10/6/2022 – The last time Alexei Shirov chose the Moscow Variation in the Semi Slav, Jorden van Foreest was just 13 years old. This June - and thus ten years later - the two players met for a mini-match over four classical games. The veteran, who had played the Botwinnik Variation over all these years, came up with a surprise and resorted to the Moscow Variation for the first time against the top player from the Netherlands. In the new ChessBase Magazine Extra #209 Shirov reviews this game in a 50-minute video. You can watch an excerpt here!

9/29/2022 – Over an hour of video training: Mihail Marin explains how Caruana achieved a clear advantage with a novelty in the Rossolimo Variation against Gukesh - and then missed the right continuation. Alexei Shirov shows with one of his games against Jorden van Foreest why you have to reckon with the Moscow Variation against him in the Semi-Slav again! "The brilliancy" comes from Greek GM Nikolas Theodorou, who led his team to the championship title in the 2022 Final Four of College Chess in the USA. The "Lucky bag" with 29 annotated games - among others Romain Edouard, Mihal Krasenkow and Spyridon Kapnisis analyse 17 games from the German Bundesliga - is again full of surprises and suggestions. ChessBase Magazine Extra is the perfect complement to ChessBase Magazine. Available as a single issue or by subscription (6 issues per year). Available as download or on DVD.

7/2/2022 – Chess legends Paul Morphy, Adolf Anderssen, Henry Bird, Ernst Falkbeer, and Johann Löwenthal were star sign cancer in the age of romantic chess. With Vladimir Kramnik, Boris Gelfand, Anish Giri, Alexei Shirov, Alexander Morozevich, and of course Ian Nepomniachtchi, we have the almost 200 year older equivalent in the present time. Of the players listed, their merciless attack is often in focus. Does cancer really feel most comfortable with fire on board, or does the aggressive strategy have other reasons? | Photo: Pixabay

3/7/2022 – Richard Rapport and Anish Giri will enter the last round of the preliminaries at the Belgrade Grand Prix with 1-point leads in their respective pools. Rapport scored a crucial win on Sunday, as he got the better of Vidit Gujrathi with the black pieces. In the same group, Alexei Shirov obtained his first win of the series by beating Vladimir Fedoseev in a sharp encounter. | Photos: Mark Livshitz

11/3/2021 – The 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss in Riga, Latvia has featured many exciting new opening ideas and double-edged games, as the world’s best players fight for spots in the World Championship cycle. Canadian FM and opening expert Joshua Doknjas analyzes five interesting games from the first half of the event. | Photo: Mark Livshitz

11/1/2021 – A draw on top board between Alireza Firouzja and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave allowed veterans Alexei Shirov and Evgeniy Najer to join Firouzja in the lead at the open section of the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss. Both Shirov and Najer won with the black pieces on Sunday. In the women’s section, five players are sharing the lead going into round 6. | Photo: Anna Shtourman

3/3/2021 – This week Merijn van Delft takes a look at a game in which Anish Giri enriched opening theory and showed his attacking skills against Alexei Shirov. | Merijn's show is available at 16.00 UTC (17:00 CET, 12:00 EDT) and on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

2/7/2021 – Alexei Shirov won his last two games to remain ahead of David Anton and Eduardo Iturrizaga — who also won their last two encounters — and get clear first place at the Salamanca Masters. Shirov finished with an outstanding 6/7 score in the rapid tournament. Elisabeth Paehtz was the strongest among the women. | Photos: Official site

2/6/2021 – An eventful fifth round in Salamanca left Alexei Shirov as the sole leader of the single round robin tournament. In typical style, Shirov went all in for a kingside attack — which the engines evaluated as unsound — to take down Almira Skripchenko. Former co-leader Veselin Topalov, in the meantime, was defeated by Eduardo Iturrizaga. Expert analysis by GM Karsten Müller. | Photos: Official site

2/5/2021 – Veterans Alexei Shirov and Veselin Topalov are sharing the lead at the Salamanca Masters, taking place this week as an over-the-board rapid tournament. David Antón and Eduardo Iturrizaga are trailing the leaders a half point behind and are yet to face the Bulgarian. Only round 5 will be played on Friday, while the tournament will come to an end on Saturday. | Photos: Official site

1/21/2021 – Dubbed the Match of the New Century, the third confrontation between Russian and The World was played in Moscow on September 8-12, 2002. Due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a number of players from ex-Soviet countries represented The World. The match was staged over ten boards using a Scheveningen System with a rapid time control. The match ended in an unexpected 52:48 victory for the World team. | Photos: Anna Dergatscheva

12/21/2020 – The European Blitz Championship was played as an online tournament during the weekend. An 11-round Swiss open served as a qualification event, with 16 players moving on to the knockout phase. In the end, Gawain Jones took first place after beating Alexei Shirov in the final. Matthias Bluebaum defeated David Navara to get the bronze medal. | Photo: Alina l’Ami

9/30/2020 – With a 3½:2½ win over Gros Xake Taldea, Silla Bosch Serinsys secured clear first place at the Spanish Team Championship in Linares. Andreu Paterna, the team that was in sole second place before the final round, also won and took home the silver. Magic Extremadura completed the podium after beating Collado Villalba. | Photos: Spanish Chess Federation

9/8/2020 – In round eight of the Spanish Championship the two leaders, Ivan Salgado and Alexei Shirov, played against each other. Shirov won and is now sole first with 7.0/8 and with one round to go he has good chances to become Spanish Champion 2020. | Photos: Patricia Claros/ Feda

9/7/2020 – In the top match of the Spanish championship, tournament leader Ivan Salgado drew with David Anton. In the match of the pursuers Alexei Shirov defeated Salvador del Rio de Angelis and caught up to Salgado. They now share the lead with 6.0/7 each.

9/5/2020 – Alexei Shirov has been proclaimed the winner of the Gazprom Brilliancy Prize, a special trophy awarded by the General Partner of the Online Chess Olympiad. The game that earned Shirov this prize was his victory with the black pieces against Danyyil Dvirnyy, in which the Spaniard got to show a novelty in the Slav Defence and sacrificed his queen while attacking on the queenside. | Photo: FIDE

9/2/2020 – In his “Game of the Week” show, Merijn van Delft looks at yet another impressive attacking effort by “Fire on Board” author Alexei Shirov! | Merijn's show is freely available at 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) for a limited time, and on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Lars OA Hedlund

9/2/2020 – The 2020 Spanish Championship 2020 is taking place in Linares, as an over-the-board tournament. 138 participants have registered to participate. It is a 9-round Swiss open, which will also serve to decide who becomes the 2020 Spanish Women’s champion. The games start at 17:00 CEST and can be followed live at Live.ChessBase.com | Photo: Patricia Claros (FEDA)

8/23/2020 – The Carlsen Chess Tour is over. What a pity, because the finals between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura were outstanding! The most used opening by far was the Ruy Lopez, leaving the Sicilian opening behind. A clear sign of how much this opening is in fashion momentarily, and we all know that everybody will jump on the Ruy Lopez train sooner or later this year. To prepare you in the best way possible, I highly recommend taking a look at Fabiano Caruana's: Navigating the Ruy Lopez Vol. 1-3.

7/9/2020 – The corona pandemic did not prevent the organizers of the Leon Masters (Magistral Ciudad de León) from launching the 33rd edition of the traditional yearly event. The main event, to be played on July 10-12, is a four-player knockout with two Spanish players and a couple of international stars. In the semifinals, Alexei Shirov will face local hero Jaime Santos, while Leinier Dominguez will play defending champion Parham Mahgsoodloo. Given the circumstances, the games will be played online. | Photos: Official site

3/12/2020 – Inspired by Alexei Shirov IM Robert Ris examines the latest in the French Advance variation. Live from 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET / 13:00 EST) and free to watch on-demand for a limited time (or forever for ChessBase Premium account holders. To chat when Robert is live, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows. In the diagram, it's Black to play!

3/12/2020 – In the last round of the classical nutcracker chess tournament in Moscow, Semyon Lomasov defeated Evgeniy Najer and equalized for the young masters. The subsequent rapid round was decisive between the veterans and the young ones. The "kings" held the upper hand against the "princes" with 35-29.

3/7/2020 – At the traditional Nutcracker battle of generations tournament 2020 in Moscow, four veterans compete against four young chess players. After three rounds the "oldies" lead 13:11. Perhaps this is thanks to players like Alexei Shirov (pictured) and Boris Gelfand who form part of the senior elites — actually dubbed the Kings Team. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

12/18/2019 – Arica is a lively port city on the Pacific coast of Chile, not far from the Atacama Desert. An Open with international appeal has been played here for a few years. Alexey Shirov tops the ranking list and started with 5 out of 5. | Live games and video of Round 6 from 19:30 UTC (21:30 CET / 3:30 PM EST)