12/3/2021 – Videos: Scandinavian expert Christian Bauer presents clever move orders in the system with 3...Qa5. And Mihail Marin analyses the Deac-L. van Foreest from the European Team Championship and shows that there's always room for new ideas in the Catalan! Peter Heine Nielsen, Carlsen's second, annotates "The brilliancy" Carlsen-Duda from the final of the Meltwater Tour. Moreover, 25 games with detailed annotations await you in the "Lucky bag", including analyses by Anish Giri, Romain Edouard, Michal Krasenkow et al. ChessBase Magazine Extra is the perfect complement to ChessBase Magazine. Available as a single issue or by subscription (6 issues per year). Available on DVD or as a download.

12/3/2021 – How to checkmate a king with a knight and bishop was clear to most! There were also many answers that knew the "W" motif of the knight. You surely know your endgames! Solution B. Lh7 was correct. Should Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi think a little longer about their moves today, it is worthwhile to take a closer look at the somewhat more demanding third door. Quite a difficult task for a change!

12/3/2021 – Game number 6 of the World Championship in Dubai, left Carlsen with two rooks against Nepomniachtchi's Queen. Such material imbalances occur frequently. But do you know how much better two rooks are against a queen? What about a rook against two minor pieces in the middle game? Or even three minor pieces vs. a queen? The Canadian WIM shows us plenty of examples by master players like Fischer, Kasparov, Polgar, Capablanca, Alekhine, and more, on what to look out for in her first Fritztrainer.

12/3/2021 – As part of the Expo2020 in Dubai, the Spanish Pavilion organised a large tournament with schools from all over the world. The best teams of the online preliminaries were invited to Dubai. Favourite to win was the team Velammel Nexus from India that started with three grandmasters. The Indians won indeed but in the final had some trouble against surprisingly strong students from Peru. | Photos: Patricia Claros

12/3/2021 – World Champion Magnus Carlsen is currently playing in Dubai to defend his title, but in this episode of "Svitlana's Smart Moves" we will talk about another World Champion: Garry Kasparov, Svitlana's favourite player. With two fine games by Kasparov - against Anand and against Bareev - Svitlana shows us why good old gambits are still a powerful weapon in modern chess, and why activity is often more important than material.

12/2/2021 – You are looking for an active answer to 1.d4? Then the Grünfeld Indian is an excellent choice! Not by chance this opening is one of the main weapons of some top grandmasters: with active play and emphasis on tactics, Black counters White’s strong centre, immediately facing him with concrete problems.

12/2/2021 – This week, well-known Dutch trainer Robert Ris shows a game in which Black found a way to get a strong attack in the Ragozin variation (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Bb4). | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

12/2/2021 – In the Endgame Magic Show #173 Karsten Müller and Arne Kähler do what most chess fans all over the world do these days: they take a look at the World Championship match between World Champion Magnus Carlsen and challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi in Dubai. Karsten and Arne were particularly intrigued by White's strong knight on d6 in game 2. | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

12/2/2021 – ChessBase Magazine offers a window to the world of professional chess and it also provides arsenal for the tournament player. CBM #204 contains 1226 games (26 annotated), 9 opening surveys, lectures and exercises for training. Annotators include Peter Heine Nielsen, Alireza Firouzja, Romain Edouard and Anish Giri, to mention a few. The icing on the cake is the Judit Polgar Special, a tribute to the former child prodigy who crossed swords with the best of them all, from Kasparov to Carlsen. Our columnist Nagesh Havanur takes a look and muses on the performance of the champion and the challenger in the coming match for the world crown.

12/2/2021 – One of the most refined and inconspicuous ways to gain an advantage and to win is the art of exchanging pieces. Most club players don’t take exchanges too seriously. Sacrificing is brave, attacking is fun, but exchanging pieces is kind of boring, isn’t it? Even cowardly. But knowing when to exchange and when not to exchange is a powerful strategic weapon. In part 2 of his "Winning Academy" series, Jan Markos shows why. | Photo: Wikipedia

12/2/2021 – The second day of our magical endgame calendar. Yesterday, you had to solve the famous endgame move by Shirov vs. Topalov. And of course, most of you knew the correct answer, and also mentioned the game. More of this, please! But we also had quite some participants answer with A. Be4, which won't do the trick. But no worries, you have 23 more tries. Today, we look at a famous check-mate in 18 moves. Luckily, you only need to know the first move to start this combo.

12/1/2021 – On Wednesday, Ian Nepomniachtchi got the white pieces for a third time in the World Championship match against Magnus Carlsen. The Russian got an advantage out of the opening but could not make the most of his chances. Super-GM Anish Giri annotates the game with instructive insights and pertinent variations. | Photo: Alina l’Ami