Magnus Carlsen seems to be well prepared for the World Cup. Before this big knockout event thats starts today, 12 July, the World Champion travelled to Pamplona in Spain to play a two-day knockout 3+2 blitz online tournament from there - with some of the world's best players. Carlsen, Wesley So, Ding Liren and Levon Aronian were seeded for the quarter-finals were they faced four qualifiers. Carlsen first won against Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli, then scored a surprisingly clear win against So and then went on to defeat Aronian in the final.

MVL wins Croatia GCT with a round to spare, Anand shines

7/11/2021 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was the clear winner of the 2021 Grand Chess Tour’s third leg, played in Zagreb. The Frenchman had an undefeated 6½/9 performance on Sunday, and managed to secure first place with a round to spare. Vishy Anand had a great day as well, as he also scored 6½ points in the second half of the blitz section to get sole second place. Anish Giri finished third, while Garry Kasparov continued to struggle against his younger opponents. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

A new way against the Bogo-Indian

7/11/2021 – Against the Bogo-Indian, White usually builds up with 5.g3. However, a practical disadvantage of this move is the fact that Black is usually very familiar with the variations that arise. Following an example of Sam Shankland, Lars Schandorff got interested in the new idea 5.e3, "that quickly leads to much less explored positions full of new possibilities for both sides". In the new ChessBase Magazine #202, the Danish GM takes a closer look!