3/5/2022 – Black king on e7, unprotected queen a5 - White's threat in the diagrammed position is obvious, and not even 17...Bb6 could prevent him from making a good catch. Your call!

3/4/2022 – "Never move the queen out early", runs the old maxim. And yet... In his Power Play Show, GM Daniel King examines two cases from the FIDE Grand Prix tournament in Belgrade where, in the open Sicilian, White plays an early queen move. Neither is ridiculous, at least theoretically... | Power Play is on air most Fridays. Watch it on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer.

3/4/2022 – The highlight of day 3 at the FIDE Grand Prix in Belgrade was Richard Rapport’s victory over Vidit Gujrathi. The Hungarian thus caught his round-3 opponent in the lead of pool C. The one other decisive result on Thursday was seen in the same group, as Vladimir Fedoseev got the better of Alexei Shirov. Anish Giri played a remarkable queen sacrifice against Pentala Harikrishna — the game finished in a draw. | Photos: Mark Livshitz

3/4/2022 – The world is witnessing a catastrophe in Ukraine. Many of us are also anxious over the safety and well-being of chess players in the war-torn land. News on their current situation is coming in, but it is not enough to address all our concerns about them. We would be better placed to offer sympathy and help to players in Ukraine if we share information on their plight. It is in this spirit that our columnist has made the appeal to readers here.

3/4/2022 – Levon Aronian, is the "hero" of ChessBase Magazine #206. In the new issue, our authors - David Navara, Adhiban Baskaran and Romain Edouard among others - comment on their favourite games of the top player. This has resulted in a collection of 19 special encounters from 1994 (U12 World Championship!) to 2021. In addition, Mihail Marin's contribution is entitled "Levon Aronian's strategic universe" and Karsten Mueller presents a selection of the Armenian's best endgames. You can watch the video from Mueller's endgame contribution as well as Adrien Demuth's analysis of the game Aronian-Ponomariov (Lausanne 2001) here - enjoy!

3/3/2022 – In an appeal to Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, a large number of prominent Russian chess players call for a ceasefire and peace in Ukraine. "It is unbearably painful for us to see the catastrophe that is happening these days to our peoples." The courageous appeal appeared on the Russian sports site "Championat".

3/3/2022 – This week Robert Ris takes a look at a miniature played at the highest level: at the Airthings Masters Online Rapid Tournament World Champion Magnus Carlsen defeated Jan-Krzysztof Duda with a swift attack and won a short and instructive game. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

3/3/2022 – In the current ChessBase Magazine the Sicilian Taimanov Variation (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Be3 a6) is taken to task from two sides at once. The super-modern 7.g4 came onto the board at the Tata Steel 2022 in the game Grandelius-Carlsen, we have already presented the Swede's analysis to you recently. There is also a complete opening article by IM Christian Braun on precisely this variation in CBM #206. A "dangerous weapon for White", because Black has development problems, whereas White can quickly castle long... The concept, which Jan Werle looks at in his opening video on the basis of a game by Alireza Firouzja, is completely different: after 7.Nxc6 bxc6 8.Qd3 Nf6 9.Qg3 Qxg3 10.hxg3 White achieves a small but lasting positional advantage, which can be played comfortably. Take a look!

3/3/2022 – Two players have a 1-point lead in their respective pools going into round 3 of the FIDE Grand Prix preliminaries in Belgrade. Anish Giri and Vidit Gujrathi kicked off the event with back-to-back wins and are the sole leaders in pools B and C. In pool A, Sam Shankland joined Dmitry Andreikin in the lead thanks to a win over Alexander Grischuk. In pool D, both games were drawn for a second consecutive day. | Photos: Mark Livshitz

3/3/2022 – Whether for in-class work or for homework, worksheets help students review and practice chess. Creating worksheets—then printing, formatting, and sharing them—are tasks that every chess coach undertakes. In this article, National Master Jeffrey Ashton shows how ChessBase makes these tasks easier.

3/3/2022 – The International Chess Federation (FIDE) has decided to postpone the World Teams Championship 2022 to November 2022. The rights to host the tournament are retained by the Israeli Chess Federation. Press release.

3/3/2022 – IM Andrew Martin and GM Nigel Davies are a good team of experienced trainers. In the 1990s, they formed the "Master Chess Roadshow" and toured England to help players all over the country to get better and to have fun with chess. Now, the band is back together: with the Chess Web Show, three weekly shows on Twitch and a YouTube channel!