12/1/2020 – December 1st is the first day of summer in the Southern Hemisphere, bringing daytime temperatures in the low 80s (Fahrenheit) to Canberra, the capital city of Australia. FIDE Master and International Arbiter Shaun Press provides photos and a history of outdoor chess in Canberra, with additional text by WIM Alexey Root.

12/1/2020 – Pawn endings often require knowledge and precise calculation. And sometimes a (temporary) retreat is the best (and only) way to make progress.

11/30/2020 – The Skilling Open is the first stop of the 2020-21 Champions Chess Tour. With 16 participants, the event will be played on November 22-30. A single round robin tournament to be played from Sunday to Tuesday will decide who moves on to the knockout stage.The top eight will advance to a 6-day knockout. The action each day begins at 17:00 GMT (18:00 CET, 12:00 ET). Read the full report on Day 1 of the final | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/30/2020 – Медный Всадник, the "Bronze Horseman" from St. Petersburg, convincingly won the Russian Team Championships 2020 in Sochi. The "Horsemen" won eight of their nine matches and finished three points ahead of their closest rivals. Top scorer of the team was Maxim Matlakov (pictured), European Champion 2017. FSM Moscow won the women's event. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archive)

11/30/2020 – Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So go into the last day of the Skilling Open with the score tied after trading wins with white in the first four games of the final match. It all comes down to the second 4-game mini-match, while another tied score will lead to a blitz tiebreaker. The deciding confrontation will be played on Carlsen’s 30th birthday. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/30/2020 – Our new database program, ChessBase 16 has, as you know, a blindingly fast search. If you ask the program whether, and how often, a particular position has occurred in a collection of eight million games, and which were the moves played in that position, with what success, then you get an answer in less than one second! How is this possible? The author of this search booster function is Jeroen van den Belt, and he explains how he implemented the new search booster.

11/29/2020 – Grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi is Russia’s number one player and the fourth highest-rated player in the world. National Master Mike Walder prepares a recipe inspired by an Instagram post and annotates Giri-Nepomniachtchi from the 2020 Candidates, a tournament where Nepomniachtchi is currently one of the co-leaders. WIM Alexey Root tells why Ian Nepomniachtchi is a Grandmaster Chef honoree, using four-letter words as headers. | Photo: Alina l’Ami

11/29/2020 – Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So moved on to the final of the Skilling Open by drawing their second semifinal mini-matches against Ian Nepomniachtchi and Hikaru Nakamura respectively. It was a tougher day at the office for the world champion, who had to come back from a loss in game 1 and find defensive resources in the remaining encounters to keep things under control. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / frchess.com

11/29/2020 – 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 third part of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving" Herman talks about the activity of the pieces, and explains why a queen usually should not be in the corner of the board. | Photo: Hans Hoornstra

11/28/2020 – Emanuel Lasker, the second official World Chess Champion, used to play Bridge with his brother Berthold in coffee houses in Berlin at the end of the 19th century. He was also interested in Lasca, Go, Pokerette and Whistette — but, luckily for chess enthusiasts, he ended up dedicating his life to the royal game. Columnist Siegfried Hornecker presents the German’s endgame studies, plus a controversy surrounding an adjourned game which could have led to Lasker giving up on chess.

11/28/2020 – The semifinals of the Skilling Open kicked off on Friday. Magnus Carlsen beat Ian Nepomniachtchi in their first mini-match after collecting three draws and a win. Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura followed a similar pattern, with So getting ahead in the matchup after getting a single win. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/27/2020 – In this Power Play Show, GM Daniel King takes a look at a game from the Skilling Open, in which Magnus Carlsen defeated his old rival Anish Giri in a positional masterpiece. | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, 13:00 ET). All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. | Photo: Champions Chess Tour | Archive

11/27/2020 – The latest version of our database program, ChessBase 16, is creating waves in the chess world. But do you know everything that is under the hood of this remarkable training tool for chess players? How it will find new interesting lines for you to play, and look after your repertoire, keep it fully up-to-date? Today IM Sagar Shah discussed the new features live with the head of the programming team. Watch the video recording for a unique tutorial on how to use the new program. That will repay you with additional rating points – for sure!

11/27/2020 – What distinguishes the Mega Database from other databases? For one, it does not become obsolete and remains "up to date" with just a few clicks! Because the delivery of the Mega Database 2021 includes not only more than 8 million games but also the weekly mega update service. Every week we provide you with a database of around 5,000 new games. At the same time the search booster of the reference database is updated, which allows you to continue your work immediately and without losing time. With a few clicks in ChessBase 16, your Mega Database will always be up to date. A "mega help" for every tournament player. Here's how...

11/27/2020 – In the diagram position, White had just played 32.Qd4+, after which Black decided to take the pawn on g6 and played 32...Kxg6??. However, that was a mistake which allowed White to unleash a powerful mating attack. How did White continue after 32...Kxg6?? - and can you calculate the lines in your head?

11/27/2020 – Three out of the four players that qualified to the semifinals of the Skilling Open did it by coming back from behind in their quarterfinal matchups. The only player to move on without needing tiebreaks was Magnus Carlsen, while Ian Nepomniachtchi, Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura reached the semis despite having lost on Wednesday. Carlsen v Nepomniachtchi and So v Nakamura are the semifinal pairings. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/27/2020 – With an Elo-rating of 2683 Anton Korobov was top seed and favourite at the Open Ukrainian Championship 2020. Korobov lived up to this role and with a score of 7.0/9 he finished clear first to become Ukrainian Champion 2020. It was his fourth title. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archive)

11/26/2020 – In this week's show, well-known Dutch trainer Robert Ris takes a look at an old favourit of Garry Kasparov: the Petrosian Variation of the Queen's Indian Defense. | "Fast and Furious" is available from 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET / 16:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Frederic Friedel