9/23/2022 – Magnus Carlsen, Vincent Keymer (pictured), Arjun Erigaisi and Le Quang Liem advanced to the semifinals of the Generation Cup. All four quarterfinal matchups offered a dose of excitement, as every single semifinalist lost at least one game on Thursday. While Le is set to play Arjun in semis, Keymer will have the tough task of facing Carlsen in a 4-game confrontation. | Photo: Lars OA Hedlund

9/22/2022 – This week Robert Ris will have a look at the Modern Defence with 4...a6, which World Champion Magnus Carlsen tried with Black in two interesting games against Arjun Erigaisi and Praggnanandhaa in the Julius Bär Generation Cup. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

9/22/2022 – Rapid events are exciting to watch especially with the World Champion in play, controversy aside, and one of the reasons for the excitement is also the larger number of mistakes leading to more decisive games. But another way of looking at it is that there are more opportunities for a good lesson as Karsten Mueller shows. Don't miss Keymer's knight underpromotion to beat Saric!

9/22/2022 – In the ChessBase Magazine column "All in one" you can learn everything you need to know about a specific opening variation on the basis of a single, extensively annotated game in order to be able to add it to your repertoire or even try it out directly in practice! In the current CBM #209, for example, the Ukrainian GM Yuriy Kuzubov presents a surprise weapon against the Alekhine Defence. 4.a4 followed by 5.Ra3 - have you ever seen that before? You can find a short version of his analysis here.

9/22/2022 – It's like having Carlsen and Anand at your disposal. Komodo Dragon and Power Fritz both won the World Championship, each in a separate section. Both are products you can get in the ChessBase shop. They are arguably the most powerful chess programs in the world, and will do wonders for your study of the game. Komodo Dragon 3 owners can rejoice: they now automatically receive the World Champion Engine as a free update. For Fritz users there is an attractive update price.

9/22/2022 – Magnus Carlsen won all three of his games on Wednesday to finish a whole nine points ahead of second-placed Arjun Erigaisi at the preliminary stage of the Generation Cup. Besides Arjun, four other under-20 players made it to the quarterfinals, including the youngest participant in the field, Christopher Yoo (pictured). As for the elite grandmasters, Levon Aronian barely made it through, while Anish Giri fell just short. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club

9/21/2022 – Right after dominating the preliminary stage of the Generation Cup, Magnus Carlsen gave his first interview since his sudden withdrawal from the Sinquefield Cup. Carlsen did not confirm he had resigned his game against Hans Niemann due to suspicious of cheating, but added that “people can draw their own conclusions, and they certainly have”.

9/21/2022 – Top seed Aleksandra Goryachkina (pictured) and Chinese youngster Zhu Jiner are sharing the lead on 3/4 points at the first leg of the Women’s Grand Prix in Astana. Zhu, aged 19, has so far defeated Dinara Wagner and Polina Shuvalova after playing three out of her four first games with the black pieces. Bibisara Assaubayeva and Kateryna Lagno stand a half point behind the co-leaders. | Photos: FIDE / Anna Shtourman

9/21/2022 – In his “Game of the Week” show #534 Merijn van Delft looks at a nice win by rising Indian star Gukesh who defeated English Grandmaster Gawain Jones in a fine attacking game played in the Spanish League. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

9/21/2022 – Aron Nimzowitsch, theoretician, author of "My System", and one of the world's best players at the end of the 1920s, liked to answer 1.e4 with the provocative move 1...Nc6, the "Nimzowitsch Defence". The move is slightly offbeat but offers Black good chances as the French GM Christian Bauer shows on his ChessBase course "The Nasty Nimzowitsch Defence", published in 2019. Paul Kane, who runs the website "The Caissa Kid", had a look at Bauer's course and concludes: "'The Nasty Nimzowitsch Defence' is a quality piece of work which was a great pleasure to study."

9/21/2022 – On Monday, the Chinese Team Championship, a round-robin tournament with 12 teams, ended in Fuling, which is a district of Chongqing. The team of Hangzhou Bank, in which Hou Yifan played on the first women's board, won both the Championship and the subsequent Rapid Championship. | Photos: Chinese Chess Federation

9/21/2022 – With three rounds to go, a combative final day of preliminaries awaits us in the Generation Cup, as most participants still have chances to reach the knockout stage. Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen already clinched a spot in the knockout after retaking the lead ahead of Arjun Erigaisi, who nonetheless continues to impress in the online event. | Photo: FIDE / Niki Riga