The Anish Giri Interview: Winning Tata Steel Masters 2023

2/3/2023 – Anish Giri won the Tata Steel Chess Masters 2023 ahead of all the top players in the world - Magnus Carlsen, Wesley So, Ding Liren, Fabiano Caruana. He played some phenomenal chess throughout the event to win it with a rating performance of 2849, scoring 8.5/13 and gaining 16 Elo points. Anish has been very close to winning the tournament multiple times, but this is the first time he has clinched the trophy at Wijk Aan Zee! We invited him for a livestream to get his thoughts on winning this prestigious tournament. Check out his full interview with IM Sagar Shah below.

Robert Ris’ Fast and Furious: Spectacular chess in Wijk

2/3/2023 – In his 'Fast & Furious' show, Robert Ris looks back at the Tata Steel Tournament in Wijk and presents what he calls "the most spectacular game of the tournament". It was exciting from the start. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Airthings Masters Play-In: Live!

2/3/2023 – The play-in phase of the Airthings Masters is taking place on February 3 and is open to all grandmasters. A total of 54 players will qualify to the knockout stage set to start on Monday. A 9-round Swiss tournament will be followed by 2-game matches to decide who qualifies and to which division of the knockout. | Follow the live commentary, starting at 17.00 CET (11.00 ET, 21.30 IST)
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Women’s Grand Prix in Munich - Live

2/3/2023 – From 1 to 13 February Munich will host the second Women’s Grand Prix tournament of the 2022-23 series. The two best players from four tournaments will qualify for the Candidates Tournament. The first round starts at 15.00 CET. Follow the games live, with commentary by Stefan Kindermann and Veronika Exler. | Photo: David Llada
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Vaile's new album – Fragile

2/3/2023 – Inspired by her months of lonely forest trips in the north of Scandinavia German actress and singer has launched a new album of 14 songs, in the style of German pop, cine-classic and Nordic noir. It is music into which everything from love, laughter, separation and death flows. So what is the chess connection: well Vaile is an enthusiastic amateur who has met and interacted with many of the world's top players. She has even taken part in Chess Boxing!
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"We are at a dangerous point" - An interwiew with Artur Jussupow

2/3/2023 – Artur Jussupow belonged to the absolute top of the world during his active time and after moving to Germany he opened a successful chess school together with his wife. At the Staufer Open Martin Hahn had the opportunity to interview the former World Championship candidate. Among other things, the grandmaster talked about chess training, cheating in chess, and the best junior players. | Photos: German Chess Federation (Bernd Vökler)
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Munich GP: Four winners on day one

2/3/2023 – The second stage of the 2022–23 Women’s Grand Prix kicked off in Munich, the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. Four out of six games finished decisively, with Tan Zhongyi (pictured), Alexandra Kosteniuk, Nana Dzagnidze and Elisabeth Paehtz grabbing wins in the first round of the two-week event. | Photo: FIDE / David Llada

Game of the Week #553: A. Giri vs R. Rapport

2/2/2023 – In his “Game of the Week” show #553, Merijn van Delft takes a look at a historically important game: Anish Giri's win against Richard Rapport in the last round of the Tata Steel tournament in Wijk aan Zee, a game that helped Giri to win the prestigious tournament for the first time in his career. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Dana Reizniece-Ozola welcomes the chess queens to Munich

2/2/2023 – On Wednesday the second Women's Grand Prix Tournament of the 2022-23 Series was ceremonially opened at the Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski Hotel in Munich. Twelve top players are fighting to qualify for the Candidates Tournament. The first round will start at 15.00 CET. | Photos: David Llada/FIDE
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Remembering Svetozar Gligoric: 2 February 1923 – 14 August 2012

2/2/2023 – Today, chess legend Svetozar Gligoric, who passed away in 2012, would have turned 100 years old. In World War II he fought as a partisan against the Germans, and after the war he became one of the world's best chess players. He was very popular among his peers and even managed to be friends with Bobby Fischer. Dagobert Kohlmeyer remembers the King's Indian expert. | Photos: Dagobert Kohlmeyer

Khalid & Sophie talk with Anish & Jorden

2/2/2023 – The two Dutch top players Anish Giri and Jorden van Foreest once again cut a very good figure in the Tata Steel Chess Masters. Anish Giri even managed to beat Magnus Carlsen and win the tournament for the first time. On Tuesday evening, the two chess grandmasters were guests on the popular Dutch talk show "Khalid & Sophie" and explained how chess and chess training works.
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Natasha Rogoff: Muppets in Moscow

2/2/2023 – Who doesn't know Sesame Street, the American educational children's television series that premiered in 1969 and runs on animation and puppetry. It is one of the longest-running shows in history. And it has been adapted for dozens of other countries. In a must-read new book Natasha Lane Rogoff describes the harrowing conversion to Ulitsa Sezam for Russia and Ukraine. And yes, there is a chess connection.

The Valencia variation in the Scandinavian

2/1/2023 – Since the early 21st century, the consensus among specialized historians is that the birth of modern chess took place in the ancient Kingdom of Valencia. Francesc Vicent was the author of the first known treatise on modern chess, the ‘Llibre dels jochs partits dels scachs en nombre de 100’, printed in Valencia on May 15, 1495. In an article for ‘Peón de Rey’ Magazine, Sergi Núñez and Francisco Rubio explain why a line in the Scandinavian Opening should be named ‘the Valencia variation’.
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Explained by the engineers! - How to stream Fritztrainer Videos with ChessBase 17

2/1/2023 – ChessBase 17 offers many new features. We help to use them optimally! In our new video series, our developers personally explain the new features they have developed themselves. From the new data format to the beauty index. In no time at all, you'll learn how it's done. In this episode, we discover how easy it is to stream a Fritztrainer directly with ChessBase 17.

FIDE ratings February 2023

2/1/2023 – At the beginning of February FIDE published the new world ranking list. Magnus Carlsen, who continues to be clear number one, lost a few rating points in Wijk, but increased the Elo gap to Ding Liren, who lost even more rating points in Wijk and is now the world's number three while Ian Nepomniachtchi is number two. Hou Yifan is number one on the women's list and Alireza Firouzja remains the world's best junior though his rivals come closer. Best female junior is Bibisara Assaubayeva.
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Aquarius and their strategy

2/1/2023 – Most of all grandmasters were born under the sign of Aquarius. Among them romped the legends Taimanov, Eliskases and Sveshnikov. There is also a world champion - Boris Spassky. With Abhimanyu Mishra, we have not only the youngest grandmaster, but we also had Yuri Averbakh, the oldest, who died at the age of one hundred.| Photo: Pixabay

A tough nut to crack: Arjun vs. Aronian

2/1/2023 – Arjun Erigaisi reached an extremely difficult endgame against Levon Aronian in the third round of the Tata Steel Masters. Many players would have collapsed, but the 19-year-old is a tough nut to crack. He held his own and managed to draw the game. After the game, you could see Arjun and Levon analysing the game, but it was all just too complex to figure out without an engine. IM Sagar Shah spent a lot of time going to the depth of the position and now shares the findings with you. Do check out the analysis to unlock the secrets of a complex knight versus bishop endgame. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
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The Winning Academy 17: Fast or slow?

1/31/2023 – Time is important when playing chess. The time that the players have on the clock, but also the dynamic pieces and pawns develop during the game and that dictates whether to play fast or slow. Jan Markos knows how to use such dynamics to your advantage. | Photo: Michael Hofmann, Kitzingen., CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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Endgames from Wijk aan Zee (4)

1/31/2023 – The much anticipated Tata Steel Chess Tournament finished on Sunday in Wijk aan Zee. GM Karsten Müller, our in-house endgame expert, found plenty of instructive positions from the event in the Netherlands and shared his analyses with us. Find six such mini-lessons here. Enjoy! | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2023
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