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.

9/30/2021 – This week, well-known Dutch trainer Robert Ris looks at the move 3.h4 against the King's Indian and Grünfeld - a bold and aggressive push that recently has become popular and that Black seems to find surprisingly hard to counter. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

9/30/2021 – Magnus Carlsen again increased his lead in the Champions Chess Tour final. In his round five match against Hikaru Nakamura Carlsen demonstrated impressive endgame technique by winning two instructive rook endings which brought him a 2.5-0.5 victory. Wesley So, who can still hope to catch Carlsen, was on the brink of defeat against Anish Giri, when the Dutch number 1 blundered the crucial game away. | Graphics: Champions Chess Tour

9/30/2021 – Jorden Van Foreest had won the TePe Sigeman&Co tournament with one round to spare, but in the last round he suffered his only defeat against Gawain Jones. Vincent Keymer, too, was ambitious in the final round, and defeated Nils Grandelius to share second to fourth place with Gawain Jones and Nigel Short. | Photos: Lars OA Hedlund

9/29/2021 – This week, Merijn van Delft shows how Jorden Van Foreest beat Etienne Bacrot with a fine endgame attack at the TePe Sigeman&Co Tournament in Malmö, which Van Foreest won convincingly. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

9/29/2021 – This episode is about the very interesting subject of how to "swindle" your way out of lost positions. Probably, you have managed to turn a game around once, or twice already? And likely, an opponent has done the same? Even a top player is not safe, as Svitlana can demonstrate in one of her played games against a Grandmaster.

9/26/2021 – When mentioning the name Mega Database, many players automatically think of either the millions of games contained in it, or the equally impressive number of annotated games – well over 80 thousand. However, the price tag also includes a full year of weekly updates, which can then be renewed every year. Learn all here.

9/25/2021 – In the diagram position Black has enough material for the queen, so the key to victory for White must be the attack on the king. Which is protected by a lot of pieces - but how can White break through Black's defence?

9/25/2021 – In football, the German word "Schwalbe" (the swallow bird, and the football term for "diving") is an attempt by a player to feign a foul by deliberately dropping himself in a tackle with an opposing player to gain an unfair advantage. The Schwalbe in chess, doesn't mean that players fake a fall to the ground, and knock off the chess pieces to work out a mate in four. Columnist Siegfried Hornecker shows us the way on how to solve chess problems with the thematic idea of the Schwalbe, and takes us on a journey about the history of the German chess problem society. | Photo: www.dieschwalbe.de

9/24/2021 – Lawrence Trent has taken a well-deserved holiday, but doesn't want to forget the good times and travels to the Bahamas in the News Review. Jokes aside, he takes a closer look at the lawsuit of Nona Gaprindashvili and the Netflix show "Queens Gambit". Furthermore, the British IM wants to watch the new film about Karpov and Korchnoi, not only because he played against Korchnoi in the past.

9/24/2021 – In this week’s show, GM Daniel King, following Magnus Carlsen's brilliant win in a bishop endgame, looks at more of the same. Even at one of his own games... | 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.

9/24/2021 – With one round to go, the team of Mednyi Vsadnik managed to take the sole lead at the European Club Cup in Struga, North Macedonia. The Russian club is one team point ahead of AVE Bovy Nor (Czechia), and has good chances to win the event. In the last round they play against Team XtraCon from Denmark. In the women's event South Ural (Russia) leads with two team points and the much better tiebreak and is almost certain to become first. | The seventh and final round start starts at 15.00 CEST (9.00 ET, 18.30 IST).