11/7/2020 – Alexander Donchenko is on the verge of winning the Tegernsee Masters 2020, as he currently stands 1½ points ahead of his closest pursuer with two rounds to go. Nonetheless, due to Vincent Keymer’s withdrawal, the leader has a bye round on Saturday. The one player with realistic chances to catch up with Donchenko is Matthias Bluebaum, who will be paired up against Thai Dai Van Nguyen and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu on the weekend. | Photos: Sebastian Siebrecht

11/6/2020 – "There might be a few viewers who are not aware of this game..." Sagar Shah says in a YouTube meeting. Nigel Short: "They don't exist! I've been to the Galapagos Islands, where the iguanas knew this game." In this entertaining 7½-minute video former World Championship challenger runs us through his most famous game, with two stand-up comedians watching. Pure enjoyment.

11/6/2020 – In this Power Play Show, GM Daniel King features Vera Menchik, the first Women’s World Champion. King analyses the game in which Menchik defeated Albert Becker, the founder of the “Vera Menchik Club” — Becker ridiculed her entry to the Carlsbad 1929 tournament by proposing that any player whom Menchik defeated in tournament play should be granted membership into the “club”. | 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. | Photo: Menchik (centre) at a simul at the Bury and West Suffolk Chess Club in 1936 | suffolkchess.org.uk

11/6/2020 – After twenty years as the world’s highest-rated player, Garry Kasparov decided to quit chess and go into politics in March 2005. His last event was the now legendary Linares Tournament. Kasparov had a one-point lead over Veselin Topalov going into their direct encounter in the last round — Topalov won that game, but Kasparov nonetheless won the tournament, as he had a better tiebreak score (more wins with black). | Photos: Nadja Wittmann

11/6/2020 – Today, Friday, November 6, at 2:30 p.m. (in Europe) there will be another Blitz Challenge on Playchess. The player to beat is 18-year-old Iniyan Panneerselvam, who recently won the World Open, and played a 72-hour online Blitz Marathon to raise funds for the COVID crisis. The Playchess challenge games will be commented by host IM Sagar Shah, who will also be analyzing them with Iniyan afterwards. You too can play against him too, or simply watch and learn.

11/6/2020 – Herman Grooten’s first ChessBase show was launched two weeks ago. What makes the show special is Grooten’s teaching style. He uses elements of the “step method”, where players with zero chess knowledge can advance to strong club players, or even become a GM, as Jan Smeets has proven impressively. Furthermore, his whole life has been dedicated to chess from an early age! Herman will tell you more about this in a two-part video interview. The second part consists of two stunning positions, where knights move to the most unexpected spots on the chessboard.

11/6/2020 – In the diagram position White can win with the line opener 37.f5!. However, after Black's answer 37...gxf5 White has to avoid one last pitfall. Which he can do if he follows the motto: keep calm!

11/5/2020 – Back in 2007 Frederic Friedel was invited by FIDE to attend the Candidates Matches in Elista. You can google "Candidates Elista 2007" for full details of the event, or use Mega Database to find all the games. We do not intend to retrace the course of the event, but instead tell you about the adventure of travelling to Kalmykia and attending it personally. We start with the first leg of the journey.

11/5/2020 – A team of scientists from Germany, the Netherlands and the USA studied the development of cognitive abilities in humans and evaluated them using chess games. The result: cognitive skills only increase up to a certain age and today's chess players play better than those of previous generations. | Picture: Pixabay

11/5/2020 – The new issue #198 (November/December) of the ChessBase Magazine introduces a new column: "All in One". An expert will show you ideas and current trends of a modern opening line by analysing a single game in depth. The analysis is deep and comprehensive and will give you a solid basis to try the line in practice!

11/5/2020 – In the last months only a few over-the-board tournaments took place, but in October 30 of the top 100 players were active again and played in FIDE-rated "real" tournaments. Magnus Carlsen is still the clear number one but it was Alireza Firouzja who made the biggest jump ahead by gaining 20 Elo-points in Stavanger.

11/4/2020 – In his "Game of the Week" show, Merijn van Delft takes a look at a crucial game the U.S. Championship: Wesley So's hard-fought and fascinating win against Jeffery Xiong in round 5. | Merijn's show is available at 16.00 UTC (17:00 CET, 12:00 EDT) and on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archive)