2/19/2022 – Opposite-coloured bishops favour the attacker - in the diagrammed position it is Black to move, and do you see how Black can exploit the superiority on "his squares"?

2/18/2022 – The total Prize Fund Increased to $1.4 million across all five tournaments. The nine players are Wesley So Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Alireza Firouzja, Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Levon Aronian, Richard Rapport, and Leinier Dominguez. | Photo: grandchesstour.org

2/18/2022 – The Airthings Masters tournament kicks off this year’s Meltwater Champions Chess Tour with a glittering lineup featuring Magnus Carlsen and the new male and female world rapid champions. Sixteen players in total will battle it out in the round-robin stage of the online event before eight go forward to the knockout stage. The tournament will take place on February 19-26, with the action kicking off daily at 18.00 CET.

2/18/2022 – In his Power Play Show, GM Daniel King looks at a couple of games with a similar strategic pattern. In the first game we see Magnus Carlsen in action in the Norwegian League - and then we see a second game with a related theme, which was played by Ulf Andersson some years ago. | 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.

2/18/2022 – Are you weary of feverishly watching for novelties in the Najdorf, or following tedious battles over the chessboard? Looking for something different? In the January issue of CHESS Magazine there was a small collection of delightful problems that caught our eye. They were selected and annotated by Graham Phythian. Today we show you the positions without any solutions, which will be supplied in a week. You can however figure them out on your own, with the help of the built-in engines in our replay app.

2/18/2022 – The ChessBase MegaDatabase 2022 contains around 9.2 million games, many of them by top players. Thanks to the ChessBase reference function the immense opening knowledge from these games is easily accessible. Thanks to the ChessBase search mask the same applies to the middlegame and endgame. But how does the search for positions work, e.g. for positions with an isolated queen pawn? You will quickly learn how powerful this tool is and how easy it is to use the search mask! Let's go.

2/17/2022 – Hikaru Nakamura defeated Levon Aronian in tiebreaks to win the first leg of the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. The hard-fought final match had seen two draws in the classical games. In the two rapid encounters that broke the tie, Nakamura showed better nerves in the last stage of the games to take home the title, 13 Grand Prix points and 24,000 Euros. | Photos: World Chess

2/17/2022 – The last two spots in the upcoming Candidates Tournament will be decided in the FIDE Grand Prix Series, with the first leg of the series taking place in Berlin on February 4 to 17. The new format consists of four-player double round-robins and a knockout stage. Follow the games live with expert commentary starting at 15.00 CET (09.00 ET, 19.30 IST)!

2/17/2022 – The Enter Null Move feature in ChessBase helps chess coaches demonstrate opening tabiyas, middlegame attacking ideas, and endgame plans. It’s also perfect for figuring out missing moves on students’ scoresheets or for Knight’s Tours. National Master Jeffrey Ashton explains.

2/17/2022 – It will be a ten-game encounter, with five games at slow time control, five fast. In March Swedish grandmaster Nils Grandelius will play English grandmaster David Howell in London. The event is part of the 30th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the London Chess Centre and the relaunching of CHESS Magazine. Press release.

2/16/2022 – A 29-move draw in game 2 of the FIDE Grand Prix final means the winner of the event will be decided in Thursday’s tiebreaks. The short game was not without excitement, though, as the players entered a sharp line in which White had the more comfortable position but had to contend with Black grabbing material on the queenside. Hikaru Nakamura will have the white pieces in the first rapid game tomorrow. | Photos: World Chess

2/16/2022 – In his "Game of the Week" show #503 Merijn van Delft takes at a theoretically interesting game in the Italian, which Leinier Dominguez and Wesley So played at the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.