Fischer, Karpov and Kortschnoi

4/29/2021 – If Bobby Fischer had not retired after becoming World Champion in 1972 we would have seen a decade dominated by Fischer, Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Kortschnoi. What would have happened, if there had been a match Fischer - Karpov or Fischer - Kortschnoi? And why did Fischer not play against Karpov in 1975? And how would Fischer's decision have turned out if the challenger had not been Karpov, but Kortschnoi? Some thoughts by Stephan Oliver Platz.

Game of the Week: Anish Giri vs Ding Liren

4/28/2021 – This week Merijn van Delft takes another look at the Candidates and presents a fine attack with which Anish Giri won against Ding Liren. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Wang Hao declares retirement from professional chess

4/28/2021 – In an interview after the last round of the Candidates Tournament, Wang Hao declared his retirement from professional chess, citing health issues as reason. However, he said he would continue to be involved in chess. Here's a short portrait and the interview. | Photo: Screenshot from the interview at the Candidates Tournament

New in Chess Classic, Quarterfinal, Day 1: Aronian, Mamedyarov and Nakamura start with wins

4/28/2021 – The first day of the quarterfinal at the New in Chess Classic Online Tournament brought a number of interesting games and match wins for Levon Aronian (3-1 against Wesley So), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (3-1 against Alireza Firouzja) and Hikaru Nakamura (2.5-1.5 against Le Quang Liem). Magnus Carlsen and Teimour Radjabov drew all four games and the match. | Photo: Levon Aronian | Photo: Grand Chess Tour, Lennart Ootes

Mad pawns can save the day

4/28/2021 – In previous articles we showed you the mad rook (dolle toren) rampage, where it sacrifices itself to secure a stalemate draw. Then we showed you how queens, bishops and knights could do the same. But what about pawns, we asked? It turns out there are similar motifs with suicidal pawns. Here's a series of amusing studies by Mikhail Zinar.

Svitlana's Smart Moves - Episode 1

4/28/2021 – Svitlana Demchenko is a 17-year-old, Canadian WIM, and chess coach. Here and now, she will teach us plenty of smart moves on the board, ranging from tactics, strategies, openings, and anything else chess related. In the process, I'm happy to be available as a student at club player level, and pester the female international master with questions. Anyone who wants to strengthen their chess skills is welcome to watch, and actively replay the positions from the video, on our chessboard.

Candidates Round 14: Ding, MVL and Alekseenko finish on a high note

4/28/2021 – Ding Liren, Kirill Alekseenko and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave finished the 2020-21 Candidates Tournament on a high note, scoring wins over Ian Nepomniachtchi, Anish Giri and Wang Hao respectively. Fabiano Caruana and Alexander Grischuk signed a draw. In his last interview of the event, Wang announced his retirement from competitive chess. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Candidates R14: Three decisive results

4/27/2021 – Ding Liren, Kirill Alekseenko and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave finished the 2020-21 Candidates Tournament on a high note, scoring wins over Ian Nepomniachtchi, Anish Giri and Wang Hao respectively. Fabiano Caruana and Alexander Grischuk signed a draw. In his last interview of the event, Wang announced his retirement from professional chess. | Full report to follow shortly.

New in Chess Classic: Carlsen wins preliminaries

4/27/2021 – World Champion Magnus Carlsen dominated the preliminaries of the New in Chess Classic. He did not lose a single game and on each of the three days of the preliminaries he scored 3.5/5 to finish sole first with 10.5/15. Perhaps his good form was due to his preparation: Carlsen played from the Meltwater office in Oslo and took a bicycle to come to work.

Candidates Tournament 2020-2021: A happy and tired winner

4/27/2021 – There is still one round to go at the Candidates Tournament but Ian Nepomniachtchi is sure to be the winner, and in November he will play Magnus Carlsen for the World Championship. In the press conference after the 13th round Nepomniachtchi said that he was very happy about the win but also revealed that he felt tired after more than a year of preparation. | Photo: Alina l'Ami (Archive)

Candidates Tournament 2020-21, Round 14 - Live!

4/27/2021 – After the longest half-time break ever, the Candidates Tournament in Yekaterinburg resumed last week. Ian Nepomniachtchi won the tournament with a round to spare and thus gained the right to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the World Championship title. Follow the games live with commentary. All rounds kick off at 16:00 local time (13:00 CEST, 7:00 ET) | Photo: Lennart Ootes / FIDE

When only one way leads to Rome

4/27/2021 – In the diagram position White is two pawns up but has only one winning move. Which one?

Nepomniachtchi to challenge Carlsen for the World Championship title

4/26/2021 – Ian Nepomniachtchi gained the right to challenge Magnus Carlsen in the upcoming World Championship match after winning the Candidates Tournament with a round to spare. Russia’s number 1 drew Maxime Vachier-Lagrave while second-placed Anish Giri was defeated by Alexander Grischuk. Given the tiebreak criteria, even if Giri catches up with Nepo in the last round, he would not be granted tournament victory. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

CBM 200: From Kasparov to Carlsen - A review by Nagesh Havanur

4/26/2021 – ChessBase Magazine offers a window to the world of professional chess and it also provides arsenal for the tournament player. With this bi-centennial issue it has reached a landmark. GM Rainer Knaak recalls the memorable journey with some nice videos. Then we are back to tournament preparation. This issue offers games from three major events, Tata Steel 2021, Skilling Open and 73rd Russian Championship Superfinal. 413 games, 3 opening videos, 11 opening surveys, demo. lectures and exercises for training. It also includes games annotated by Wesley So, Anish Giri, Van Foreest, Jan Duda, Vladimir Fedoseev, Nikita Vitiugov to mention a few. Prof. Nagesh Havanur takes a look.

New in Chess Classic: Carlsen takes the lead

4/26/2021 – With two wins and three draws, Magnus Carlsen climbed to sole first place in the preliminaries of the New in Chess Classic. The world champion and Hikaru Nakamura are the only two players who remain undefeated in the online tournament. Naka, who also collected two wins on Sunday, is now sharing second place with Alireza Firouzja. The best score of day 2, was obtained by Vietnamese star Le Quang Liem. | Pictured: Carlsen, Tari and Christiansen are playing from the Meltwater offices in Oslo.

New in Chess Classic: Radjabov tops the standings

4/25/2021 – The preliminaries of the New In Chess Classic, the fifth event of the Champions Chess Tour, kicked off on Saturday. The most successful player on day 1 was Teimour Radjabov, who scored 4 out of 5 points. Second place is shared by Alireza Firouzja and Magnus Carlsen with 3½/5 each. The aim of the preliminaries is to find out which 8 (out of 16) players move on to the knockout stage. Expert analyses by GM Karsten Müller. | Photo: FIDE

Candidates Round 12: Nepo wins to keep the lead as Giri beats Caruana

4/25/2021 – An exciting round with four decisive results left two players as the main contenders to win the Candidates Tournament. Anish Giri continued his run of excellent form and beat Fabiano Caruana with the black pieces, but could not catch up with Ian Nepomniachtchi, who got the better of Wang Hao. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Ding Liren also won. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Understanding before Moving 24: Strategic thinking

4/25/2021 – 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 24th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman illustrates how powerful strategic thinking can be. | Photo: Tommy Grooten

Endgame riddle solved: 50 moves are just enough

4/25/2021 – In the endgame riddle from 15 April ChessBase readers were invited to analyse an interesting and complicated endgame knight vs bishop. In the game E. Torre vs O. Jakobsen, Amsterdam 1973, from which the riddle was taken, the knight defeated the bishop, but Karsten Müller wanted to know whether the knight would also have won against best defense. Now, he has the answer.

Many cooks spoil the study

4/24/2021 – How do you know that there is exactly one way to solve an endgame study? Tablebases are a proof, but unlike many other genres, there is no way to heuristically solve a study to find a complete proof of it being correct. That is where cook hunters come in. Columnist Siegfried Hornecker introduces us to the world of ‘cooks’ within the fascinating community of chess composers. | Pictured: Dutch composer Harold van der Heijden

Back rank weakness

4/24/2021 – Black's weak back rank is shielded only by the Ne6 - basically that's all you need to have in mind to work out how White wins from the diagram position. Especially the first move is a toughie, though. Have fun!

Candidates Round 11: Giri in sole second place after brilliant win

4/24/2021 – Anish Giri climbed to sole second place at the Candidates Tournament in Yekaterinburg thanks to a brilliant win over Ding Liren in round 11. While Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana drew their direct encounter, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was defeated by Alexander Grischuk in a sharp battle. In a crucial face-off, Caruana will have the white pieces against Giri in Saturday’s twelfth round. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

The ChessBase News Review (16.04. - 23.04.)

4/23/2021 – Lawrence Trent and Arne Kaehler talk about what happened chess-wise last week. They give their opinions on various topics, and encourage you to think about the subject, analyse games, or read the articles thoroughly yourself. This week some topics are Schwarzenegger vs. Tyson, who Bob Wade was, and some analysis of the Candidates Tournament, including some further predictions.

Daniel King’s Power Play Show: Wang Hao vs Grischuk

4/23/2021 – In this Power Play Show, GM Daniel King takes a look at the game Wang Hao vs Alexander Grischuk, played in round 10 of the Candidates. In this game Grischuk thought for 72(!) minutes in a theoretically known position, and Wang Hao later tried to win with a queen sacrifice that was certainly dangerous and creative - but was it really sound? | 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.