12/9/2021 – In today's episode, Svitlana wants to give some hope to all the Nepo fans out there. The Canadian WIM shows us some beautiful games of former World Chess Champions, who managed remarkable comebacks in World Championship matches. We are talking about players like Wilhelm Steinitz, Alexander Alekhine, and Bobby Fischer. All three of them were trailing in World Championship matches and all three of them could turn the tables around. Nepo, it ain't over, until it's over.

12/9/2021 – Winning a brilliancy is a delight! Fritz 18 shows you how to do it - with the "Evolving Genius" function. The program gives subtle hints, you find ways to play fantastic games. The renowned author and coach IM Robert Ris has tried it and played a spectacular, fast and furious game which he shows in a video. But Fritz 18 helps everyone to play brilliant games. And you can share these brilliancies and take part in our Fritz 18 lottery and win great prizes!. A lot of readers have already sent in brilliancies, we show the most beautiful victories in loose order! So, join the action and send your brilliancy to brilliancy@chessbase.com"!

12/9/2021 – The "body-check" is the right solution from yesterday, instead of an immediate "opposition". If the king goes to d4, the game can be won. The good news is, almost everyone knew that too. In door number 9 we again have only four pieces on the board, and again it is a really instructive endgame prime example.

12/9/2021 – During the World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi a number of other tournaments are played in Dubai. One of them is the Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Rapid and Blitz Cup, in which 24 players from 22 countries took part. The winner of the Rapid Cup, a nine round Swiss, was Russian Grandmaster Vladimir Fedoseev. | Photos: Tournament Page

12/9/2021 – The FIDE Rapid and Blitz World Championships cannot take place in Nur Sultan (Kazakhstan) in December as originally planned. Due to the tightened Corona security measures imposed by the Kazakh government, FIDE has cancelled the tournament in Kazakhstan and is currently looking at alternative venues.

12/9/2021 – "A short and quite uneventful draw, which totally makes sense as Magnus is on the verge of match victory." This is how Wesley So summed up game 10 of the World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi. However, in his analyses he still managed to dig deep and indicates a lot of hidden subtleties of the game, particularly in regard to opening theory and match strategy. | Picture: FIDE

12/8/2021 – An uneventful draw in game 10 of the World Championship match kept Magnus Carlsen’s 3-point lead going into the fourth rest day of the contest. The defending champion only needs to score 1 point in the remaining 4 encounters to keep his crown. | Photo: Niki Riga

12/8/2021 – This week, Merijn van Delft takes a look at a game between the Dutch player Thomas Beerdsen and Sergey Fedorchuk from Ukraine. The game was played at a tournament in Barcelona and helped Beerdsen to make his second grandmaster norm. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

12/8/2021 – The Jobava London System, named after the top Georgian player Baadur Jobava, is a side form of the London System, which differs in principle in only one small detail - the white knight is established early on c3. This brings two major advantages. On the one hand, it is possible to castle longside more quickly, and on the other hand, tactical motifs sometimes arise on the queenside. Since the system is still relatively new, there is no need to learn tons of theory.

12/8/2021 – Oh dear! The last door really was a tough cookie. Rarely have we received so many different answers, so we decided to draw two more winners for the day. In the video, we see the details of the solution Kc2, which lay dormant for more than 100 years. Today we have only four pieces on the board, and yet the solution is not crystal clear.

12/8/2021 – After blundering in game 8 of his World Championship match against Magnus Carlsen, Ian Nepomniachtchi also blundered and lost in game 9. Carlsen now leads 6-3 and with five games to go the match is practically over. Wesley So took a close look at game 9 and concludes: "Ian was playing very well early on in the match but ... game 6 was clearly the turning point in this match as before that both players were playing equally well and it seems that Ian was no inferior to Magnus. ... Ian is a great player and even the greatest players make mistakes. Unexpected and miserable stuff happens to us all, and we hope Ian will be able to move on and get his mojo back asap!" | Photo: Wesley So (Archive) | Photo: Lennart Ootes

12/7/2021 – The World Championship match in Dubai might theoretically finish after 11 (out of 14) games, as Magnus Carlsen scored a third victory in four games after Ian Nepomniachtchi inexplicably blundered a piece in an equal position on Tuesday. The challenger now needs to win 3 out of the 5 remaining encounters to take the match to tiebreaks. | Photo: Niki Riga