10/18/2021 – At the FIDE World Cup 2021 Magnus Carlsen surprised his opponent Vladimir Fedoseev in the Caro-Kann Advance Variation (1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5) with the move 4.c4. Jan Werle analyses this brilliant game in ChessBase Magazine Extra #203 in a video and pays special attention to the opening. Is Carlsen's idea a good attacking weapon against the Caro-Kann? Take a look at an excerpt from Werle's video analysis!

10/18/2021 – With three rounds to go in the Russian Superfinals, Nikita Vitiugov and Valentina Gunina are leading the tournament standings in the open and women’s event respectively. Vitiugov climbed to first place after surviving a lost position against Kirill Alekseenko, while Gunina is undefeated with five wins in eight games so far in Ufa. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

10/18/2021 – There was no stopping Praggnanandhaa in the Finals of the Julius Baer Challengers Tour. The 16-year-old from Chennai scored a dominating 3-0 victory in the final match against Christopher Yoo, which means he was a half point away from getting a perfect score in the event — he got 8½/9 points after knocking out Volodar Murzin and Vincent Keymer in the previous rounds.

10/18/2021 – Knowing the ins and outs of annotating a game in ChessBase is one of the most fundamental and useful skills to have in it. It is vital so you can prepare openings, review your games, and more. Before stating you know all this, ask yourself: can you easily add text before a move, add symbols such as 'with attack', and add a '!' without a mouse? Let's start mastering the tools!

10/17/2021 – Star columnist Jon Speelman looks at the next generation of chess stars, presenting games from Aleksandra Goryachkina, Andrey Esipenko and Nihal Sarin. Speelman notes that “the interesting thing with young players is not only how well they can play at their peak, but also, and no less important, howe well they can play at their ambient level”. | Pictured: Andrey Esipenko and Zhansaya Abdmualik at this year’s World Cup in Sochi. | Photo: Anastassia Korolkova / FIDE

10/17/2021 – The knockout Finals of the Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour are taking place on October 14-17. The 8 top qualifiers from the previous “Challenge” events are participating. Each match consists of four rapid games, with 10 minutes per player for each game plus a 5-second increment. | The action kicks off daily at 16.00 CEST (10.00 ET / 19.30 IST)

10/17/2021 – 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 49th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman shows how White conducts a typical attack in the Sicilian. | Photo: Tommy Grooten

10/17/2021 – It was a rather short day at the office for the semifinalists of the Julius Baer Challengers Tour Finals, as Praggnanandhaa and Christopher Yoo only needed three games to knock out Vincent Keymer and Awonder Liang respectively. After an astounding win by Pragg, Vladimir Kramnik was full of praise for his play, even comparing him with Magnus Carlsen. “He’s playing almost like a real world champion, not a future one”, said Kramnik.

10/16/2021 – Once you worked out why Black should refrain from opening the diagonal of White's bishop on a2 with 20....cxd3??, you should also know how to refute the move played in the game: 20...Qd7??. Enjoy!

10/15/2021 – Iniyan Panneerselvam scored an unbeaten 7/8 to win the La Nucia International Open 2021. He had to miss the eighth round game due to his commitments towards the CoinDCX Chess Super League, and still managed to win the tournament in just eight games. He won a trophy and €2.500 as a prize. Iniyan annotated his favourite game from the tournament. | Photo: Valencian Chess Federation

10/15/2021 – Vincent Keymer and Awonder Liang made it into the semifinals of the Julius Baer Challengers Tour Finals after beating Leon Mendonca and Nodirbek Abdusattorov respectively. Keymer, who finished the preliminary stage — consisting of four tournaments — atop the overall standings table, had to work hard to take down Mendonca.

10/15/2021 – Our beloved IM from London returns, but not with the "News Review" show. Lawrence's "Trent's Tactics" is teaching us about the world of tactics. In this episode, Lawrence will show us different tactics about the back-rank mate. And even though we know the motif now, some of the examples which Lawrence picked are still very challenging! In the last ten minutes, we start from basically "zero" and raise the rating to over 2000, in the ChessBase training section.