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

World Cup: Withdrawals, comebacks

7/17/2021 – Day 5 of the World Cups in Sochi saw four players withdrawing from the competition due to health-related issues — including third seed Levon Aronian. Plenty of exciting chess was also seen, with eight players winning on demand to take their matches to tiebreaks. | Pictured: An (extremely young) Indian contingent: Nihal, Aravindh and Praggnanandhaa. | Photo: Eric Rosen

Make it work!

7/17/2021 – In the diagram position Black just played 21...Rxd4!, capturing a knight. However, this move looks dangerous because White has 22.Qc3, pinning the rook on the long diagonal and threatening 23.e3. But Black knew exactly what he was doing. Can you follow his thoughts?

Daniel King’s Power Play Show: Highlights from the World Cup

7/16/2021 – In this Power Play Show, GM Daniel King takes a look at highlights from the World Cup in Sochi and presents two interesting endgames and a brilliancy with echoes of a famous Fischer victory. | 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.

News Review - Smelly chess opponents, Corona World Cup, and other upsets

7/16/2021 – This was an exciting week of chess upsets, and not only because of some lower rated players winning their games in the World Cup. First, chess is being played in Dortmund, with the two veterans Anand, and Kramnik, battling it out, without castling. Second, in the same city, the German Grand Prix takes place, with Pavel Eljanov in top form. Third, the World Cup in Sochi has unfortunate covid cases to deal with. Lawrence Trent also has an anecdote, why he had a hard time to play against a smelly chess opponent, and how he dealt with it.

World Cup: Health-related issues

7/16/2021 – The second round of the World Cups kicked off on Thursday, with the top seeds in both sections starting their campaigns after getting byes in the first round. A couple of health-related issues arose on Thursday, as Levon Aronian showed symptoms of fever and withdrew from his game against Bobby Cheng, while later on, with the games already in play, FIDE announced that another player had tested positive for Covid-19. | Pictured: Irine Sukandar | Photo: Eric Rosen

Dortmund: Eljanov takes the lead, Kramnik and Anand draw second "No Castling" game

7/16/2021 – After five rounds Pavel Eljanov leads the Deutschland Grand Prix in Dortmund with 4.0/5. On Thursday he won his morning game against Mateusz Bartel and in the afternoon he drew against Daniel Fridman. Vincent Keymer won a fine endgame against Gata Kamsky and Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik drew the second game of their "No Castling" match. Chess legend Artur Jussupov made the ceremonial first move. | Photo: Christian Lünig

Robert Ris’ Fast and Furious: Painful losses for Kasparov in the Najdorf

7/15/2021 – This week, well-known Dutch trainer Robert Ris takes a look at the problems Garry Kasparov faced in the Najdorf, when he tried it in his blitz games of the Croatia Grand Chess Tour. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.