World Cup: A recap after the first rest day

7/22/2021 – After half the players returned home and the other half had a rest day before continuing the fight to reach the Candidates Tournament, the World Cup has resumed today with 32 players still going in the open section and 16 players battling it out in the women’s category. This seems to be a good time to take stock of what might happen in the next two weeks or so. | Pictured: Bibisara Assaubayeva | Photo: Eric Rosen

A successful experiment: The Anand vs Kramnik "No Castling" match in Dortmund

7/22/2021 – In Dortmund Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik tried a new variant of chess: they played a four-game match, in which castling was not allowed. After four interesting games Anand won the match 2.5-1.5, and both players, the organizers in Dortmund and the public agreed that the experiment was a success.

International Chess Day in Vienna

7/22/2021 – 20 July was International Chess Day and it was celebrated all over the world. With "Chess Unlimited" Kineke Mulder (pictured, on the left) celebrates chess in Vienna throughout the year and brings the game to the streets and to the people. During the lockdown this was impossible, and Mulder was happy to share her chess enthusiasm on International Chess Day - with a lot of amateurs and German Grandmaster Sebastian Siebrecht (pictured, on the right). | Photos: Sebastian Siebrecht/ Kineke Mulder/ Erste Bank

Game of the Week 473: M. Krasenkow - K. Alekseenko

7/21/2021 – This week, Merijn van Delft takes a look a close look at a stunning game with a brutal rook sacrifice from the World Cup: Michal Krasenkow's fine attacking win against Kirill Alekseenko. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Jan Timman: "The Unstoppable American: Bobby Fischer's Road to Reykjavik" – a review

7/21/2021 – 50 years ago, on 20 July 1971, Bobby Fischer (pictured) and Bent Larsen played the sixth and final game of their semi-final match of the Candidates. Fischer had won the first five games and he also won the sixth. It was Fischer's 19th win in a row against some of the world's best players, a sensational and unrivalled winning streak. In his new book "The Unstoppable American: Bobby Fischer's Road to Reykjavik" Dutch Grandmaster Jan Timman takes a close look at this winning streak and Fischer's dominance in the years 1970 to 1971. Confident, entertaining, and with new insights about Fischer's strengths and weaknesses.

How championship chess pieces are made

7/21/2021 – An inexpensive chess set can sell for $20, but a handcrafted wooden set certified for the World Chess Championship costs $500. Much of the set's value lies in just one piece: the knight. Making this one piece takes two hours, and there are fewer than ten people trained to carve knights for the championship chess sets. It is fascinating to watch the high-end pieces being made.

World Cup: More upsets as Giri and Mamedyarov are knocked out

7/21/2021 – Upsets continue at the FIDE World Cups in Sochi, as Anish Giri and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov were knocked out by Nodirbek Abdusattorov (pictured) and Haik Martirosyan in the rapid and blitz playoffs of round 3. Meanwhile, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Vidit Gujrathi and Mariya Muzychuk won lengthy, exciting matches. The players will have a rest day on Wednesday. | Photo: Eric Rosen

The Weekly Show: Surprises at the World Cup

7/20/2021 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent will continue recapping the World Cup and the focus game will be Jumabaev's surprising win with Black against world number two, Fabiano Caruana, which eliminated Caruana from the tournament! | Lawrence's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

U.S. Junior and Senior Championships taking place in Saint Louis

7/20/2021 – The 2021 U.S. Senior, U.S. Junior, and U.S. Girls’ Junior Championships kicked off on Friday, July 16, at the Saint Louis Chess Club. After four rounds, Gregory Kaidanov is leading the seniors’ event, Hans Niemann tops the standings in the juniors’ tournament, while three players are sharing first place in the girls’ championship. | Photo: Crystal Fuller

New: Master Class Band 14 - Vasily Smyslov

7/20/2021 – Vasily Smyslov defeated Mikhail Botvinnik at the second attempt in 1957 and thus became the 7th world champion in chess history, but had to relinquish the title in a rematch the following year. After that Smyslov belonged to the absolute world elite for many years. His performance in the 1982-1985 World Championship cycle was sensational, when he defeated Robert Hübner and Zoltan Ribli one after the other in the candidate matches and only lost in the final to the young Garry Kasparov - Smyslov himself was 62 years old at that time!

Breaking through

7/20/2021 – In the diagram position White is a pawn up but can she win? And how? Should White push her h-pawn to break through with her pawns? Or her f-pawn? Or should White wait and bring the king into a better position?

20 July is International Chess Day!

7/20/2021 – On 20 July 1924 the FIDE was founded in Paris, and in 1966 the UNESCO proposed to celebrate this date as "International Chess Day". Of course, you can celebrate chess every day but FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich and David Llada, the FIDE Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, still have some ideas how chess players all over the world can help to make today a very special day for chess.

World Cup: Jumabayev stuns Caruana

7/20/2021 – Fabiano Caruana was surprisingly knocked out of the FIDE World Cup in round 3, as Kazakhstani GM Rinat Jumabayev beat him with the black pieces in a hard-fought game. Other upsets from the third round include Vasif Durarbayli knocking out David Navara and Amin Tabatabaei leaving Yu Yangyi out of contention. A total of 17 matches (in both sections) will be decided in Tuesday’s rapid and blitz playoffs. | Photo: Eric Rosen

The joys of OTB chess: Nisipeanu wins the Benasque Open

7/19/2021 – Online chess helped a lot of players to cope with the corona lockdown. But some players simply do not like to play online and they particularly enjoy the return to over-the-board chess. The German top player Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu is such a player, and he recently won the Benasque Open with the sensational result of 9 points from 10 games. Jesper Sondergaard Thybo (Denmark) and Gergely Kandor (Hungary) finished with one point less and shared places two and three. | Photo: Raluca Scircea (Tournament page)

Tactics - for fun and to improve

7/19/2021 – Solving tactical exercises regularly keeps you in shape, helps you to play better and helps you to score more points but it can also make you happy. After all, solving a puzzle usually leads to a little dopamine rush. Mattis Traetmar is a great fan of solving tactical exercises and has selected eight nice examples for you - some of them well-known, some of them rather simple and some of them more difficult.

World Cup: Plenty of decisive results

7/19/2021 – More than half the games in both sections of the World Cup finished decisively on Sunday, which means plenty of players need a win in the second classical encounter of round 3 to remain in contention. In the biggest upset of the day, Haik Martirosyan (pictured) beat Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. | Photo: Eric Rosen

Game of the Week 472: I. Nepomniachtchi - A. Korobov

7/19/2021 – This week, Merijn van Delft takes a look at the Grand Chess Tour Croatia rapid and blitz tournament. He wonders about Kasparov's collapse and analyses the instructive and interesting rapid game between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Anton Korobov. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Pavel Eljanov wins Deutschland Grand Prix

7/19/2021 – Thanks to a final-round win over Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Pavel Eljanov took clear first place at the Deutschland Grand Prix in Dortmund. The Ukrainian grandmaster had been in the sole lead until round 7, when he was beaten by Dmitrij Kollars. Kollars, who lost his penultimate game against Kasimdzhanov, finished in shared second place, together with Daniel Fridman.

The Norwegian Bishops’ new wood

7/18/2021 – In his third column examining who is the best chess player in history — and his 150th overall — Jon Speelman fast forwards to the present champion, Magnus Carlsen. Speelman considers that Carlsen’s greatest strength is in the endgame, and dares to call him the best ever for this stage of the game. | Photo: Anastasiia Korolkova / FIDE World Cup

Understanding before Moving 36: Development advantage (2)

7/18/2021 – 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 36th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to explain why it is so important to develop one's pieces as soon as possible. | Photo: Tommy Grooten

Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Trophy - Final round

7/18/2021 – The final round of the Deutschland Grand Prix is taking place concurrently with the fourth and last game of the Vishy Anand vs Vladimir Kramnik match in No Castling chess. In the Grand Prix, three players — Pavel Eljanov, Dmitrij Kollars and Daniel Fridman — are sharing first place on 5/8. Vincent Keymer stands a half point back. | Follow the games live.

World Cup: Firouzja and Dominguez knocked out

7/18/2021 – Two matches, one in each section, went the distance in the playoffs of round 2 in Sochi: Ivan Cheparinov and Olga Badelka (pictured, right) scored wins with white in Armageddon to advance to round 3 in the longest matches of the event so far. Alireza Firouzja and Leinier Dominguez were knocked out by two Uzbek players, Javokhir Sindarov and Jakhongir Vakhidov respectively. | Photo: Eric Rosen

No Castling Chess: Anand misses his chance

7/18/2021 – Vishy Anand is still leading the No Castling chess match against Vladimir Kramnik. The Indian took the lead in game 1 and could have secured match victory in game 3, as he had a much better position with the white pieces. However, Kramnik managed to hold the draw in the end. The last game is set to take place today at 13.00 CEST.

Dortmund: Bartel wins, Eljanov sacrifices a queen

7/17/2021 – Polish grandmaster Mateusz Bartel had a difficult time in the first rounds of the Deutschland Grand Prix, but he could land a nice attacking win with Black against Andreas Heimann. The remaining four games ended drawn, but had a lot to offer, with leader Pavel Eljanov sacrificing a queen against Ruslan Ponomariov. | Pictured: Bartel facing Eljanov in round 4