12/23/2021 – The "Special" in the new ChessBase Magazine #205 is dedicated to Robert Huebner, the best German player since Emanuel Lasker: an exclusive collection of 16 games, with analyses by Michal Krasenkow, Romain Edouard, Viktor Moskalenko, and others. And there's the best of the FIDE Grand Swiss 2021: tournament winner Alireza Firouzja annotates his victory against Nijat Abasov, and Grigoriy Oparin, Yu Yangyi, Alexandr Predke, Samuel Sevian, Nikita Vitiugov, and others annotate their best games. In a video Markus Ragger reveals a brand-new update in the Gruenfeld Defence with 5.Bd2. Plus 11 opening articles ("Surprise in the London System: 6...e5!", "Benko Gambit with open centre: 5.b6 e6!?", "News in the French Tarrasch: 8...g5" ), as well as training columns on tactics, strategy and endgame.

12/23/2021 – The youngest GM ever, played the move Nf3+. Although the game was played this year, it is already a classic. On the penultimate day, there is a fast-paced task in which a white king has to find the right square. Can you help?

12/23/2021 – The Gashimov Memorial 2021 is a rapid and blitz chess tournament taking place on December 18-23 in Baku. Eight players, including Vishy Anand, Fabiano Caruana, Sergey Karjakin and Shakriyar Mamedyarov, are participating in the six-day event. Follow the action live starting at 15.00 local time (12.00 CET, 6.00 ET, 16.30 IST).

12/23/2021 – Legend has it that a player who once was analysing with Dr. Tarrasch (pictured), a great believer in the power of the bishops, gave his bishop for a knight and remarked: "Winning the small exchange!" Tarrasch, probably with good reason, felt provoked, and said: "You obviously mean losing the small exchange!" Exchanging minor pieces is a fine and difficult art indeed. Jan Markos knows more!

12/22/2021 – Richard Rapport, co-winner of the rapid section, is leading the overall standings table after the first seven rounds of blitz at the Gashimov Memoarial in Baku. The strongest on day 1 of the blitz was Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, though, who scored 5 out of 7 points despite losing his last game of the day against Fabiano Caruana. | Photos: Official site

12/22/2021 – This week, Merijn van Delft takes a looks at a game by Nico Zwirs which abounds with interesting positional and tactical ideas. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

12/22/2021 – In the last three days the number of leaders at the Sunway Sitges Open has always doubled, and by now the leading group consists of eight players with 6.5/8 each. Among them is the young Indian Arjun Erigaisi (pictured) who won a fine attacking game in round eight. But most of the top matches in round eight ended in a draw which allowed a number of players to catch up to the leaders. | Photos: Rupali Mullick

12/22/2021 – In a blog post for his sponsor Simonson Vogt Wiig, Magnus Carlsen reiterated and explained his announcement that he might not play another World Championship match because he lost his passion for this form of competition over the years. But "passion must be the main driver. I have always liked to compete, but chess was for me mainly driven by passion for the game." | Photo: Eric Rosen (FIDE)

12/22/2021 – Arne Kaehler had just learned this study in "Ellis Schatztruhe - Episode 9", but embarrassingly forgot it again for a short time. But the vast majority knew, of course, that only Kg7 leads to success. Today, the task is not to find the probably "best" move, but the move that was played in this particular game with Black.

12/22/2021 – Six players have already qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2022, and the two remaining spots will go to the two best players in the FIDE Grand Prix 2022, a series of three tournaments that will be played from February to April in Berlin and Belgrade. The FIDE recently announced that Hikaru Nakamura (pictured), who in the last two years has not played a single FIDE-rated game, will get the FIDE wild card for the Grand Prix. Daniil Dubov will a wild card from the organiser. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

12/22/2021 – The rapid tournament at the Vugar Gashimov Memorial ended with an exciting and close finish. In the sixth and penultimate round tournament leader Richard Rapport lost against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, which allowed Fabiano Caruana to catch up. But in the final round Caruana also lost against Mamedyarov while Rapport and Karjakin won their matches. In the end, Rapport and Karjakin shared first place with 16 points each. | Photos: Tournament page

12/21/2021 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent will take a look at the Sitges tournament, in which a number of the world's brightest stars take part. The game of the day will be Niemann-Puranik where the young Indian GM gets the better of, to quote Lawrence, "the greatest American natural talent since Nakamura". | Lawrence’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here