12/4/2021 – Despite the most difficult task to date, a large number of clever players were able to find the solution, C. Kc4. Karsten Müller explains in the video exactly why only Kc4 wins and no other move. By the way - thanks for the lively participation. We have received more responses to our calendar than last year at the same time! That's wonderful! Today's example is about holding a draw, although it's with only one pawn against three pawns.

12/4/2021 – Magnus Carlsen is leading the World Championship match against Ian Nepomniachtchi after scoring a memorable win. In our fourth and final instalment of Carlsen’s previous matches, we look at his 2018 confrontation against Fabiano Caruana. For the first time in a match for the crown, all the classical games finished drawn. The defending champion won the rapid tiebreaks categorically though, and thus kept his title. | Photo: Niki Riga

12/4/2021 – In the diagram position, White has a strong passed pawn on c7 that should help him to win the game. But first White has to take care that Black's rook on b1 does not run havoc. How would you continue with White?

12/3/2021 – In what will surely be remembered as a highlight of World Chess Championship history, Magnus Carlsen defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi in a 136-move marathon which included missed chances, deep time trouble and a number of subtle manoeuvres worthy of a combat for the highest prize in the world of competitive chess. Find here the fantastic encounter annotated by super-GM and elite analyst Anish Giri. | Photo: Eric Rosen

12/3/2021 – In this week’s show, GM Daniel King looks at games from Viktor Kupreichik (3 July 1949 – 22 May 2017), a brillant and imaginative attacking player who was never afraid to sacrifice. | 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.

12/3/2021 – The new Corr Database 2022 is the large ChessBase collection of correspondence games from the period from 1804 to 2021. With more than 80,000 tournaments and over 2 million correspondence games, the Corr 2022 is a must for all correspondence chess fans. But the Corr Database is very popular even among many grandmasters and trainers, since correspondence games often herald the development of opening theory!

12/3/2021 – Sometimes you discover a familiar tactic, proceed with the correct move order, and cannot find the winning path. Clear tactical patterns don't always win by default, as Lawrence demonstrates in just two hefty examples. Additionally, we try to break through to a 2300 rating. But the theme thread continues, and what should be a manageable task, turns out to get far more brutal than expected. This XL episode has tons of nice tactics for you to look at, and solve.

12/3/2021 – Videos: Scandinavian expert Christian Bauer presents clever move orders in the system with 3...Qa5. And Mihail Marin analyses the Deac-L. van Foreest from the European Team Championship and shows that there's always room for new ideas in the Catalan! Peter Heine Nielsen, Carlsen's second, annotates "The brilliancy" Carlsen-Duda from the final of the Meltwater Tour. Moreover, 25 games with detailed annotations await you in the "Lucky bag", including analyses by Anish Giri, Romain Edouard, Michal Krasenkow et al. ChessBase Magazine Extra is the perfect complement to ChessBase Magazine. Available as a single issue or by subscription (6 issues per year). Available on DVD or as a download.

12/3/2021 – How to checkmate a king with a knight and bishop was clear to most! There were also many answers that knew the "W" motif of the knight. You surely know your endgames! Solution B. Lh7 was correct. Should Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi think a little longer about their moves today, it is worthwhile to take a closer look at the somewhat more demanding third door. Quite a difficult task for a change!

12/3/2021 – Game number 6 of the World Championship in Dubai, left Carlsen with two rooks against Nepomniachtchi's Queen. Such material imbalances occur frequently. But do you know how much better two rooks are against a queen? What about a rook against two minor pieces in the middle game? Or even three minor pieces vs. a queen? The Canadian WIM shows us plenty of examples by master players like Fischer, Kasparov, Polgar, Capablanca, Alekhine, and more, on what to look out for in her first Fritztrainer.

12/3/2021 – As part of the Expo2020 in Dubai, the Spanish Pavilion organised a large tournament with schools from all over the world. The best teams of the online preliminaries were invited to Dubai. Favourite to win was the team Velammel Nexus from India that started with three grandmasters. The Indians won indeed but in the final had some trouble against surprisingly strong students from Peru. | Photos: Patricia Claros

12/3/2021 – World Champion Magnus Carlsen is currently playing in Dubai to defend his title, but in this episode of "Svitlana's Smart Moves" we will talk about another World Champion: Garry Kasparov, Svitlana's favourite player. With two fine games by Kasparov - against Anand and against Bareev - Svitlana shows us why good old gambits are still a powerful weapon in modern chess, and why activity is often more important than material.