3/1/2022 – Sometimes it is difficult to convert an extra knight into a full point: Black to move and win.

2/28/2022 – In the second week of March, the French capital will host the “Chess for Mental Health” international event. The conference will cover various topics related to mental health, including autism, DYS, concentration, hyperactivity. The event’s keynote is how chess can improve multiple aspects of mental health.

2/28/2022 – In the Endgame Magic Show #183 Karsten Müller presents endgame highlights from the Airthings Masters, the online rapid tournament which World Champion Magnus Carlsen won last Saturday by defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi in the finals. | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

2/28/2022 – This week Robert Ris presents the "Ukrainian Immortal", a fantastic game, in which White slowly develops a strong attack, which he crowns with a series of sacrifices. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

2/28/2022 – You know the problem: can you place eight queens on a chessboard so that now two queens threaten each other. There are 92 distinct ways of doing this. But how about on larger chessboards? For 27×27 board people have worked out that there are exactly 234,907,967,154,122,528 ways. Now a Harward mathematician Michael Simkin has come up with an almost-definitive answer for any number queens on a corresponding chessboard. Warning: his result can lead to dizziness and fainting spells.

2/28/2022 – The Grandmasters Dr. Karsten Mueller and Luis Engel have set a ball rolling in Germany with their latest Fritztrainer. GM Lars Bo Hansen designed the four-player model in 2005, and was perhaps ahead of his time. In the 5-part interview with Dr. Karsten Mueller, all four player types are discussed in detail. Today - The Summary, and questions about all four types.

2/28/2022 – An extraordinary meeting of the FIDE Council took place on Sunday to address the issues related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Among other decisions, the council decided to ban Russia and Belarus from organizing official FIDE competitions, to terminate sponsorship agreements with Belarusian and Russian sanctioned and/or state-controlled companies, and to condemn public statements from members of the chess community who support unjustified military action — i.e. Sergey Karjakin and Sergey Shipov.

2/27/2022 – The most exciting and talked-about game of the 2021 World Championship was game 6. Statistically, the sixth game of a World Championship match has yielded more decisive results than any other game. This one proved to be no exception, as records kept tumbling. The game had various layers of action and consequences. GM Sundararajan Kidambi explains the game arising out of a Catalan opening. | Photo: Shahid Ahmed

2/27/2022 – 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 68th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman shows some ideas of how to play against the King's Indian. | Photo: Tommy Grooten

2/27/2022 – The new ChessBase Magazine #206 once again offers a wealth of ideas and recommendations for your repertoire. Besides the three opening videos by Jan Werle, Daniel King and Mihail Marin as well as Rainer Knaak's trap collection, the new issue contains eleven opening articles covering a broad spectrum: from a sharp gambit in the Caro-Kann Advance Variation via "Ruy Lopez for structuralists" (Delayed Exchange Variation) to the new Gruenfeld trend 5.Bd2 c5!?. Imre Hera, meanwhile, takes up a radical idea against the Reti Opening with which David Navara shocked his opponent, GM Markowski, in 2011: after 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 d4 3.b4 the creative artist continued with the novelty 3...g5!? and then also let his h-pawn rush towards the opponent's castling. "One of the most interesting innovations in modern theory", our author thinks. You should take a look at it!

2/26/2022 – Magnus Carlsen won the first event of the 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour as he beat Ian Nepomniachtchi in the finals of the Airthings Masters. After drawing the first set on Friday, the world champion won the second 4-game mini-match by a 2½-½ score. Nepo did not go down easy, though it was Carlsen who performed at a higher level at the critical points in games 2 and 3.

2/26/2022 – Humans formed belief systems based on stellar bodies. If you ask an astrologer about it, he might tell you his beliefs which of those have the most influence on your life. If you ask a scientist, he will likely name at least two: Sun and Earth. Ancient cultures already measured a phenomenon that - relative to each other - Earth rotates around the sun as well as around its own axis. A full rotation around itself is called a "day", a full rotation around the sun a "year". Relatively speaking, that is in relation to the sun, Earth returns to its current position after one year. One hundred such rotations are called a "century". A man who is on Earth for such a time is called a "centennial". A centennial who contributes to endgame theory is called... Yuri Averbakh. | Photo of Averbakh: Eteri Kublashvili