11/28/2020 – The semifinals of the Skilling Open kicked off on Friday. Magnus Carlsen beat Ian Nepomniachtchi in their first mini-match after collecting three draws and a win. Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura followed a similar pattern, with So getting ahead in the matchup after getting a single win. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/27/2020 – In this Power Play Show, GM Daniel King takes a look at a game from the Skilling Open, in which Magnus Carlsen defeated his old rival Anish Giri in a positional masterpiece. | 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: Champions Chess Tour | Archive

11/27/2020 – The latest version of our database program, ChessBase 16, is creating waves in the chess world. But do you know everything that is under the hood of this remarkable training tool for chess players? How it will find new interesting lines for you to play, and look after your repertoire, keep it fully up-to-date? Today IM Sagar Shah discussed the new features live with the head of the programming team. Watch the video recording for a unique tutorial on how to use the new program. That will repay you with additional rating points – for sure!

11/27/2020 – What distinguishes the Mega Database from other databases? For one, it does not become obsolete and remains "up to date" with just a few clicks! Because the delivery of the Mega Database 2021 includes not only more than 8 million games but also the weekly mega update service. Every week we provide you with a database of around 5,000 new games. At the same time the search booster of the reference database is updated, which allows you to continue your work immediately and without losing time. With a few clicks in ChessBase 16, your Mega Database will always be up to date. A "mega help" for every tournament player. Here's how...

11/27/2020 – In the diagram position, White had just played 32.Qd4+, after which Black decided to take the pawn on g6 and played 32...Kxg6??. However, that was a mistake which allowed White to unleash a powerful mating attack. How did White continue after 32...Kxg6?? - and can you calculate the lines in your head?

11/27/2020 – Three out of the four players that qualified to the semifinals of the Skilling Open did it by coming back from behind in their quarterfinal matchups. The only player to move on without needing tiebreaks was Magnus Carlsen, while Ian Nepomniachtchi, Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura reached the semis despite having lost on Wednesday. Carlsen v Nepomniachtchi and So v Nakamura are the semifinal pairings. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/27/2020 – With an Elo-rating of 2683 Anton Korobov was top seed and favourite at the Open Ukrainian Championship 2020. Korobov lived up to this role and with a score of 7.0/9 he finished clear first to become Ukrainian Champion 2020. It was his fourth title. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archive)

11/26/2020 – In this week's show, well-known Dutch trainer Robert Ris takes a look at an old favourit of Garry Kasparov: the Petrosian Variation of the Queen's Indian Defense. | "Fast and Furious" is available from 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET / 16:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Frederic Friedel

11/26/2020 – The quarterfinals of the Skilling Open kicked off on Wednesday. Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Teimour Radjabov won their first mini-matches to go into day two of the confrontations only needing a draw in order to move on to the semis. Carlsen was not all that satisfied with his performance, as his opponent, Anish Giri, missed opportunities from better positions more than once. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

11/26/2020 – In 1971 Bobby Fischer played against Tigran Petrosian in the Candidates Final, and in the crucial 7th game of this match Fischer made one of the most famous and surprising moves of his career: 22.Nxd7+, exchanging a "good" knight against a "bad" bishop, and this stunning exchange led to a seemingly smooth win, which practically decided the match. Since then 22.Nxd7+ has been praised in countless books and articles as a stroke of genius. But new analyses of Karsten Müller, Charles Sullivan, Zoran Petronijevic, and the ChessBase readers indicate that this famous move might actually have been a mistake!

11/26/2020 – We have hundreds of different Fritztrainers in our shop. A lot of them are made by top grandmasters, and perhaps you sometimes wonder what the authors of these Fritztrainers do besides teaching us to play better chess. "Meet the Fritztrainer" is the very first part of a new series that tells us more about the private life of your favourite chess coach. We start with joyful GM Chris Ward, who shares anecdotes about Kasparov, talks about the time when he played in the Bundesliga, and reveals how he thinks chess should be taught. | Photos: Chris Ward

11/25/2020 – In his "Game of the Week" show, Merijn van Delft takes a look at a game from the Skilling Open: David Anton's fine win with Black against Ian Nepomniachtchi, a model game against 1.b3. | 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.