Fabrizio Bellia becomes first Italian to win the European Senior Championship

10/7/2021 – Four Senior European titles were awarded in Budoni, Sardinia. In the over-50 group, Fabrizio Bellia (photo) became the first Italian to win the title, while German GM Klaus Bischoff came second. The over-65 title went to Nathan Birnboim. Two-time GDR national champion Annett Wagner-Michel won the women’s title. | Photo: Scacchierando

Game of the Week 484: Giri vs Carlsen

10/6/2021 – This week, Merijn van Delft shows an instructive game in which Magnus Carlsen defeated Anish Giri with the black pieces after navigating a position with a curious material imbalance. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Final rounds of the Bundesliga to be played in Berlin

10/6/2021 – On October 14-17, the last seven rounds of the 2019/2020 Bundesliga season will finally be played. The second half of the interrupted season will take place at the Hotel “Maritim proArte” in Berlin. At the halfway point, the two favourites for the championship title, Baden-Baden and Hockenheim, are tied at the top of the standings table without any losses. | Pictured: Peter Heine Nielsen and Peter Svidler during the final event of the 2019 season. | Photo: Maria Emelianova

Biofeedback in Chess – Part 1

10/6/2021 – Did you know that playing competitive chess affects your heart rate and increase your blood pressure? That you can burn hundreds of calories just sitting at the chess board for a couple of hours? Ashwin Subramanian is a Software Engineering Manager in the Hi-Tech Industry. He is an avid chess player, and is studying the value of biofeedback in chess during his personal time.

Magnus Carlsen: world champion, comedian, party animal

10/6/2021 – How does Magnus Carlsen spend his time when he is not playing chess? He is quite active, in fact! For example, he is one of the contestants on a Norwegian reality show — in “Ikke lov å le på hytta”, the contestants try to make the other residents of the house laugh while not laughing themselves. And this is only one of his many side activities.

The Weekly Show: Carlsen on the attack

10/5/2021 – In his “Weekly Show” IM Lawrence Trent will look at yet another great attacking win by Magnus Carlsen from the Finals of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Lawrence also talks about the Women’s World Team Championships in Sitges. | Lawrence’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here

The third coming of Bobby Fischer?

10/5/2021 – The story captured headlines twenty years ago. Many people believe that Bobby Fischer has returned to chess and was performing miracles on the Internet. Nigel Short said he was "99 per cent sure" he has had played Fischer, author Tim Krabbé, who was initially sceptical, went on to see the light. In September 2001 we took a closer look at the evidence.

Champions Chess Tour Final: Radjabov and Aronian reach the podium

10/5/2021 – Magnus Carlsen, who won the Champions Chess Tour with plenty of time to spare, ended his short losing streak with a win over Wesley So. The Filipino-bornd grandmaster dropped to fourth place as Teimour Radjabov and Levon Aronian won their matches.

US Championships to kick off Wednesday

10/5/2021 – The Saint Louis Chess Club, headed by Rex Sinquefield, has done a lot for chess in the United States, and they continue to organize top tournaments. Beginning Wednesday, the club will host the national championships. With players such as Caruana, So, Dominguez, Shankland, Xiong, Krush and Yip, both tournaments are strongly contested, though Hikaru Nakamura is missing from the lineup. | Photo: Crystal Fuller

The power of passed pawns

10/5/2021 – Passed pawns can be very powerful in the endgame. In the diagram position Black is a pawn and a knight down but he has a strong passed pawn on d2 that can save the game. It is Black to move and draw. How?

Study chess with me - the video series

10/4/2021 – Chess improvement at any level requires chess instruction, study, and practice. Thanks to technology, chess instruction of the highest quality is readily available, even in the pages of this news page. However, no matter how many lectures you watch, they do not dispense with actual study, which is often a lonely affair. This is what this new video series hopes to change.

Champions Chess Tour, Round 9 - Results and standings

10/4/2021 – Teimour Radjabov and Levon Aronian won in the last round of the Champions Chess Tour Finals to secure second and third places behind tour champion Magnus Carlsen. Carlsen beat Wesley So, leaving the Filipino-born grandmaster in fourth place. | Results, games and standings. Full report to follow shortly.

Chess Federation of Russia wins the Women’s World Team Championship

10/4/2021 – At the Women’s World Team Championships in Sitges, Spain, the Russian team won the gold medal on Saturday by defeating India in the final match. The Russian players in the photo from left to right: Alina Kashlinskaya, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Polina Shuvalova, Kateryna Lagno and Alexandra Kosteniuk. | Photos: Niki Riga

Karsten Mueller’s Endgame Magic #163: Highlights of the Hou Yifan Challenge

10/4/2021 – From 18 to 21 September, 17 of the world's best juniors played a round robin rapid online tournament, the Hou Yifan Challenge, which is part of the Julius Baer Challengers Tour. In the "Endgame Magic Show #163" Arne Kaehler and Karsten Mueller look at endgame highlights from this tournament that was won by Vincent Keymer, who finished two points ahead of Christopher Yoo and Praggnanandhaa.| Endgame Magic is on air most Mondays. Watch it on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

Jon Speelman: The joys of Codgerdom

10/3/2021 – Yesterday, 2 October 2021, Jon Speelman turned 65. Congratulations! The English Grandmaster and former World Championship Candidate, who in January 1989 was the world’s number four, used this occasion to look back on his career and to select some of the most interesting games he played as an up-and-coming player. | Photo: David Llada

Understanding before Moving 47: The target on h6

10/3/2021 – 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 47th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman shows how to use "the target on h6". | Photo: Tommy Grooten

Magnus Carlsen wins the "Meltwater Champions Chess Tour"

10/3/2021 – After the 7th round of the final tournament of the "Meltwater Champions Chess Tour" played on Saturday, Magnus Carlsen is now the "Tour Winner". Although neither the World Champion nor his direct rival Wesley So scored, So cannot catch up to Carlsen's seven-point lead with only two remaining rounds. Carlsen lost to Teimour Radjabov 1:3, while So lost to Levon Aronian 0.5:2.5 after just three games. Radjabov is now only half a point behind So and could challenge him for second place - the prize money difference between second and third place is USD 20,000. | Graphic: Play Magnus Group

World Women's Team Championship, Final: Live

10/2/2021 – The CFR team and the Indian team play in the final of the World Women's Team Championship in Sitges, Spain. In the semifinals CFR won against Ukraine and India narrowly defeated Georgia. The final match also consists of two rounds (starting at 14:00 and 17:00 CEST), followed by a blitz play-off (19:30 CEST) in case of a tie. Follow the games live.

Champions Chess Tour Final: Carlsen at the finish line

10/2/2021 – In the 6th round of the "Meltwater Champions Chess Tour" played on Friday Wesley So has suffered a significant setback, which may prove to be decisive: In his 1:3 against Teimour Radjabov, Wesley So, 2nd in the standings, failed to score, while Carlsen, still occupying the top spot, extended his lead by two more points in the overall ranking thanks to his victory (in a tiebreak) against Anish Giri. The world champion's lead over So is now 7 points - almost insurmountable given that there is only a maximum of 9 points still to be earned. The tournament organizers might therefore soon proclaim Magnus Carlsen as the "world's top online chess player" as the potential winner of the tournament. | Fotos: Play Magnus Group

On the dark squares

10/2/2021 – Opposite-coloured bishops favour the attacker - this well-known chess wisdom was impressively proven in the diagram position. How did White start the action?

Our very last news review

10/1/2021 – Yes, it is true. But not to worry, the news review crew will be back next week with an "upgrade" of this format. Lawrence and Arne will pick a chess related theme to talk about thoroughly. In the last news review episode, Lawrence takes a look at three major tournaments: TePe Sigeman, Sharjah Masters, and the Meltwater finals, the progressing of the "elo" ranking, and the Steinitz/Lasker resting places.

FIDE Ratings: October 2021

10/1/2021 – The FIDE world ranking lists in October 2021 are headed by the "usual suspects". With a rating of 2855 Magnus Carlsen is still the clear number one, but though he played 13 rated games in September he did not win or lose any points. Alireza Firouzja is still the best junior, but for the first time he is now also among the world's top ten. Hou Yifan continues to lead the women's ranking list and Polina Shuvalova remains the highest rated player on the "Girls" list.

New: CBM Extra #203

10/1/2021 – The new ChessBase Magazine Extra #203 is out - with two instructive and interesting videos: Jan Werle examines what Carlsen's 4.c4 in the Caro-Kann Advance Variation is all about and Robert Ris presents a highly topical weapon against the Sicilian Taimanov. Total playing time of the two videos: over an hour. The issue also offers lots of opening recommendations and analyses by Romain Edouard, Michal Krasenkow, Sagar Shah, Spyridon Kapnisis and Tanmay Srinath. ChessBase Magazine Extra is the perfect complement to ChessBase Magazine and is available as a single issue or by subscription (6 issues per year). Available on DVD or as download. Don't miss it.

A look at the Elo ratings in the year 2021

10/1/2021 – Ratings are full of mysteries and by no means coherent. Sometimes, you suspect an inflation of ratings, sometimes a deflation. In some countries ratings are distorted by too many young players - or not enough adult players. And how did the lack of tournaments in the Covid era affect the Elo ratings? Walter Wolf has gathered a lot of statistics and tries to draw conclusions.