US Seniors: Khachiyan prevails in duel of co-leaders

7/20/2023 – Melikset Khachiyan, a former coach of Levon Aronian, won the clash of co-leaders in round 5 of the US Seniors Championship as he beat Maxim Dlugy with white to take the sole lead in the standings. In the Junior Championships the leaders could not extend their leads. To the contrary, the fields are now closer together, both in the open and the girls’ sections. | Photo: Austin Fuller / Saint Louis Chess Club
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Robert Ris’ Fast and Furious: Wide open kings out of a Ruy Lopez

7/20/2023 – In his Fast & Furious show, Robert Ris analyses an outstanding game from the Geza Hetenyi Memorial. Eventual winner Praggnanandhaa lost with black against Amin Tabatabaei, as the rising stars fought in a wild middlegame out of a rare line in the Ruy Lopez. Unmissable! | Fast & Furious is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Switching federations

7/20/2023 – The Austrian Chess Federation has a new top grandmaster representing their country. Kirill Alekseenko (photo) has joined the Austrian federation and with his 2674 rating is the new number one in the European country. The Spanish Chess Federation also reports a prominent addition, as Sara Khadem has completed her transfer. | Photo: Biel Chess Festival
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Women’s World Championship: The calm before the storm?

7/20/2023 – The tenth game of the Women’s World Championshipe ended in a draw. Ju Wenjun followed in Vincent Keymer’s footsteps in the opening, but failed to gain an advantage. The last two classical games will be played on Friday and Saturday, following a rest day. | Photos: Stev Bonhage / FIDE
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Biel: Le back in the race

7/20/2023 – Le Quang Liem was the only player to score a victory in the second round of classical games at the Grandmaster Triathlon in Biel. Meanwhile, sole leader David Navara successfully defended an outstanding endgame with rook and pawn against six pawns in his game against Arjun Erigaisi. Le is now sharing second place with Vincent Keymer. | Photos: Official website
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Game of the Week #577: M. Abdulla vs M. Van Delft

7/19/2023 – In his Game of the Week show #577, Merijn van Delft shares one of his games from the Science Park Tournament in Amsterdam. He and Murad Abdulla fought in a remarkably imbalanced position! | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

US Juniors: The youngest on top

7/19/2023 – At the US Junior Championships in Saint Louis, some of the youngest players in the fields (open and girls’) are showing remarkable performances. Alice Lee (photo), aged 13, took the lead in the girls’ tournament, while Abhimnyu Mishra, aged 14, dethroned former leader Andrew Hong in the open. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club
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Chess (the musical): 1990 versus 2023

7/19/2023 – I bought an airplane ticket for the same July 13th flight that my husband Doug took to St. Louis for the 2023 U.S. Senior Championship. But I didn’t join Doug on that flight. ‘Chess’ (the musical) was in St. Louis and my son William wanted to see it. | Photo: Municipal Theatre Association of St. Louis
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The Italian for insiders

7/19/2023 – The Italian Game has become popular again in top chess in recent years, not least because it often leads to interesting positions rich in content. In ChessBase Magazine #214 Sergey Grigoriants uses games by Nakamura, Carlsen, Kasimdzhanov and others to show a concept that promises Black "relatively easy play": with 10...Re8 Black prepares the exchange of the light-squared bishops on e6.
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ChessBase in Minutes! Learn how grandmasters use Chessbase to study endgames! (video)

7/19/2023 – In just five minutes, learn how grandmasters use ChessBase 17 to quickly get similar endgames so they can study deeper and learn from others. Whether an amateur or one of the world elite, these easy but powerful tools can help you raise your game and do wonders for your rating! Don't miss this lightning video lesson!

Biel: Navara the first sole leader

7/19/2023 – David Navara won his first classical game at the Biel Chess Festival to grab the early sole lead in the GM Triathlon. The Czech star defeated Bassem Amin, while Vincent Keymer, who entered the round as co-leader after the rapid, only managed a draw against Jules Moussard. The longest game of the day saw Arjun Erigaisi holding a draw with black against Yu Yangyi. | Photos: Official website
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Women’s World Championship: A tense draw, three games to go

7/18/2023 – In the ninth game of the Women’s World Chess Championships, Lei Tingjie and Ju Wenjun showed a remarkable level of understanding both in the middlegame emerging from a Sicilian Defence and in the ensuing rook ending. The game ended in a draw after 59 moves. | Photos: Stev Bonhage / FIDE
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Studies with Stephenson

7/18/2023 – There were three competitions in the British Chess Solving Championship. Chess problemist Brian Stephenson, who for twenty-five years directed the Championship, and has directed several World Chess Solving Championships, shows us three of the competition studies. It is your opportunity to join the competition and test your own solving skills. Or at least enjoy some very clever chess compositions.
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Beautiful breakthroughs

7/18/2023 – Pawn majorities can be used to organize a breakthrough. In the diagram position it is Black to move and win. What should he do?

Endgame Magic #245: Highlights from the SuperUnited event in Croatia

7/17/2023 – In this week's show, Karsten Müller looks at endgame highlights from the SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz tournament in Croatia, mostly taken from games by wunderkind Alireza Firouzja! | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

Pragnanandhaa: Five wins and a miscalculation

7/17/2023 – Four games, four wins — that was Praggnanandhaa’s tally at the start of Geza Hetenyi Memorial in Budapest. Pragg thus became the eighth Indian to break the 2700-elamark. However, the Indian speed train was stopped in the fifth round when he lost to Amin Tabatabaei. The prodigy returned to his winning ways the very next round, as he defeated Peter Prohazka with black on Sunday. | Photo: Zoltan Fülöp
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The Winning Academy 20: Simple means safe

7/17/2023 – "KISS", which stands for "Keep it simple, stupid!", is a design principle first formulated by the US Navy in 1960, but which quickly caught on. KISS suggests that simplicity is preferable to complexity in most systems. Chess is no exception - Jan Markos knows more. | Photo: Jimee, Jackie, Tom & Asha on Flickr.
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Women’s World Championship: Ju levels the score

7/17/2023 – In the eighth game of the FIDE Women’s World Championship on Sunday, Ju Wenjun finally managed to score a win against challenger Lei Tingjie. A day earlier, the defending champion had failed to make the most of a big advantage in game 7. With four more games to go, the score is now tied. | Photo: Stev Bonhage / FIDE

Old and new

7/16/2023 – Simen Agdestein recently won the Norwegian Chess Championship for a ninth time in his career. The 56-year-old outscored the likes of Aryan Tari and Jon Ludvig Hammer, but did not have to beat national hero and former student Magnus Carlsen, who does not participate in his country’s championships. In his column this week, Jon Speelman analyses recent games by both the master and the student! | Photo: VG.no
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Understanding before Moving 134: Chess history in a nutshell (16)

7/16/2023 – 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 134th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues his series "Chess history in a nutshell" and looks at the legacy of Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch. | Photo: Pascal Simon

Arjun visits his mega-sponsor

7/16/2023 – What happens after a company sponsors a chess player? How does it find value in the sponsorship? This article puts down the story of Arjun Erigaisi and QuantBox. QuantBox is a High Frequency Trading company, which has made one of the biggest sponsorship deals in the history of Indian chess with Arjun. Recently Arjun met the members of QuantBox at their Bangalore office, and what happened is portrayed in the article below.
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Women’s World Championship: Ju fails to convert big advantage

7/16/2023 – The protagonists of the Women’s World Championship moved to Chongqing to play the second half of the all-Chinese match. Game 7 was played on Saturday. Challenger Lei Tingjie still has a 1-point lead over defending champion Ju Wenjun after the latter could not convert a clear advantage into a win while marshalling the black pieces. Lei had won game 5, the only decisive encounter of the match so far. | Photo: Stev Bonhage / FIDE
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Carlsen twice checkmates So, wins Aimchess Rapid

7/16/2023 – In the Grand Final of the Aimchess Rapid, Magnus Carlsen defeated Wesley So by a 3-1 score on Friday. The 15+3 rapid tournament was the fourth event of the Champions Chess Tour and was played online. In the overall tour standings, Carlsen now has a 95-point lead over his closest chaser, Fabiano Caruana. Denis Lazavik won Division II, while Yu Yangyi prevailed in Division III.
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CBM #214 Special: Boris Spassky

7/15/2023 – Spassky is considered one of the most gifted players ever. A fine attacker and equally strong in the middlegame and endgame, the term universal style was coined for him. For CBM 214 we invited our authors to comment on their favourite Boris Spassky games. The result is a collection of 27 first-class annotated Spassky games from the period 1949 to 1989. You can take a look at two samples here. Enjoy!
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