1/14/2022 – Among ChessBase products the Big DataBase stands in its own right. Unlike the MegaBase it has no annotations. This paves the way for independent study and preparation, and helps the player to hone skills on his own. The present edition offers 9.2 million games from 1475 to 2021. In this vast collection there are games from world championships, famous tournaments, past and present, not to mention little-known events that deserve greater recognition. There are magnificent battles, brilliancies and unknown gems all waiting to be discovered. Our columnist here introduces a few rare lines in e4-openings.

1/14/2022 – "I am getting so much better at tactics!" Arne mentions right at the beginning of the show. Little did he know, that this episode might be the low point of his chess career. The puzzles are merciless, and every move seems to miss the point. The goal was to reach 2400 in the tactic's section today, but apparently some technical difficulties, and more bad ideas lead to an actual loss of rating points! Have fun watching Lawrence and Arne getting crushed.

1/14/2022 – In the second part of the series, Joshua Doknjas examines opening system influenced by the neural network engines and discusses the modern battle between two well-prepared players. | Graphic: Europe Echecs

1/14/2022 – In his second Power Play Show of the year, Daniel King looks at sharp, beautiful games in the Sicilian Kalashnikov. And a critical position in one of these games reminds him of a famous combination played by the legendary David Bronstein! | 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.

1/14/2022 – Robert Huebner is considered Germany’s most successful player since Emanuel Lasker. From 1971 to 1988 he constantly belonged to the world’s top 20, achieving his all-time high in 1981 when he was number 3 on the Elo list. Huebner participated in four World Championship candidates cycles and in 1980 advanced to the final where he faced Viktor Kortschnoj. In ChessBase Magazine #205 our authors comment on their personal favourite Huebner game - resulting in an exclusive collection of 16 games from 1970 to 2017. In addition, Karsten Mueller presents a selection from Huebner's best endgames. And Mihail Marin in his strategy check comes to a surprising result for himself! Here we show you an excerpt from Marin's video as well as Karsten Müller's analysis of his favourite game: Huebner-Kasparov (Dortmund 1992). We hope you enjoy it!

1/14/2022 – There are so many endgame terms that Karsten Müller decided to gather them in a slowly growing "Endgame Dictionary", in which he explains these terms with short videos and practical examples. This time, Karsten explains what a "Knight Check Shadow" is. Admittedly, at first glance this is an unusual and somewhat unwieldy term, but it helps to explain and to remember an important endgame motif.

1/13/2022 – The first super-tournament of the year is about to kick off, and the organizers have just announced that they will be using a new tiebreak system. After last year’s edition finished with an unpleasant controversy, the organizers of the Tata Steel Masters have decided to avoid chaotic time scrambles to break a potential tie for first place. | Photo: Official website

1/13/2022 – The auction of the World Champion NFTs, in which ChessBase acted as a kind of digital art gallery, has been completed. The 14 works raised 7.2 Ether, which is currently around €21,000. Thank you and congratulations to all successful bidders! The creative process behind the development of the NFTs was inspiring, the technical background fascinating, the discussion with critical readers refreshing. Now the series has been released into the world, and it will be exciting to see what happens with it in the years to come. Finally, the raffle of the Viktor Korchnoi NFT, which was not included in the auction, has found a winner.

1/13/2022 – Last week, 15-year old Eline Roeber from the Netherlands surprisingly won the Untergrombach Open in Germany. Eline is a student of Robert Ris, and in his "Fast & Furious" show the experienced trainer takes a look at the crucial game of the tournament in Untergrombach: Eline's turbulent win against Russian Grandmaster Vyacheslav Ikonnikov. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

1/13/2022 – After the World Championship in classical chess finished in mid-December, three tournaments attracted the attention of chess enthusiasts: the Sunway Festival in Sitges, and the Rapid and Blitz World Championships in Warsaw. A chess review by Thorsten Cmiel. | Photos: FIDE

1/13/2022 – Chances are that like most ambitious chess players all over the world you already have Mega Database 2022, with 9.2 million high quality games, more than 100,000 with expert analysis. But do you know how to use Mega properly, how to conduct instant preparation for your next opponent? How you can use it to improve your repertoire. Let an experienced chess trainer show you how: IM Sagar Shah does it in this tutorial video. Watching it can be the most profitable 7½ minutes you have spent on your chess improvement in a long time.

1/12/2022 – At the end of last year, ChessBase launched a Fritz 18 brilliancy competition, and the winners have now been drawn. We got games from 30 years ago, including photos of original documents, online blitz games and many games against the new Fritz 18 engine. The winners will receive private training with GM Kasimdzhanov, an online blitz tournament against a GM, and vouchers worth 25-50 euros.