2/21/2023 – When Wadim Rosenstein realised a childhood dream and put together a world-class field for his WR Chess Masters in his home town, he hadn't even thought about the political overtones. He simply wanted to bring top chess to the banks of the Rhine in Düsseldorf and for Rosenstein Ian Nepomniachtchi and Andrey Esipenko were world-class grandmasters. After all, Russian chess players are not sanctioned by the World Chess Federation. Nevertheless, there were critical questions. Wadim Rosenstein answers these and other questions in an interview. | Photo: Wadim Rosenstein follows the games in the lounge, Jan Gustafsson is in the back (Photos: André Schulz)

2/21/2023 – This endgame guideline is often useful to find the best move when pawn races occur. In the diagram position it is White to move and win. What should he do?

2/20/2023 – In his Endgame Magic Show #228 Karsten has the 16-year old Indian Grandmaster Leon Luke Mendonca as his guest and they will look at highlights from the Bundesliga. | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

2/20/2023 – In chess calculation, width is more important than depth. Virtually every decent player can calculate a forced line till the very end. However, only few can sense all the flavours of the position, find all the hidden ideas. To see the exceptions where everybody else only sees the rules. To find something unusual while all the others follow well-known patterns. In this article, Jan Markos shows you how Magnus Carlsen is able to come up with unexpected solutions in situations where an average club player would be totally confused. | Photo: Lennart Ootes, Archive

2/20/2023 – In order to understand openings properly, the middlegame should actually be studied first. Because all plans in the middlegame link directly to the ideas from the opening. Almost everything is hung up on pawn structures. Therefore, IM Herman Grooten takes the club chess player by the hand to take a closer look at common middlegame structures.

2/20/2023 – On Sunday, it was Ukranian day at the WR Chess Masters in Düsseldorf. Six young Ukrainians, who attended the fourth round of the super tournament at the invitation of organizer Vadim Rosenstein, enjoyed the opportunity to meet the participants of the WR Chess Masters. All six come from refugee families who arrived in the Rhineland in the spring of 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. | Photo: Tournament host Wadim Rosenstein, Tournament Director Sebastian Siebrecht and Event Manager Anastasiya Karlovych with some of the participants, each of whom received a price. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

2/20/2023 – Uruguay has once again hosted a strong chess tournament, as the sixth edition of the Marcel Duchamp Cup 2023 took place on February 3-11 in Montevideo. After nine intense rounds of competition, GM Alexandr Fier emerged as the champion with an impressive 7½/9 score. The victory cements Fier’s place as one of the top players in the region. | Photos: Official site

2/19/2023 – Levon Aronian continues to lead the standings at the WR Chess Masters, as all five games ended drawn in Sunday’s fourth round. A few of the encounters featured double-edged openings, but accurate defensive responses prevented any of them from finishing decisively. Monday is a rest day in Düsseldorf. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

2/19/2023 – 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 113th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to explain why it is good to study and to play the Sicilian. | Photo: Pascal Simon

2/19/2023 – It was in May 2016 that I launched this column, initially as an Agony Column in which readers could showcase their triumphs and disasters, and today I’m returning to the roots with a couple of my own games. Of course, I care very much when I’m playing, but ‘agony’ and ‘ecstasy’ are too strong for the emotions that chess normally engenders in me nowadays, and I’ve gone for ‘fairly gentle pleasure’ at victory and ‘mild to medium irritation’ at defeat. | Photo: David Llada

2/18/2023 – Levon Aronian is now the sole leader at the WR Chess Masters in Düsseldorf. The Armenian ace, representing the United States since 2021, defeated Nodirbek Abdusattorov from the white side of a Sicilian Dragon in a rather lopsided game. Meanwhile, in the one game of the day featuring two youngsters, Praggnanandhaa defeated Vincent Keymer, also with white. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

2/18/2023 – Last Monday, Alexandra Kosteniuk (pictured) won the second stage of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix, a 12-player single round-robin that took place in Munich, Germany. GM Karsten Müller followed the games closely, and sent us a selection of thought-provoking endgames. Find here six instructive positions, annotated by our in-house expert. | Photo: Mark Livshitz / FIDE