4/12/2022 – In his "Weekly Show" Lawrence Trent focuses on the Reykjavik Open and the featured game is Pragg’s destruction of Cornette in Round 8. Lawrence will also briefly talk about Ding Liren and the Candidates. | Lawrence’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here

4/12/2022 – Between 16 and 24 June 1954 a match was held in New York’s Hotel Roosevelt between the Soviet and the US chess teams. The eight-board, four-round match ended with a decisive 20-12 victory for the Soviets. In an article for the New York Times ahead of the match, US chess champion Samuel Reshevsky shared his thoughts on how the Soviets (whom he kept calling ‘the Russians’) became so good at chess and why this was so important to them. The Britisch Chess Magazine have reproduced this article, which shares a view on the role chess had, both as an internal and external weapon, for the Soviets.

4/12/2022 – Having a pawn majority is usually a positional plus because pawn majorities allow you to create passed pawns. But creating these passed pawns usually requires tactical and technical precision. Which Black demonstrated in the diagrammed position. What did Black do to win the game?

4/12/2022 – Mads Andersen and Praggnanandhaa scored full points on Monday to join Max Warmerdam in the lead of the Reykjavik Open. In the final round, Andersen will have the white pieces against Warmerdam, while Pragg will face his compatriot Gukesh with black. Gukesh is one of seven players currently standing a half point behind the leaders. | Photo: Thorsteinn Magnusson

4/12/2022 – The Kvika Reykjavík Open is taking place on April 6-12 at the Harpa Conference Centre in Iceland’s capital. The event is a 9-round Swiss open with double rounds on April 7 and April 10. No fewer than 267 players have registered to participate, including a number of young rising stars. | Replay all available games with computer analysis.

4/11/2022 – In Karsten Müller's "Endgame Magic Show #189" Karsten and Arne Kähler look at rook endings, and take a particularly close look at the rook endgame 4 vs 3 pawns on one side to show important drawing formations. | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

4/11/2022 – Ding Liren, currently the world's number three, has very good chances to play in the Candidates Tournament as the highest-rated, eligible player in FIDE’s ranking list published on 1 May. However, to qualify and to replace the suspended Sergey Karjakin, Ding needs to have played 30 FIDE-rated games from May 2021 to May 2022. When Karjakin was suspended by the FIDE for supporting Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Ding had just played four of the required 30 games, but now he is catching up: after a four-player, twelve-round tournament in Hangzhou, he played a six-game match against Wei Yi. After five draws, Ding won the last game and the match. | Photos: Imedia

4/11/2022 – Thanks to back-to-back wins in Sunday’s double round, Max Warmerdam climbed to sole first place at the Reykjavik Open. The Dutch grandmaster defeated Simon Williams and Johann Hjartarson to become the only player to go into Monday’s round 8 with a 6/7 score. Five players stand a half point behind — Pouya Idani, Praggnanandhaa, Mads Andersen, Matthieu Cornette and Tania Sachdev. | Photo: Thorsteinn Magnusson

4/11/2022 – With over 1,300 articles, the Opening Encyclopaedia 2022 covers the entire range of openings. A huge fund of ideas and high-quality analyses! In the new edition, the number of articles has increased - 66 new opening articles and 388 new opening overviews have been added compared to the previous year. New feature - GM Dorian Rogozenco goes into detail about the latest opening trends in top chess, with many videos.

4/10/2022 – In a two-day event played last weekend, Saint Louis University won the President’s Cup, a team event featuring the top four US schools from the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Championship. Webster University came in second place, merely a half point behind the winners — board points, and not team wins, were the deciding factor. | Photo: Texas Tech Chess

4/10/2022 – Lukasz Jarmula had taken the sole lead at the Reykjavík Open by beating Hans Niemann in round 4. The Polish grandmaster drew top seed Pouya Idani in round 5 to remain in sole first place, but a loss to Danish GM Mads Andersen has now left him sharing second place a half point behind the leaders. Besides Andersen, Johann Hjartarson, Praggnanandhaa (pictured) and Max Warmerdam also won in Sunday’s early round and are now sharing the lead on 5/6 points. | Photo: Thorsteinn Magnusson

4/10/2022 – 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 74th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman talks about pieces that are out of play. | Photo: Pascal Simon