7/17/2022 – 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 87th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to explain why playing the Benko Gambit might be a good choice for club players. | Photo: Pascal Simon

7/17/2022 – In the ’90s, Igor Naumkin left his native Moscow, as did many other Soviet players, in order to seek playing opportunities at the many tournaments in Europe. Their grandmaster titles would help to get invitations and participation at various opens on the continent and secure a livelihood. Igor passed on July 13, a month before turning 57 years old.| Photo: Giordano Macellari

7/17/2022 – With a win over former sole leader Le Quang Liem, Dommaraju Gukesh took the lead in the Grandmaster Triathlon at the Biel Chess Festival — and at 16 years, 1 month and 17 days he became the third-youngest player in history to cross the magic threshold of 2700 Elo points! | Photos: Biel Chess Festival

7/17/2022 – The Meltwater Champions Chess Tour will hold its second Major of the season, the FTX Crypto Cup, in Miami from August 15 to 21. But first, a thrilling battle for qualification in the sixth tour event of the season will take place online from July 10 to 17, titled the FTX Road to Miami. | Follow the games live with expert commentary! The action kicks off at 18.00 CEST (12.00 EDT, 21.30 IST)

7/16/2022 – The Schara-Hennig Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.cxd5 cxd4!?) is now over 100 years old. Recently the gambit has received more attention - also thanks to Magnus Carlsen's games against Sam Shankland and Le Quang this year. Our new author, GM Lucian Miron, takes a closer look at the pawn sacrifice in the latest ChessBase Magazine #208. "if you are tired of constantly being under pressure when White plays 1.d4 and only the main lines, go for the Schara-Hennig Gambit!" he concludes. Take a look!

7/16/2022 – In the previous article composer Steffen Slumstrup Nielsen showed us how he strips ideas he has seen in tournament games to construct a proper endgame study. Today he shows us the alternate strategy: massaging the position and the brilliant idea to make it into full-fledged study that at first sight barely resembles the original game. The description of this process appeared in The Macedonian Problemist.

7/16/2022 – Wei Yi and Levon Aronian will play the 2-set final match of the FTX Road to Miami online tournament on Saturday and Sunday. Wei knocked out Richard Rapport, while Aronian got the better of Jan-Krzysztof Duda in semis. Both finalists have already secured a spot in the coming FTX Crypto Cup, which will be played in Miami next month.

7/15/2022 – This week Robert Ris picks up from last week, when he looked at a quick loss suffered by Ding Liren with the white pieces. A recent victory by Andrew Hong from the US Junior Championship was similar in that a single mistake by White was quickly punished by his opponent. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

7/15/2022 – Queen endgames often need extreme precision. In numerous instances, passed pawns play a large role, but mating attacks should also be considered. Game 4 of the quarterfinal match between Levon Aronian and Arjun Erigaisi saw the former outplaying his opponent in an ending with queens and four pawns per side.

7/15/2022 – This is the 2nd episode in the series of Olympiad stories with Saravanan. In this episode, we discuss the Madras Tiger Vishy Anand and some of his memorable games at the Olympiad. In discussing the games, Saravanan and Sagar also go into the history of how Vishy developed as a chess player. Saravanan saw the lightning kid style of play of Anand and also the more mature and calm style. This is part of a 6-episode series of the most interesting stories from the Chess Olympiads. | Photo: Abhyudaya Ram.

7/15/2022 – Rating favourites prevailed in the quarterfinals of the FTX Road to Miami online tournament. Levon Aronian and Jan-Krzysztof Duda secured victory ‘in regulation’, after four rapid games, while Richard Rapport and Wei Yi only won in the blitz tiebreakers. In semis, Wei is paired up against Rapport, while Duda is set to face Aronian.

7/14/2022 – ChessBase Magazine presents you with ideas for your repertoire in a variety of ways. In each issue you will find at least ten opening articles with recommendations from our authors, including analyses and annotated games. In addition, Raienr Knaak's collection of topical opening traps offers suggestions with which you can add tricky small weapons to your repertoire. And in each issue you will find three opening videos in which our authors address current developments. For CBM #208 Dorian Rogozenco, Ivan Sokolov and Mihail Marin have recorded opening videos - total playing time: over an hour. You can watch excerpts from all three contributions here!