11/27/2022 – 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 101st instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to explain why it is good to study and to play the Sicilian. | Photo: Pascal Simon

11/27/2022 – Today, the Czech Grandmaster Vlastimil Jansa celebrates his 80th birthday. For many years, Jansa was one of the best Czechoslovak players, and he took part in ten chess Olympiads and was Czechoslovak national champion three times. In his youth, he was also part of the national junior team of Czechoslovakia - the football team. In 2018, he became senior world champion. Eduard Frey congratulates. | Photo: Jansa at the World Senior Championship 2022 in Assisi | Photo: Tournament page

11/26/2022 – Pattern recognition is a major feat of the human brain, albeit one that can lead to wrong outputs. Examples include seeing faces where there are none, known as pareidolia. Once it was believed that the planet Mars has a face structure on it, speculations about former inhabitants of the planet ran wild, later it turned out that this isn't the case and could be attributed to the low resolution of the photo. | Photo: Pixabay

11/26/2022 – By beating Uzbekistan in the final match, China won the World Team Championship in Jerusalem. The Chinese squad won both sets by a 2½-1½ score to claim the title. Meanwhile, in the match for third place, Spain got the better of India in tiebreaks, with wins for Jaime Santos and David Anton in the blitz decider. | Photo: Mark Livshitz

11/26/2022 – Garry Kasparov was the eight of the twelve World Chess Champions whom Frederic met. In our new weekly series he tells us how he met and befriended the top players, and the adventures they experienced together. Frederic has written a new book, together with Professor Christian Hesse, with fascinating chess stories from the last 50 years. It appeared (first in German) in October.

11/26/2022 – In the diagram position, White just played Rd1 to d4, threatening to take the black knight on b4 and to play Rh4 with a mating attack. But it's Black to move and win - if he keeps calm and calculates the lines! How should Black proceed?

11/25/2022 – This week, Daniel King looks at a problem theme appearing in practical games, incredibly, twice within a week. Living legend Vasyl Ivanchuk and rising star Arjun Erigaisi both played the ‘Novotny’! | 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.

11/25/2022 – Few tournaments brought as much stake to its host nation as Moscow 1925 did to Russia. The event brought a Russian into world title contention, but, more importantly, it proved vital to Russia’s rise as dominant force in chess. Eugene Manlapao takes a look at the tournament and its history. | Photo: Tournament winner Efim Bogoljubov (left) and Akiba Rubinstein during their game | Photo: Wikipedia

11/25/2022 – The new Chessbase 17 is out, and among the numerous new features is the completely revamped Search function. On the surface this might not sound terribly exciting, but the proof is in the pudding, and when you see it in action you will understand. Check out this article and video to see what the fuss is all about!

11/25/2022 – This week Robert Ris presents a line to fight against the Jobava-London System (1.d4 2.Bf4 & 3.Nc3). The always well-prepared Anish Giri used this line to win a fine game with Black against Praggnanandhaa at the Meltwater Chess Champions Tour. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

11/25/2022 – The Israel Chess Federation is hosting the World Team Championship on November 19-26, with twelve teams from all around the world. The participant countries were split into two pools of similar strength, taking as a reference the rapid rating list. The four best teams from each pool will advance to the knockout stage. | Follow the games live with expert commentary by Almira Skripchenko and Vishy Anand starting at 13.00 CET (7.00 ET, 17.30 IST)

11/25/2022 – At the semifinals of the World Team Championship in Jerusalem, China and Uzbekistan defeated Spain and India respectively. In both cases, a draw in the first set was followed by a deciding victory in the second. The final and the match for third place will be played on Friday. | Pictured: Uzbekistan’s Javokhir Sindarov | Photo: Mark Livshitz