2/22/2019 – Friday at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, Noon EST) Daniel King will go on air on playchess.com. You can watch the episode live for free! All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

2/22/2019 – Played only six years ago, to many this is already a WCh classic: after 26...b2 27.Rf4 b1D+ from the diagram position, Black got a fresh queen with check. But the challenge is to ensure the survival of his king afterwards. Up to it?

2/22/2019 – On his two DVDs "Attacking Repertoire with 1.d4" the English Grandmaster, renowned coach and author Nick Pert presents a repertoire for White based on 1.d4. Volume 1 deals with 1.d4 d5 2.c4, volume 2 with systems arising after 1.d4 Nf6. With these two DVDs Pert complements his previous DVD "Solid and safe against the wild Indians" which showed how to play against the King's Indian and Grünfeld.

2/22/2019 – Four out of six players on a perfect 2/2 score at the Aeroflot Open are Indians, as fighting chess was the rule during Thursday's second round. Incidentally, none of the co-leaders are among the top-10 rating favourites, a rather expected fact given the strength of the tournament. However, some of the highest-rated players scored their first wins on round two, including Wei Yi, Wang Hao and Anton Korobov. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili / Russian Chess Federation

2/21/2019 – From February 20 to February 24 the Saint Louis Chess Club hosts the Champions Showdown, an exhibition event in which ten top players show their skills in five matches in blitz and rapid chess. The games start at 1 pm local time (20:00 CET, 19:00 UTC). Live and with commentary by Maurice Ashley, Yasser Seirawan and Jennifer Shahade. | Picture: Saint Louis Chess Club

2/21/2019 – The Champions Showdown in St. Louis features five exhibition matches in which five US players compete in rapid and blitz against five non-US players. With three wins and one draw Fabiano Caruana (who played against Pentala Harikrishna) and Richard Rapport (who played against Sam Shankland) scored best on day one. Caruana more than once showed superb endgame skills. | Photo: Saint Louis Chessclub

2/21/2019 – Last year's World Chess Championship in London was an exciting affair. All twelve games were drawn, and not everyone was there for the final tiebreak day, to see Carlsen win three games and retain his crown. But Frederic Friedel did attend the spectacular opening gala and the first two rounds. He describes the many interesting people he met and the impressions they left. This is the first in a series on chess-related encounters.

2/21/2019 – Today's topic: The Carlsen Line (1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4 Nc6 5.Qd2!?) against the Sicilian. Thursday, at 16:00 UTC (17:00 CET, 11 am EST), IM Robert Ris shows sharp and double edged opening lines. If you fancy sacrificing or playing gambits, this show is a must see. Not only will you profit from specific opening ideas but you'll learn a lot of interesting general opening concepts too. The live show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows.

2/21/2019 – Keeping your chess databases in order, e.g. by arranging databases according to topics, players, openings, etc., makes training and improving easier and more fun. Database administration in ChessBase 15 is not difficult. Here's a little tutorial to help you. | Drawing: ChessBase

2/21/2019 – After a bomb threat forced the first round to be postponed, the Aeroflot Open kicked off on Wednesday at the Cosmos Hotel. A lot of the rating favourites only managed to score half points, but plenty of fighting chess was seen on the lower boards. The biggest surprises were given by Kaido Kulaots and Liu Yan, who defeated Parham Maghsoodloo and Jorden van Foreest, respectively. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili / Russian Chess Federation

2/20/2019 – Ideas and strategies in Grandmaster games can be quite instructive. IM Merijn van Delft presents games like these every Wednesday at 19:00 UTC (20:00 CET, 2 pm EST). On this week's show: P. Maghsoodloo vs S. Tiviakov from the 3rd Stars Cup in Iran. The live show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows.

2/20/2019 – This year's edition of the prestigious German teams tournament has reached its half-point and, unlike the previous edition, it will see the squads gathering in Berlin midway through instead of doing so at the end. On March 1st-3rd three rounds will be played, which will include two key match-ups for defending champions and current leaders OSG Baden-Baden. Standings, pairings and more below. | Photo: schach2019.berlin