Daniel King's Power Play Show: A brilliancy by Jan Timman

9/11/2020 – In this Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King looks at a brilliancy prize win from Jan Timman that he featured in his latest book 'Timman's Triumphs - My 100 Best Games'. | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UK (18:00 CEST, 11:00 EST) on playchess.com. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. | Photo: Frans Peeters

Chess & Jazz in Berlin: An interview with Clemens Lotz

9/11/2020 – Chess and jazz are both cool and go well together. Once a month the musician and chess fan Clemens Lotz brings chess players and live jazz music together in Berlin Kreuzberg, thus reviving the tradition of Berlin chess cafés. The next Chess & Jazz event will take place on September 17, 2020. | Photo: Lukas Diller

Hanging helpers

9/11/2020 – In the diagram position, the black queen on e3 and the black knight on g4 need the help of the 'heavy guys' to hunt down the white king who is living on the edge at h3. One key move and two mate lines - enjoy!

Noel Studer wins in Cattolica

9/11/2020 – The Swiss Grandmaster Noel Studer convincingly won the Open Tournament of the 7th Chess Festival of Cattolica in Italy. Studer scored 8 out 9 and finished 1½ points ahead of IM Pierre Bailet and GM David Alberto. | Photo: Tournament page

GM Dmitry Svetushkin (1980-2020)

9/11/2020 – Last Friday, September 4, 2020, Dmitry Svetushkin died. The Moldovan Grandmaster played ten times for his country at chess Olympiads and was also an active and renowned trainer. He was 40 years old. | Photo: Andreas Kontokanis, Wikipedia

Starting on Friday: Chess 9LX with Carlsen and Kasparov

9/10/2020 – From Friday on the St. Louis Chess Club will hold its Chess 9LX 2020 tournament, this year as an online tournament. Ten top players - Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Fabiana Caruana, Wesley So, Levon Aronian, Leinier Dominguez, Peter Svidler, Alireza Firouzja and Garry Kasparov(!) - play a Chess960 round robin at rapid time controls.

Karsten Müller analyzes endgame highlights from the Chessable Masters tournament

9/10/2020 – The recent online tournaments led to a huge number of interesting endgames, and it is amazing how often the top players find the right moves in these endgames though they sometimes have only seconds left on the clock. Karsten Müller took a look at the endgame highlights from the Chessable Masters. Thorsten Cmiel helped him.

Summer Special - 12 Power DVDs by Daniel King

9/10/2020 – It is already September, the trees are slowly changing colour and the summer is coming to an end, as are our summer offers. This is the last chance to strike again, and to do so properly. Twelve DVDs by Daniel King will lighten up the coming months for every chess player. With over 50 hours of material on the subject of "Attack" and "Strategy", King discusses all the important chess motifs. Every serious chess player should have these classics in their collection. Our final offer once again promises the chance to win a signed DVD for every buyer of the bundle.

AlphaZero/Kramnik: Exploring new chess variants

9/10/2020 – Modifying the existing rules for chess, attempting to make it more dynamic or decisive, is a non-trivial task: You need years of experience and large numbers of people playing new versions in order to assess the quality and appeal of any new variant. Former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik has proposed nine new variants, and DeepMind has used their AI technology to evaluate them in a much shorter period of time. Here are their findings.

Bent Larsen: An optimist with great fighting spirit

9/9/2020 – On September 9, 2010, ten years ago, the Danish Grandmaster Bent Larsen died in Argentina where he lived with his wife Laura Benediz Benedini, a lawyer, whom he had met in 1980. Larsen was born on March 4, 1935, and in the 1960s he was arguably the most successful tournament player and definitely one of the best players in the world. He is famous for his fighting spirit, his optimism, his original play and his entertaining writing. | Photo: Bent Larsen © Hans Peters

Game of the Week: Maxime Lagarde vs. Marin Bosiocic

9/9/2020 – In his "Game of the Week" show, Merijn van Delft takes a look at a theoretically interesting win which French Grandmaster Maxime Lagarde scored against the Sicilian Najdorf. | Merijn's show is freely available at 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) for a limited time, and on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

David Anton and Sabrina Vega win Spanish Championships

9/9/2020 – Before the 9th and last round of the Spanish Championship Alexei Shirov was sole first with 8.0/9, but in the last round he lost with Black against Jaime Santos. This allowed David Anton, who won against Manuel Perez, to pass Shirov to become Spanish National Champion 2020. Sabrina Vega won the Women's Championship, it was her seventh title.

The new choice of champions

9/9/2020 – The Ragozin Defence (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Bb4) has become more and more popular in recent years. Many top Grandmasters play it these days. But how do Grandmasters fight the Ragozin at top level? Peter Svidler brought 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Bf4 into play. Ding Liren, Caruana and others took up the idea, and Carlsen has also tested the bishop move. In the new ChessBase Magazine, CBM #197, Alexey Kuzmin checks the latest trends.
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Rivals: Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik

9/9/2020 – Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik are friends, but they were also rivals. They played a World Championship match and about 150 games against each other, and for two decades both were among the three best players in the world. In the Indian sports program "The Finish Line" Anand now talks about his World Championship match 2008 against Kramnik. Anand shares insights about his surprising choice of 1.d4, about match strategy and he reveals why this was one of the most important matches of his career. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

Spanish Championship, Round 8: Shirov wins top encounter

9/8/2020 – In round eight of the Spanish Championship the two leaders, Ivan Salgado and Alexei Shirov, played against each other. Shirov won and is now sole first with 7.0/8 and with one round to go he has good chances to become Spanish Champion 2020. | Photos: Patricia Claros/ Feda

FIDE announces that the Candidates Tournament will resume on November 1st

9/8/2020 – The Candidates Tournament 2020 in Ekaterinburg was started when the corona pandemic had already spread around the world. However, after seven of 14 rounds it was interrupted and postponed to an indefinite date. In a press release FIDE now announced that the Candidates Tournament will resume on November 1, 2020, probably in Ekaterinburg, or alternatively in Tbilisi. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

NEW: Claus-Dieter Meyer / Karsten Müller: Magical Chess Endgames

9/8/2020 – Claus-Dieter Meyer and Karsten Mueller present the "Magical Endgames Fritztrainer", their third collaboration. Sadly, Claus-Dieter Meyer passed away in March 2020, but he finished his work on this DVD before, including notes and comments. Endgame expert Karsten Mueller analyses and explains important endgame techniques and presents a number of fantastic games. The volume concludes with helpful interactive exercises and is a treasure for everyone who likes the endgame and wants to improve in chess.

The unstoppable

9/8/2020 – Endings with opposite coloured bishops are often drawish but can also be very exciting because material is less important. This again and again leads to surprising and aesthetically pleasing sacrifices.

Computers solving chess problems

9/8/2020 – In the prestigious news magazine Der SPIEGEL, edition 49/1982, we found the following chess problem, which a reader had solved on his chess computer. It was a 7-mover and the computer required more than 48 days to solve it. In an article at the time Frederic Friedel tried to explain not why it took so long, but how it could manage to process theoretically three trillion positions so quickly! In the meantime things have changed and regular chess engines have become much, much faster. You can find out how much faster yourself.

New Smyslov research project

9/7/2020 – Four years ago, the Russian-born FIDE Master Andrey Terekhov – currently based in Singapore – started off a Smyslov research project. Benefiting from access to Smyslov's private archive and other Soviet-era archival material, a first volume is scheduled to be published by Russell Enterprises in November 2020. We reproduce an extensive interview with the author conducted by Olimpiu G. Urcan – and a wonderfully annotated Smyslov game.

Simon Says: More Highlights from the Online Olympiad

9/7/2020 – In this "Simon Says" Simon looks at a selection of highlights from the FIDE Online Olympiad 2020 and presents a number of fine examples of fine chess. | Watch "Simon Says" for free and on-demand (for a limited time, or forever with a ChessBase Premium account). (Normally 18:00 UTC (20:00 CEST / 14:00).

A statement by Serzh Sargsyan, President of the Armenian Chess Federation

9/7/2020 – During the final of the FIDE Online Olympiad between Russia and India, the internet connection was not always stable, which affected the outcome of some games. FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich intervened in a solomonic way and declared both teams, Russia and India, as winners of the event. At the semi-final between India and Armenia there had been similar problems but the verdict had been different, and Armenia withdrew under protest. In an open letter to FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, Serzh Sargsyan, President of the Armenian Chess Federation, addresses the issue.

Spanish Championship: Shirov catches up

9/7/2020 – In the top match of the Spanish championship, tournament leader Ivan Salgado drew with David Anton. In the match of the pursuers Alexei Shirov defeated Salvador del Rio de Angelis and caught up to Salgado. They now share the lead with 6.0/7 each.

Back from the death? Two titles to revive the Benoni

9/7/2020 – In a review published in Chess Life, John Watson looks at two titles that seek to reestablish the Benoni as an elite opening, Rustam Kasimdzhanov’s “The Benoni Is Back In Business” and John Doknjas’ “Opening Repertoire - The Modern Benoni”. According to the renowned American author, coach and critic, both authors “share a number of original novelties that are essential to making the case for the lines they are advocating”.