Blitz Challenge with Iniyan

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.

Herman Grooten - An interview with a chess authority

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.

Rook invaders

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!

A Journey to Elista (1)

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.

Chess and scientific research

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

New in ChessBase Magazine: "All in One"

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!
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November FIDE ratings: Firouzja is the biggest winner

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.

Game of the Week: Wesley So vs Jeffery Xiong

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)

Tegernsee Masters: A draw on top board

11/4/2020 – Co-leaders Matthias Bluebaum and Alexander Donchenko met in the fourth round of the Tegernsee Masters. At the end of the day they signed a disputed draw. Thai Dai Van Nguyen (photo) mated Ashot Parvanyan from a pure knight and bishop versus king endgame. | Photos: Official site

Fair play and good manners in chess

11/4/2020 – What should an arbiter do if a player makes a horribly illegal move, which his opponent accepts, only to protest later? What if he sticks his hand out in what looks like a resignation, only to claim it was a draw offer? IA Tomasz Delega, Chairman of ECU Arbiters Council, gives us some sound advice. It is in the October issue of the ECU-magazine, which also has some Beth Harmon combinations from the Netflix series for you to solve.

Playchess - Autumn Series 2020: Join the action today!

11/4/2020 – Today, Wednesday, November 4, the Playchess Autumn Series 2020 continues. With a blitz tournament (20:00 CET, 19:00 UTC, 14:00 ET), in which you can win online training with GM Sebastian Siebrecht. Felix Gerland won last week's tournament and online training with GM Yannick Pelletier. Martin Fischer reports.

A talk with Boris Gelfand: Perpetual Chess Podcast #200

11/4/2020 – For decades Boris Gelfand has been one of the best chess players in the world. The six-time World Championship Candidate, who was born on June 24, 1968, in Minsk, is known for his passion for chess, his deep analyses, and his admiration for Akiba Rubinstein. In episode #200 of the "Perpetual Chess Podcast" Gelfand talks about his career, his life, chess improvement, and his two new books. | Photo: Vladimir Jagr (Archive)

The Weekly Show: The powerful bishops

11/3/2020 – In his weekly show IM Lawrence Trent takes a look at the Tegernsee Masters and a fine attacking game in which White demonstrated the power of the bishops. | Lawrence’s show is available at 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET, 14:00 ET) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Video chess evening with just 2 clicks!

11/3/2020 – Play chess with friends without effort, in private, and integrated video? A pleasant experience with playchess! With only 2 clicks you can organise a video chess evening with friends! Set the meeting point (virtual arena on playchess with a self defined URL) and then send the URL to your friends. They only have to open the link, click on the video and accept. Now you can see, and interact with each other, and the chess evening can start with the first game!

Siem Van Dael: Unorthodox openings lead to success

11/3/2020 – At the Young Champions Tournament in Uppsala the opening choices of the young Dutch FM Siem Van Dael surprised again and again, particularly when he was playing with White. Van Dael tried 1.a4, 1.h4, 1.h3, 1.a3 and 1.g3 g6 2.Bg2 Bg7 3.Na3, and these unorthodox openings brought him 4 points out of 5 games and helped him to win the tournament. | Photos: Tournament page

Tegernsee Masters: Donchenko and Bluebaum lead, Keymer in quarantine

11/3/2020 – Starting October 31 until November 8, the Tegernsee Masters tournament is taking place near the shore of Lake Tegernsee in Bavaria, Germany. The event is a 10-player single round robin with 5 German players and 5 international players hailing from the Czech Republic, Italy, Brazil, India and Belgium. Unfortunately, Vincent Keymer withdrew from the tournament after finding out one of his classmates tested positive for Covid-19. | Photos: Sebastian Siebrecht

The mighty bishop

11/3/2020 – Rooks are of course stronger than bishops, and there is a reason why giving up a rook for a bishop is called exchange "sacrifice". But of course there are many positions in which a rook is not stronger than a bishop. In the middlegame and in the endgame. The diagram shows one example. Can you find way to save the position for Black?

Simon Says: An aggressive and modern variation in the English Opening

11/2/2020 – In this "Simon Says" the Ginger GM takes a look at an aggressive and modern variation in the English Opening. | Watch "Simon Says" on-demand and with a ChessBase Premium account). (Normally 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET / 14:00 ET).

Happy Birthday! Lubomir Ljubojevic turns 70!

11/2/2020 – Lubomir Ljubojevic is a living legend. In the 1970s and 1980s he was one of the world's best players, who famous for his creative, daring and brilliant attacking chess. Today, November 2, 2020, Ljubojevic celebrates his 70th birthday. Dagobert Kohlmeyer remembers highlights of a remarkable career. | Photos: Dagobert Kohlmeyer, Dutch National Archive, David Llada

Kasparov's bishop pair

11/2/2020 – Variety is the spice of life, and the new ChessBase Magazine #198 entertains with two more "Specials": Anish Giri starts his new column "All in One" (more information to come soon), and the training columns focus on "Kasparov as a challenger". Enjoy one example: Karsten Müller's article "The role of the bishop pair on Kasparov's way to the first WCh match".
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One Night in Bangkok, one day in Meran

11/2/2020 – All chess players know the "Meran Variation", even if they do not play it. But how did this line of the Semi-Slav Defence got its name? Roger Lorenz did some research and found the games that gave the line its name. He also knows where they were played - in the South Tyrol spa town of Meran. As the photograph taken at the Meran spa gardens proves, our writer did his research on site!

The joy of hacking

11/1/2020 – Former world number 4 and long-standing columnist Jon Speelman shares one of the most complicated games he has ever played — a win he got over Britain’s first grandmaster Tony Miles when he was 19 years old. How did he do it? Speelman concludes his analysis: “There’s no point in looking for consolidation when the board is awash with lava.” | Pictured: Tony Miles (sitting) and Michael Stean at the Zonal Tournament 1978 in Amsterdam | Photo: Dutch National Archive

Live interview with a super-talent

11/1/2020 – Anish Giri's life story is simply amazing. He is a Dutch citizen right now, but has a Nepali father, a Russian mother, and a Georgian wife. He is world no.10 and one of the absolute best in chess! Today, at 2:30 p.m. Anish will do a live interview on YouTube. It's the life story of the Dutch legend, described in his own words! Don't miss it. Currently Vishy Anand is being interviewed!

Chess composition in Israel

10/31/2020 – Chess composition in Israel can be traced back to 1924. Throughout the years the small country gained relevance in the field of endgame studies. Columnist Siegfried Hornecker presents short bios and notable studies of six remarkable Israeli composers, plus a study he composed with helpmate specialist Paz Einat. | Pictured: Ruins of the ancient synagogue in Kibbutz Bar'am in Northern Israel. The ruins are located within the site of the ancient village of Kfar Bar'am, about three kilometers from the Lebanese border.