Tata Steel R4: Wins for Pragg and Shakh

1/19/2022 – Vidit Gujrathi kept the sole lead at the Tata Steel Masters going into the first rest day of the event, as round 4 saw 2 out of 7 games ending decisively. Praggnanandhaa inflicted Nils Grandelius’ third defeat to bounce back to a 50% score, while Shakhriyar Mamedyarov got the better of Jan-Krzysztof Duda with the white pieces. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

The Weekly Show: Highlights from Wijk aan Zee

1/19/2022 – In his "Weekly Show" Lawrence Trent shares his thoughts and some highlights from the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee. Lawrence analysed the lovely game Carlsen vs Giri, where the World Champ unveiled some serious hidden prep in a Catalan. | Lawrence’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here

DGT Centaur – the latest sensor board

1/19/2022 – Remember what "Sensory board chess computers" were like, four decades ago? Bulky, heavy, with complicated installation, and very expensive to buy. Today you get elegant, flat boards, which run on rechargeable batteries. And they are immediately ready to play. The one we are looking at today even adjusts its playing strength to match yours. It is a pleasure to operate.

Livestream event: The fascinating world of AI

1/18/2022 – During the Tata Steel Chess Tournament, the worlds of Artificial Intelligence and Chess will come together at a unique event called ‘The Game Changer’. The event will take place online on Friday 21 January, starting at 15.30 CET. How is AI used in chess? Could Magnus Carlsen also have become world champion without the use of AI? And more importantly, how can the world of manufacturing adopt lessons learned in the world of chess?

Tata Steel R3: Vidit grabs the lead

1/18/2022 – After beating Daniil Dubov in a sharp struggle, Vidit Gujrathi grabed the sole lead at the Tata Steel Masters tournament. Going into round 4, no fewer than five players stand a half point behind the leader, though, with Jorden van Foreest, Richard Rapport and Andrey Esipenko joining the chasing pack thanks to victories in Monday’s third round. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Achilles' heel

1/18/2022 – The duel knight against bishop is often full of fascinating possibilities. On first glance, the diagram position does not look particularly dangerous for White. But White's position is vulnerable, and with a cunning maneuver Black is able to exploit the hidden weaknesses in White's position. What would you do with Black?

Karsten Müller’s Endgame Magic Show #178: Rook vs bishop

1/17/2022 – Beginners often learn that a rook is roughly two pawn units better than a bishop. But that does not mean that it is always easy to convert an endgame rook vs bishop into a win. In the Endgame Magic Show #178 Karsten Müller and Arne Kähler present a classic example of rook vs bishop to illustrate some principles of this important and instructive endgame. | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

Tata Steel Chess: Interviews

1/17/2022 – Spectators are not allowed at the Tata Steel tournament in Wijk, and the Open cannot take place because of the Corona pandemic. But the Masters and Challengers tournaments are played and the first two rounds offered exciting chess. Video interviews allow spectators from all over the world to get insights into the thoughts of the players.

Tata Steel R2: Carlsen beats Giri

1/17/2022 – World champion Magnus Carlsen joined a three-player leading pack on Sunday by beating Anish Giri with the white pieces. In the only other decisive game of the day in the Masters, Richard Rapport bounced back from his first-round defeat as he took down Jorden van Foreest. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Bring your own bottle and fork

1/16/2022 – Years ago the great Mikhail Tal pithily expounded a critical aspect of all out attacking chess, noting that it is only possible to capture one piece at a time. In full battle cry, Tal’s instinct was not to retreat attacked pieces, especially minor pieces — but to pour more oil on the fire by putting further units en prise! Jonathan Speelman explores this theme using games by Tal and Fischer, as well as more recent examples. | Pictured: Fischer and Tal in Zurich, 1959 / Photo via skaksogufelagid.is

Understanding before Moving 62: Light-square strategy (2)

1/16/2022 – 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 62nd instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to look at examples of light-square strategy. | Photo: Tommy Grooten

Tata Steel R1: Three winners on opening day

1/16/2022 – Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Vidit Gujrathi and defending champion Jorden van Foreest (pictured, right) all won with white on Saturday to take the early lead at the Tata Steel Masters tournament. It was an action-packed day, especially during time trouble, with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Fabiano Caruana failing to find winning continuations while hurried by the clock. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

St Louis University wins the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Championship

1/15/2022 – The Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Championship is a university championship in which, as the name suggests, teams from both the Americas and the Caribbean are allowed to participate — but in fact most of the participating teams come from the United States. This year’s tournament was won by the Saint Louis University, which was the only team to emerge victorious from all six matches they played. | Photo: Bill Simmons

Watch your king!

1/15/2022 – In the diagram position Black has just played 32...Qf5, threatening to harass the white king with ...Qb1+. But White has a way to combine attack and defence which leads to victory. Your call!

Throwback Thursday: Snowdrops beat Oldhands in 2013 match

1/14/2022 – At the end of 2013, a match facing chess legends from the 20th century against young female talented players was organized in Podebrady, the Czech Republic. A 20-year-old Alina Kashlinskaya was the top scorer in the winning team of the Snowdrops, while Boris Gulko and Iossif Dorfman were the strongest for the Oldhands.

Understanding Big DataBase 2022: Playing against e4

1/14/2022 – Among ChessBase products the Big DataBase stands in its own right. Unlike the MegaBase it has no annotations. This paves the way for independent study and preparation, and helps the player to hone skills on his own. The present edition offers 9.2 million games from 1475 to 2021. In this vast collection there are games from world championships, famous tournaments, past and present, not to mention little-known events that deserve greater recognition. There are magnificent battles, brilliancies and unknown gems all waiting to be discovered. Our columnist here introduces a few rare lines in e4-openings.

Trent's Tactics - Lawrence and Arne get crushed!

1/14/2022 – "I am getting so much better at tactics!" Arne mentions right at the beginning of the show. Little did he know, that this episode might be the low point of his chess career. The puzzles are merciless, and every move seems to miss the point. The goal was to reach 2400 in the tactic's section today, but apparently some technical difficulties, and more bad ideas lead to an actual loss of rating points! Have fun watching Lawrence and Arne getting crushed.

How the AI Revolution Impacted Chess (2/2)

1/14/2022 – In the second part of the series, Joshua Doknjas examines opening system influenced by the neural network engines and discusses the modern battle between two well-prepared players. | Graphic: Europe Echecs

Daniel King’s Power Play Show: Beautiful games in the Kalashnikov

1/14/2022 – In his second Power Play Show of the year, Daniel King looks at sharp, beautiful games in the Sicilian Kalashnikov. And a critical position in one of these games reminds him of a famous combination played by the legendary David Bronstein! | 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.

ChessBase Magazine #205: Special on Robert Huebner

1/14/2022 – Robert Huebner is considered Germany’s most successful player since Emanuel Lasker. From 1971 to 1988 he constantly belonged to the world’s top 20, achieving his all-time high in 1981 when he was number 3 on the Elo list. Huebner participated in four World Championship candidates cycles and in 1980 advanced to the final where he faced Viktor Kortschnoj. In ChessBase Magazine #205 our authors comment on their personal favourite Huebner game - resulting in an exclusive collection of 16 games from 1970 to 2017. In addition, Karsten Mueller presents a selection from Huebner's best endgames. And Mihail Marin in his strategy check comes to a surprising result for himself! Here we show you an excerpt from Marin's video as well as Karsten Müller's analysis of his favourite game: Huebner-Kasparov (Dortmund 1992). We hope you enjoy it!
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Karsten Müller's Endgame Dictionary: The "Knight Check Shadow"

1/14/2022 – There are so many endgame terms that Karsten Müller decided to gather them in a slowly growing "Endgame Dictionary", in which he explains these terms with short videos and practical examples. This time, Karsten explains what a "Knight Check Shadow" is. Admittedly, at first glance this is an unusual and somewhat unwieldy term, but it helps to explain and to remember an important endgame motif.

A brand new tiebreak format in Wijk aan Zee

1/13/2022 – The first super-tournament of the year is about to kick off, and the organizers have just announced that they will be using a new tiebreak system. After last year’s edition finished with an unpleasant controversy, the organizers of the Tata Steel Masters have decided to avoid chaotic time scrambles to break a potential tie for first place. | Photo: Official website

Blockchain, Looted Art, Civil Rights, Kortchnoi

1/13/2022 – The auction of the World Champion NFTs, in which ChessBase acted as a kind of digital art gallery, has been completed. The 14 works raised 7.2 Ether, which is currently around €21,000. Thank you and congratulations to all successful bidders! The creative process behind the development of the NFTs was inspiring, the technical background fascinating, the discussion with critical readers refreshing. Now the series has been released into the world, and it will be exciting to see what happens with it in the years to come. Finally, the raffle of the Viktor Korchnoi NFT, which was not included in the auction, has found a winner.

Robert Ris’ Fast and Furious: 15-year old Eline Roeber wins Untergrombach Open

1/13/2022 – Last week, 15-year old Eline Roeber from the Netherlands surprisingly won the Untergrombach Open in Germany. Eline is a student of Robert Ris, and in his "Fast & Furious" show the experienced trainer takes a look at the crucial game of the tournament in Untergrombach: Eline's turbulent win against Russian Grandmaster Vyacheslav Ikonnikov. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.