5/23/2020 – After 19 of 22 rounds Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine lead at the New York Tournament 1924. All three won in round 19: Emanuel Lasker won with Black against Edward Lasker, Capablanca refuted Tartakowers dubious King's Gambit and Alekhine defeated Dawid Janowsky. Lasker now leads with 13.0/17, followed by Capablanca with 12.0/17 and Alekhine with 11.0/18. | Photo: Capablanca (left) and Emanuel Lasker (Archive)

5/23/2020 – In this Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King takes a look at some games of the legendary Dutch Grandmaster and writer Jan Hein Donner (1927-1988). | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UK (18:00 CEST, 11:00 EST) on playchess.com. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer.

5/22/2020 – In this new series, we ask professional chess players to share the most memorable game from their careers. Anybody who has ever participated in a competitive event knows that the emotional value attached to each contest is vastly more relevant than the pure sportive achievement. In the first instalment, Sam Shankland shares his first-ever victory over a grandmaster, ten years before winning the US Championship. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

5/22/2020 – In round 18 of the New York Tournament 1924 World Champion José Raúl Capablanca once again showed why he is so hard to beat. After a bad opening he still managed to win against Edward Lasker with strong positional play. Frank Marshall defeated Efim Bogoljubow with a fantastic attack, sacrificing a number of pieces on his way to victory. | Photo: José Raúl Capablanca (Archive)

5/22/2020 – There are a few rules of thumb about opposite-coloured bishops, e.g. "in the middlegame, they favour the attacker" or "endgames with opposite-coloured bishops are difficult to win". But there are also guidelines how to attack in a middlegame with opposite-coloured bishops. In ChessBase Magazine #195 Mihail Marin shows how strong players handle opposite-coloured bishops in complex positions. Have a look!

5/22/2020 – After the successful online event on Playchess in April the Buddhibal Kreeda Trust (BKT) is back with another tournament. The tournament has a prize fund of ₹35000 and is a Fischer Random (Chess960) tournament. The first prize is ₹11000. With rating category prizes and prizes for women, it's a tournament you cannot afford to miss. It will take place on Saturday 23rd of May at 8 p.m. Indian Standard Time (16:30 CEST, 14:30 UTC, 09:30 EST) in Chess960 Tournaments in the "Thematic Chess" room on Playchess.com. Entry is FREE for GMs, IMs, WGMs and WIMs. For everyone else the entry fee is ₹300. Registration is on.

5/21/2020 – Four players dropped out of the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge after the preliminary single round robin finished on Thursday. Alexander Grischuk was eliminated on tiebreaks despite getting a last-round win over Wei Yi. Wei, Alireza Firouzja and Jan-Krzysztof Duda are also out of contention. The round robin was won by Hikaru Nakamura, who collected 7½ points in 11 games. The quarter-finals kick off on Saturday. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Vladimir Jagr

5/21/2020 – In the diagram position White's bishop a2 fires against the knight e6. The intermediate exchange 31...Rxd1 32.Rxd1 is still okay for Black, however, offering a second rook trade with 32...Rd8?? leads to disaster. Can you see why?

5/21/2020 – The biggest two problems that every beginner faces in a game of chess are - starting out right and not blundering pieces! Openings and Tactics are truly the two most essential cornerstones of becoming better at chess. And there is no one better than WGM Qiyu Zhou to be your trainer! Qiyu is not just a WGM and a former World Under-14 champion, she is also doing her double major in Economics and Statistics, with a minor in Mathematics from the University of Toronto. Zhou is an intelligent and charming presenter and if you are a beginner then these two DVDs are just what you need to improve at chess!

5/21/2020 – Let us remind you: In 1958 the 15-year-old US champion Bobby Fischer had refused to play in the Munich Olympiad, because his demand for board one ahead of Samuel Reshevsky was rejected. After that Fischer represented the United States on first board at four Men's Chess Olympiads. In Varna, Bulgaria, he outplayed world champion Mikhail Botvinnik, and in a winning position blundered it to a draw. He left the hall with tears in his eyes. Can you help GM Karsten Müller to find the win that Fischer missed?

5/21/2020 – On Monday we gave you a very interesting, highly complex position to analyse: was the tempting queen sacrifice, that immediately strikes our eye, justified? Does it win, or simply hold a draw (which is otherwise available), or is it in fact a losing mistake. In crowd analysis no final conclusion was reached, so we turn to the author Sagar Shah for his assessment: a complex position that is objectively winning for White. Watch his comprehensive analysis of all aspects of the Nihal Challenge. You might learn a thing or two.

5/21/2020 – The field at the tournament in New York 1924 consists of eleven players, and in each round one player has a bye. This distorts the table but after 17 of 22 rounds, the situation at the top has cleared up. In round 17 Capablanca had the bye while Emanuel Lasker won with Black against Yates, and with 11½/17 Lasker is now sole first and 1½ points ahead of Capablanca, who is second with 10.0/17. Alekhine follows in third place with 9½/16. | Photo: Lower Manhattan

5/21/2020 – No one scored more than 2½ points on day two of the Lindores Abbey Chess Challenge, as Hikaru Nakamura and Sergey Karjakin remain as co-leaders after round eight. Magnus Carlsen had a subpar performance, losing to Yu Yangyi and Jan-Krzysztof Duda, and is now sharing third place with Wesley So. In the fight to get a pass to the quarter-finals, Alireza Firouzja and Wei Yi will need to step up their game in the last three rounds of the preliminaries in order to stay in the tournament. | Photos: Georgios Souleidis / Amruta Mokal

5/20/2020 – In this show Merijn van Delft takes a look at the game between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura played at the Lindores Abbey Chess Challenge tournament. | Merijn's show is available at 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

5/20/2020 – Former World Champion Dr. Emanuel Lasker is back in shape. In round 14 of the tournament in New York he suffered a bitter defeat against Capablanca, in round 15 he had a bye, but now, in round 16, he convincingly won against Reti and his hypermodern opening 1.Nf3. After this victory Dr. Lasker has 10½/14 and is again sole first. In the other games of the round a lot of chances were missed.

5/20/2020 – The endgame of the fourth game of the famous Fischer-Taimanov candidates match Vancouver 1971 left an intriguing puzzle. Was the adjourned position already lost or was Taimanov's 42th move, played after the adjournment session, a decisive mistake? We asked our readers to help settle the historical debate. And they helped our endgame expert GM Karsten Müller to settle the question.

5/20/2020 – The four first rounds of the Lindores Abbey Chess Challenge were played on Tuesday, and four players are sharing the lead on 3 points. Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura won with white and drew with black, Wesley So also won two despite playing three times with black, while Sergey Karjakin won three games and lost one. The twelve-player round-robin that continues until Thursday will eliminate the bottom four before the knockout kicks off after a rest day. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

5/19/2020 – In his weekly show IM Lawrence Trent takes a look at the games of Mir Sultan Khan, the FIDE Online Steinitz Memorial and other planned online tournaments. | Lawrence' show is available at 17:00 UTC (19:00 CEST, 13:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.