Bogoljubow's tricky minority attack

2/5/2022 – In the diagram position Black's active rooks are hitting f2, his queen g5 is eyeing the Rc1 - and yet White unperturbedly continued 30. b4-b5! Can you spot the idea behind this advance?

Berlin GP: Dubov escapes

2/5/2022 – The FIDE Grand Prix series kicked off on Friday in Berlin. Out of the eight games played in the first round, three finished decisively, although perhaps two of the draws were the most entertaining to follow live — Daniil Dubov escaped against Vincent Keymer (pictured), after the latter entered a sharp opening variation, while Alexander Grischuk failed to find a killer blow in an endgame against Andrey Esipenko. | Photos: World Chess

Can Artificial Intelligence identify your playing style?

2/4/2022 – Ashton Anderson, a computer scientist at the University of Toronto, wanted to know whether chess players have a unique playing style. To answer that question, he and his team gathered more than "50 million human games played on the Lichess website. They collected games by players who had played at least 1000 times and sampled sequences of up to 32 moves from those games. ... [Then] they gave the system 100 games from each of about 3000 known players, and 100 fresh games from a mystery player. The system ... identified the mystery player 86% of the time." An article in "Science" takes a closer look at the pros and cons of this experiment. | Photo: Xi Jian/stock.com | Source: "Science"

Daniel King’s Power Play Show: Two Tata classics

2/4/2022 – In his Power Play Show, GM Daniel King looks at two Tata Steel classics, played seven years apart, but in the same opening. It's interesting and worth comparing the strategies of the two victors, Magnus Carlsen and Arjun Erigaisi. | 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.

Ivanchuk starts streaming

2/4/2022 – Vasyl "Chucky" Ivanchuk is one of the most original of all top players, but for more than a year he has not played an official game. However, he is still enjoying chess and is now trying his hand at streaming. On his new YouTube channel "IvanchukChess" the former world's number two explains and analyses current games. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / World Rapid Championship 2016

Robert Ris’ Fast and Furious: The Scotch Four Knights with 5...Nxe4!?

2/3/2022 – This week Robert Ris shows how Black can spice up things in the Scotch Four Knights (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.Nxd4), a line that enjoys the reputation of being very solid for White, by sacrificing a knight on move five. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Battle of the Sexes: Men triumph!

2/3/2022 – In the final round the men's team needed four points to be sure of overall success. They managed to go undefeated as three of their number won their games to reach a score of 6½. The winners on the final day were Bobby Cheng, who beat Jovi Houska; Ravi Haria, who beat Olga Girya; and Bilel Bellahcene, who defeated Marie Sebag (her only loss of the event). Balazs Csonka drew his game with Marsel Efroimski and this was enough to secure his second grandmaster norm. Interim report and photos by John Saunders.

Fighting for the last two spots in the Candidates

2/3/2022 – The Candidates Tournament is scheduled to take place in Madrid later this year, and there are only two spots still up for grabs, with these two qualifiers set to be decided at the FIDE Grand Prix Series. The first leg of the series kicks off tomorrow in Berlin, only three days after FIDE announced that Ding Liren and Dmitry Andreikin will not make it to the German capital — Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Andrey Esipenko are their replacements.

In the footsteps of a plan

2/3/2022 – Each position can be observed and dissected differently by players of varying strength. The more one knows about various aspects of the game, the more nuances one looks for. A beginner may not understand why someone would spend plenty of time thinking in a position that occurred numerous times, while a strong master will try to rummage through the previous plans and come up with something original. GM Sundararajan Kidambi shows various examples to illustrate this idea. | Photo: Shahid Ahmed

Battle of the Sexes: Final round - Live

2/3/2022 – The "Battle of the Sexes" in Gibraltar is a ten-round Scheveningen match between ten male and ten female players. Before the 10th and final round the men (team Sabino) are three points ahead and lead by 46½-43½. But the women (team Pia) still have chances to catch up. Round 10 starts at 11:00 local time (5:00 ET, 10:00 UTC). Follow the games live and with commentary by Lawrence Trent and Irina Bulmaga.

Battle of the Sexes: Women within striking distance

2/3/2022 – Round nine of the #GibChess Battle of Sexes, held at Gibraltar’s Garrison Library saw a turnaround in fortunes as the women’s team ran out 6-4 winners on the day. This still leaves them three points behind the men’s team going into the final round (in which they will have the black pieces) requiring a 6½-3½ score to force a tie-break or a 7-3 score to win the match outright. Report and photos by John Saunders.

Tykhon Cherniaiev - Professional Streamer, Minecrafter, and Chess Prodigy

2/2/2022 – The 11-year-old Candidate Master from the Ukraine is streaming regularly on Twitch.tv and YouTube. But his passion for chess and streaming started even earlier. In our interview, Tykhon tells us how he learned to play chess, what Minecraft has to do with his English-speaking skills, and why he always seems to be in a good mood. Furthermore, we take a look at one of his favourite games, including nice, insightful analysis.

Game of the Week #501: Caruana vs Carlsen, Wijk aan Zee 2022

2/2/2022 – In his "Game of the Week" show #501 Merijn van Delft takes a look at the final rounds of the Tata Steel tournament in Wijk aan Zee, and focuses on Magnus Carlsen's fine and crucial win with Black against Fabiano Caruana. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Svitlana's Smart Moves - Finding pawn weaknesses

2/2/2022 – There are a couple of different pawn weaknesses in chess. Often, spotting those weaknesses is the most common technique, used by professional chess players, to gain an advantage. Svitlana helps us to identify the fragile pawns, and making the correct, smart moves, once we understand the situation on the board.

French Grandmaster Gilles Mirallès dies at the age of 55

2/2/2022 – Last Friday, 28 January, the French Grandmaster Gilles Mirallès passed away at the age of 55 in Ferney-Voltaire. Mirallès was French junior champion, two-time national champion and often played for France in team events. For a time he ran a chess school in Geneva. | Photo: Chess School Geneva

Battle of the Sexes: Men increase lead

2/2/2022 – Round eight of the #GibChess Battle of Sexes, held at Gibraltar’s Garrison Library on Tuesday 1 February, resulted in a 5½-4½ victory for Team Sabino with the White pieces, increasing their overall score to 42½-37½ – a lead of five points for the men’s team with two rounds to go. The battle is now well and truly joined, with various chances coming and going, but the men’s team lead is starting to look hard to overturn. Report and photos by John Saunders.

The Weekly Show: The ongoing Battle of the Sexes

2/2/2022 – In his "Weekly Show" Lawrence Trent, who is currently in Gibraltar to commentate the games of the "Battle of the Sexes" with Irina Bulmaga, looks at highlights from this entertaining event. | Lawrence’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here

FIDE ratings February 2022

2/2/2022 – FIDE has published the new world ranking list. Since hardly any tournaments were played in January and the Tata Steel tournament was not taken into account for the February list, there are virtually no changes at the top. Magnus Carlsen continues to be the world's number one with a huge margin, Alireza Firouzja is in second place and the only other player with a rating of +2800.

CBM 205: A Question of Strong Will and Cool Nerves

2/1/2022 – ChessBase Magazine offers a window to the world of professional chess and it also provides arsenal for the tournament player. Issue 205 offers games from several major events, FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament, USA and Russian Championships and European Team Championship, 2287 games (21 annotated), 11 opening surveys, lectures and exercises for training. Annotators include Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri and Nikita Vitiugov among others. The icing on the cake is the Robert Hübner Special, a tribute to a great player who crossed swords with the best of them all, from Bobby Fischer to Garry Kasparov. Our columnist Nagesh Havanur takes a look. | Photo: Magnus Carlsen vs Alireza Firouzja, Norway Chess 2021 | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Battle of the Sexes: Men forge ahead

2/1/2022 – Round seven of the #GibChess Battle of Sexes, held at Gibraltar’s Garrison Library on Monday 31 January, resulted in a 6-4 victory for Team Sabino with the black pieces, increasing their overall score to 37-33 – a lead of four points. But, once again, it could have been very different if Team Pia had taken all the chances offered in what was a particularly tense and hard-fought round. | Photo: Sir David Steel, Governor of Gibraltar, by John Saunders.

A theoretical draw, but...

2/1/2022 – In the diagrammed position it is Black to move and draw. In fact, as endgame books and tablebases know this position is a theoretical draw. However, it occurred at the end of a rapid game and with only seconds on the clock Black failed to find the right move. Can you do better?

Composed yet ruthless: Arjun Erigaisi

2/1/2022 – Last Saturday, Arjun Erigaisi won the Tata Steel Challengers tournament with a round to spare. Despite having secured tournament victory, the Indian collected one more win on Sunday, thus finishing the event with a remarkable 10½/13 score. We take a look at some of Arjun’s most successful performances, and reflect on the change of attitude that has worked so well for him. | Photo: Lennart Ootes – Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2022

A strong duo: An interview with Pia and Anna Cramling

1/31/2022 – Chess is an integral part of the lives of Pia Cramling and her daughter Anna. But mother and daughter are successful in very different ways. While Pia Cramling has been one of the world's best women player for decades, Anna Cramling Bellón has now become a successful chess streamer. But both pursue a common goal. As they explain in an interview with Tatiana Flores, they both want to promote chess and bring more women into the community.

Karsten Müller’s Endgame Magic Show #180 - with Mihail Marin: Endgame highlights of the Sitges Open 2021

1/31/2022 – The well-known author and Grandmaster Mihail Marin is Karsten Müller's guest in the Endgame Magic Show #180. Mihail talks about his forthcoming ChessBase products, and Karsten and he look at endgame highlights from the Sitges Open 2021. | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.