Irina Bulmaga looks back on the "Battle of the Sexes" match in Gibraltar

2/15/2022 – The "Battle of the Sexes" was a ten-round Scheveningen match between ten male and ten female players that was played from 24 January to 3rd February in Gibraltar. The men won 53-47, and looking back on the match, Irina Bulmaga (pictured), who commentated the games live in Gibraltar, wonders if and why the men were better at team-building and what this match says about women's chess. | Photo: David Llada

Double knockout in Saint Louis

2/15/2022 – For the first time, the Saint Louis Chess Club will host The American Cup, highlighting an exciting and unique double elimination format. This new format and tournament will bring world class chess masters to America's chess capital to compete in a fierce do-or-die struggle for $300,000 total in prize money. With a double elimination format, fans can expect The American Cup to have a combination of exciting chess play, stunning upsets, and epic comebacks. Press release.

Russian Chess Federation honours Yury Averbakh

2/15/2022 – On 8 February Yury Averbakh celebrated his 100th birthday. GM Sergey Yanovsky visited the jubilarian and presented him with the Golden Plaque of the Russian Chess Federation. An exhibition was opened in his honour at the Central Chess Club. Averbakh received countless congratulations and was greeted per video by FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich and Garry Kasparov. | Photos: Sergey Yanovsky and Vladimir Barsky (Russian Chess Federation)

Black's knight's knightmare

2/15/2022 – Knights can fork kings, queen and rooks, but in endgames they are often surprisingly helpless against rooks. In the diagrammed position Black's passed pawn on the h-file looks dangerous but the white rooks have everything under control. What did White play to win the game?

Garry Kasparov talks about his life

2/15/2022 – The English newspaper "The Guardian" recently published an interview with Garry Kasparov in which the 13th World Champion openly talks about his chess career, his political activities, his loss against Deep Blue, and how it feels to be thrown into jail. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Center

Endgame Riddle Fischer vs Spassky, Game 10: Spassky could have drawn!

2/14/2022 – In 1972, the World Championship match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in Reykjavik made headlines all over the world, and during and after the match the games were analysed in detail. One of the highlights of the match was game 10, in which Fischer won a difficult endgame after getting the advantage in a complicated middlegame. 50 years after the match Karsten Müller invited the ChessBase readers to take another look at this classic. Here is what the readers found. | Photo: Skáksamband Íslands – Icelandic Chess Federation

Karsten Müller’s Endgame Magic Show #182 - with more endgame highlights from Wijk 2022

2/14/2022 – In the Endgame Magic Show #182 Karsten Müller continues to present endgame highlights from the Tata Steel Tournament 2022 in Wijk aan Zee. Among these highlights is a fascinating and instructive rook ending that allows you to test your rook endgame skills. | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

India to host three GM Open tournaments at Guwahati, Delhi and Gujarat in March 2022

2/14/2022 – Over-the-board chess tournament is resuming in India, starting with National Senior Open and Women 2022 later this month. There will be three consecutive GM Open tournaments at Guwahati, Delhi and Ahmedabad. It starts from 13th March. You can make plans for the three strong events which has a very good prize fund too. Check out the excellent conditions which are being offered for foreign GMs, IMs, WGMs and WIMs at three GM Open events. Photo: Various tournament circulars

Chess returns to Vienna’s Café Museum

2/14/2022 – Café Museum was the meeting place for Viennese chess players in the eighties. Photographer Erich Reismann was a regular guest. Now his reportage from that time is on display at the café, where after a long time chess players are welcome again. Stefan Löffler tells us more. | Photos: Erich Reismann (unless stated otherwise)

Airthings Masters starts on 19 February

2/14/2022 – The Meltwater Champions Chess Tour will continue as a regular online event in the coming years. The Play Magnus Group has signed a five-year contract with the Norwegian broadcaster TV-2, which believes in the Tour and broadcasts the tournaments live on television. All in all, viewers followed the first season in 2020/21 for more than 30 million hours. The Airthings Masters, the first tournament of the new season, starts on 19 February with an exciting and young field of players.

Berlin GP: Nakamura and Aronian are the well-deserved finalists

2/13/2022 – The two players who have shown the strongest and most stable performances throughout the event reached the final of the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. Levon Aronian and Hikaru Nakamura drew with black on Sunday to knock out Leinier Dominguez and Richard Rapport, respectively. Since there was no need for tiebreaks in either match, the finalists will have a rest day on Monday. | Photos: World Chess

Understanding before Moving 66: Prophylaxis (2)

2/13/2022 – 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 66th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to talk about the concept of "prophylaxis". | Photo: Tommy Grooten

Player Types - The Pragmatic

2/13/2022 – The Grandmasters Dr. Karsten Mueller and Luis Engel have set a ball rolling in Germany with their latest Fritztrainer. GM Lars Bo Hansen designed the four-player model in 2005, and was perhaps ahead of his time. In the 5-part interview with Dr. Karsten Mueller, all four player types are discussed in detail. Today - The Pragmatic.

Berlin GP: Aronian and Nakamura score

2/13/2022 – Levon Aronian and Hikaru Nakamura won their first semifinal games at the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. Both players won with the white pieces and only need a draw on Sunday to reach the final of the GP series’ first leg. They are facing two players who already came from behind, though, as both Leinier Dominguez and Richard Rapport reached the semis after getting wins on demand in the group stage’s final round. | Photos: World Chess

Strong resource in the London System

2/12/2022 – The "Lucky bag" of ChessBase Magazine Extra has never been so extensively and diversely filled as in Extra #205! The new issue offers no less than 73 annotated games, including two tricky training exercises by GM Sasikiran. GM Kapnisis presents various opening ideas ("Scotch advance", "Benoni strikes", "Petroff rook shifts", "English castling"), plus analyses by Edouard, Krasenkow, Sumets and many more. However, Imre Hera's analysis of his game against his compatriot Zoltan Almasi from the Hungarian League - "The brilliancy" of this issue - is right at the top of the "Lucky bag". For his success against the higher-rated opponent, Hera employed a surprise in the popular London System: after 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.Bf4 b6 4.e3 Be7 5.h3 c5 he went for the unusual 6.Nc3, which immediately posed problems for the nine-time Hungarian Champion. Take a look!
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One false move!

2/12/2022 – While you are looking at this rich diagram position - would you be so kind to show why 22...Kxc8?? loses the game for Black?

Berlin GP: Dominguez and Rapport win tiebreakers, reach semis

2/11/2022 – The two players who won their round-6 games to force tiebreaks in their respective groups managed to also win their 2-game rapid matches on Friday to reach the semifinals of the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. Leinier Dominguez knocked out Wesley So and will face an in-form Levon Aronian, while Rapport eliminated Radoslaw Wojtaszek and thus gained the right to face Hikaru Nakamura in semis. | Photos: World Chess

Daniel King’s Power Play Show: The Archbishop and the Octopus Knight

2/11/2022 – In his Power Play Show, GM Daniel King looks at two of his favourite themes - the Octopus Knight and the Starfish Bishop - which occurred in games from the Berlin Grand Prix. Daniel will feature these masterful strategic performances from Levon Aronian and Daniil Dubov. | 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.

Svitlana's Smart Moves - Ivanchuk and Shirov demonstrate creativity in chess

2/11/2022 – If you think of a massively creative chess player, who comes to mind? Tal? Larsen? Creativity in chess is fairly important, to find "impossible" moves in a chess game. Moves, which would never cross your mind. But regularly, these are the moves which can decide a game in a beautiful way. Svitlana was taught creativity in chess by one of her coaches, and passes her knowledge on to us.

Hybrid Match: ECU Board vs Berlin Chess Association

2/11/2022 – As part of the Berlin Grand Prix, members of the Berlin Chess Association played a friendly "hybrid" four-board match against members of the ECU Board. The ECU team played from Thessaloniki, the Berlin team from Berlin, and after an exciting battle the match of the officials ended with a 2-2 tie.

Berlin GP: Nakamura in semis after wild sixth round

2/11/2022 – Frequent evaluation swings in tense-filled encounters made for an exciting sixth round at the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. In the end, the one player who secured a spot in the semifinals on Thursday was Hikaru Nakamura. Naka and Levon Aronian, who qualified after round 5, will face the winners of Friday’s playoffs. In the rapid and blitz tiebreakers, Richard Rapport will face Radoslaw Wojtaszek, and Wesley So will play Leinier Dominguez. | Photos: World Chess

Robert Ris’ Fast and Furious: An exciting gambit

2/10/2022 – This week Robert Ris shows why the almost forgotten Schara von Hennig Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.cxd5 cxd4) has become popular again and attracts players like Grischuk and Jorden van Foreest. Ris also shows a clear game-plan for Black that will help you to try this exciting gambit with success! | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Boris Gulko turns 75!

2/10/2022 – In the 1970s Boris Gulko was one of the best players in the USSR and the world, and he is one of the few players who has a positive score against Kasparov. In 1976, after Kortschnoi had fled the USSR, Gulko refused to sign a critical statement against Kortschnoi, and as a result Gulko was targeted by the authorities. For seven years, Gulko fought to emigrate from the Soviet Union, and in 1986 he moved to the USA, where he continued his chess career. On 9 February 2022 Gulko celebrated his 75th birthday. | Photo: Les Glassman

Berlin GP: Aronian qualifies with a round to spare

2/10/2022 – Levon Aronian became the first player to secure a spot in the semifinals of the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. The US grandmaster qualified to the knockout stage with one round to spare after getting an unsurmountable 1½-point lead in pool C. Suspense remains in the other three pools, though, with seven players going into Thursday’s sixth round still with chances of getting one of the three remaining spots. | Photos: World Chess