Armenian Championship, round 7: Gabuzyan defends lead

2/24/2021 – The 25-year-old Grandmaster Hovhannes Gabuzyan started the Armenian Championships as number 9 seed, but after seven rounds he is sole tournament leader with 6.0/7. In round seven he defended his lead by winning a fine Najdorf Sicilian with Black against Zaven Andriasian.

Chess for the elderly

2/24/2021 – “Healthy Chess” is the name of Club Magic Extremadura’s program focused on the elderly and directed by Juan Antonio Montero since 2008. The pioneering goals of the program have more to do with keeping the mind active instead of simply teaching the participants how to play chess. The classes are given in the Spanish region of Extremadura. | Pictured: Juan Antonio Montero giving a class | Photos: Club de Ajedrez Magic Extremadura

Bobby Fischer on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show"

2/24/2021 – On September 1, 1972, Boris Spassky resigned the 21st game of the World Championship match Fischer vs Spassky 1972 in Reykjavik and Bobby Fischer was new World Champion. But after winning the title the American did not play an official game for 20 years, and soon hid from journalists, fans and colleagues. However, before Fischer fled into hiding, he showed himself to the public, and on November 8, 1972, Fischer was a guest in Johnny Carson's legendary "Tonight Show". Recently, a video of this remarkable episode appeared on YouTube. | Pictures: Screenshots from the show

The Weekly Show: The FIDE Corporate Championships

2/23/2021 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent takes a look at the FIDE World Online Corporate Championships, which took place last weekend . The team of GRENKE Bank (Georg Meier, Alina Kashlinskaya, Hanna Marie Klek, and Inna Agrest) won this huge worldwide online event by narrowly beating the the team of the Russian bank SBER in the finals. Lawrence presents a game between Georg Meier and Ian Nepomniachtchi, the top encounter of the finals. Lawrence's show is available at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, 12:00 ET) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Gabuzyan leads Armenian Championship after 6 rounds

2/23/2021 – The Armenian Championships, open and women’s, are taking place on February 16-28 at the Tigran Petrosian Chess House in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. After 6 rounds, Hovhannes Gabuzyan and Susanna Gaboyan are the sole leaders of the national events. | Photos: Gevorg Perkuperkayn / ArmenPress

The arms of the octopus

2/23/2021 – Usually a rook is far superior to a knight in a pure endgame. But there are exceptions. In the diagram position White's rook is helpless against the black knight and the black pawns. Black to move and win.

What's your profession?

2/22/2021 – Irina Bulmaga is a chess professional from Romania but she has sometimes found it difficult to explain to non-chess players what this means. Until recently - when she had an interesting conversation about chess, women's chess, Judit Polgar, Garry Kasparov, and others topics, while waiting for an official document. | Photo: Irina Bulmaga | Photo: David Llada

Understanding before Moving 15: Knight on the Rim

2/22/2021 – 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 15th part of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving" Herman looks takes a look at knights on the rim. | Photo: Hans Hoornstra

Grenke Bank wins World Corporate Championship

2/22/2021 – Grenke Bank defeated SBER in the final match to win the 1st FIDE World Corporate Championship. The German team, led by Georg Meier and Alina Kashlinskaya, beat Anahuac (Mexico) and PT Pelabuhan Tanjung Priok (Indonesia) in the knockout stage before facing the Russian favourites headed by Ian Nepomniachtchi.

Grumpy silicon and happy carbon

2/21/2021 – In this week’s column, Jon Speelman focuses on the importance of ‘trusting your hand’, noting that “playing chess is one of the few times in our lives when we are totally self-sufficient and self-reliant. It’s the joy and horror of the game that you can take all the credit for your triumphs but have nobody else to blame for your mistakes.” Unmissable! | Photo: David Llada

FIDE Corporate World Championship Knockout - Live!

2/21/2021 – The knockout stage of the FIDE Corporate Online World Championship is being played from 16:00 CET (15:00 UTC, 11:00 ET). Eight teams fight to win the inaugural edition of the tournament. Ian Nepomniachtchi, Anton Korobov and Georg Meier are the strongest players still in contention. Follow the games live.

All set for the quarterfinals of the World Corporate Championship

2/21/2021 – After two days of qualifying round-robin tournaments, eight teams moved on to the quarterfinals of the FIDE World Corporate Championship. Most of the elite players were eliminated, as more balanced squads outscored them in their pools — except for Ian Nepomniachtchi, Anton Korobov and Georg Meier, whose teams are still in contention.

Grandmaster Chef: Boris Gulko

2/20/2021 – Grandmaster Boris Gulko is the only player to have won both the USSR and USA Chess Championships. He has been a candidate for World Champion. In his honor, I will prepare a recipe I hope he would enjoy and annotate the game Gulko – Mikhalchishin from the 1981 Soviet First League Championship. | Photo: Les Glassman

Grandmaster Chess Ep 14: Humpy's Attacking Masterclass

2/20/2021 – Grandmaster Chess is a series hosted by IM Sagar Shah on the ChessBase India YouTube channel. The idea of the series is to give you a peek into the mind of a world class grandmaster. In every episode a Grandmaster presents one of his or her best games while four famous Indian stand-up comedians comment and ask questions. In episode 14 of the show Humpy Koneru, currently number three on the FIDE Women's World Ranking list, demonstrates her attacking skills. Enjoy!

The Candidates during halftime

2/19/2021 – Due to the worldwide crisis, the Candidates Tournament was interrupted exactly halfway through after seven rounds had been played on 26 March 2020. The second half of the event will resume 389 days later. We take a look at the performances of the eight participants during the last 11 months. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / FIDE

Anand vs Kramnik – no castling!

2/19/2021 – This summer Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand will face each other in an innovative chess variant, proposed by Kramnik: No-Castling chess. There is one simple rule change – no castling allowed, everything else remains the same as in the regular chess – is meant to combat over-preparation and drawing tendencies in chess. Experience shows that it also leads to more exciting games. In parallel the online Sparkassen Playchess Open for participants from all over the world will be in the "No-Castling“ format. This is your chance to try it out.

Daniel King’s Power Play Show: Fine Strategy

2/19/2021 – In this Power Play Show, GM Daniel King takes another look at the recently finished Opera Euro Rapid Online Tournament, and presents a fine strategic performance by Anish Giri from that tournament. | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, 13:00 ET). All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer.

Vlastimil Hort on Ben Johnson's "Perpetual Chess Podcast"

2/19/2021 – Vlastimil Hort is a living chess legend and great and popular storyteller. He regularly shares his stories on ChessBase and recently published a book with memories of his long career. Now Ben Johnson invited Hort to his "Perpetual Chess" podcast and as always it is a pleasure to listen to the Grandmaster and his many stories.

This weekend: FIDE World Corporate Championship

2/19/2021 – The FIDE World Corporate Championship will take place online on February 19-21. It will be a team tournament in which companies will present a roster made up of employees and at the most one invited player. Giants like Amazon, Samsung, Ford, Microsoft and Gazprom have registered to participate, with some of them inviting elite grandmasters to join their teams — among them, Kindred (Magnus Carlsen), Sberbank (Ian Nepomniachtchi) and Optiver (Anish Giri) just to name a few.

The h-file and you

2/19/2021 – In the diagram position, White's line-up of major pieces on the kingside makes one eager to strike. 23.hxg6 or 23.g5 - how would you continue the attack?

Remembering Ratmir Kholmov (13 May 1925 - 18 February 2006)

2/18/2021 – 15 years ago, on 18 February 2006, the Russian-Soviet grandmaster Ratmir Kholmov died in Moscow. Kholmov was a sailor and during World War II he was taken prisoner by the Japanese. After the war he became one of the best players in the Soviet Union though the Soviet again and again hindered his career. But in the course of his career Kholmov still won against players such as Mikhail Botvinnik, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, Robert Fischer and many more strong players. Dagobert Kohlmeyer remembers. | Photo: Kholmov-Vaganian, Moscow 1975 (chespro.ru)

Throwback Thursday: Carlsen wins the Candidates

2/18/2021 – Now that FIDE has announced that the second half of the Candidates Tournament will be played in April, it’s a good time to remember how Magnus Carlsen qualified to play for the World Championship title for the first time, in 2013. The Norwegian was the favourite and started strong, but Vladimir Kramnik made an impressive comeback in the second half. The Russian, however, fell barely short at the very end, and Carlsen won the tournament on tiebreaks. | Photos: Ray Morris-Hill

U.S. Women’s Chess Championship History

2/18/2021 – The history of the U.S. Women's Chess Championship contains a wealth of information about chess in America and countless fascinating stories about champions from all walks of life. Alexey Root, who is currently writing a book about the history of the U.S. Women's Championship, takes a look at some recent research about women's chess in the U.S. | Photo: Reigning and eight-time U.S. Women's Champion Irina Krush winning the title 2015 | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Conference: The French Chess Federation celebrates 100 year jubilee

2/18/2021 – 100 years ago, on 19 March 1921, the French Chess Federation (Fédération Française des Échecs) was founded in Paris. To mark the jubilee, an international Zoom conference will be held on 20 March 2021, with a series of presentations examining the influence chess in France had on the development of chess in other countries. Participation in the conference is free and open to the public.