Miguel Illescas: My most memorable game

9/6/2020 – An eight-time Spanish Champion, Miguell Illescas has excelled as a chess player, theoretician, educator and promoter. Having defeated a number of chess superstars — Viktor Korchnoi, Artur Yusupov, Veselin Topalov and Judit Polgar, just to name a few — he surely had difficulties choosing his most memorable game. In the end, he went for a win obtained in 1999 at the Dos Hermanas Tournament — his rival was none other than the 12th world champion himself, Anatoly Karpov.

Speelman on Tal: “His feeling for the initiative has never been bettered”

9/6/2020 – Star columnist Jon Speelman was asked to write about Mikhail Tal, and he happily obliged. Speelman points out that, had Misha Tal been alive today, he would certainly be playing blitz and bullet online, and adds, “He was able to play extremely strongly, even in a state in which the rest of us would have struggled to remain upright”. | Pictured: Tal analysing with Dutch IM Coen Zuidema in Wijk aan Zee 1973 | Photo: Dutch National Archive

“We have made chess more consumable for the masses”: Samay Raina for TOI

9/6/2020 – In a chat with Times of India during the Online Olympiad, Samay Raina spoke on how the idea of YouTube streaming chess took shape during the lockdown this year, his dream of starting and Indian Chess League in the coming months and much more. “I had to find my own niche — something I really like which was chess. I never thought so many people will take to this and it all feels so surreal.”

Grandmaster Chef: Hou Yifan

9/5/2020 – Hou Yifan became a grandmaster at 14.5 years old. She is a four-time Women’s World Chess Champion. She earned a Rhodes Scholarship for postgraduate study at the University of Oxford. National Master Mike Walder cooks a recipe that she might like and annotates one of her wins. WIM Alexey Root tells why Hou Yifan is a Grandmaster Chef honoree. | Photo: Pascal Simon

Gudmundur Kjartansson wins Icelandic Championship

9/5/2020 – The 107th Icelandic Chess Championship took place in the last week of August. It was an over-the-board single round robin tournament with ten participants. Gudmundur Kjartansson won his third national title. Bragi Thorfinnsson and Helgi Ass Greatarsson finished a half point behind. | Photos: Icelandic Chess Federation

Four leaders at the Spanish Championship in Linares

9/5/2020 – The 2020 Spanish Championship is taking place in Linares from August 31 to September 8. Given the corona crisis and the fact that the event is being played “over the board”, a few players have been quarantined. After 5 rounds, four players share the lead on 4½ out of 5 — Manuel Pérez Candelario, Iván Salgado (pictured), Jaime Santos and Daniel Alsina. | Photo: Spanish Chess Federation

Alexei Shirov wins Gazprom Brilliancy Prize

9/5/2020 – Alexei Shirov has been proclaimed the winner of the Gazprom Brilliancy Prize, a special trophy awarded by the General Partner of the Online Chess Olympiad. The game that earned Shirov this prize was his victory with the black pieces against Danyyil Dvirnyy, in which the Spaniard got to show a novelty in the Slav Defence and sacrificed his queen while attacking on the queenside. | Photo: FIDE

Power Play Show: Kalashnikov octopodes

9/4/2020 – In this Power Play Show, Grandmaster Daniel King looks at a couple of games by former junior world champion Parham Maghsoodloo. Both of the analyzed games were played in the Kalashnikov Variation of the Sicilian Defence and featured an octopus knight deep in the heart of White’s position! | 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: Amruta Mokal

Wroclaw wins the 2020 Polish Team Championship

9/4/2020 – The Polish Ekstraliga took place in Krakow from August 26 to September 3. The team from Wroclaw won the event despite losing in the eighth round against Katowice, their closest pursuers. Katowice finished a match point behind the new champions, while the team from Gorzow finished third. | Photo: Official site

Slaying the dragon II

9/4/2020 – The diagram shows the starting position of the aggressive Löwenfisch Variation. After the natural 6...Bg7 Black already must be very careful not to be crushed. Are you in a Dragon slayer mood today?

Friedel talks to SCHACH

9/4/2020 – The chess periodical SCHACH is one of the oldest and most prestigious in the German language. It appears once a month and usually includes an interview with a chess personality, who answers twenty set questions. In their September 2020 issue they turned their attention to ChessBase co-founder and editor emeritus Frederic Friedel, who had just turned 75. We reproduce the interview with kind permission of the publishers.

Classical online team competitions on PlayChess

9/3/2020 – It is not clear when we will get to play over-the-board team tournaments again. Online competitions are the only alternative. But where can you play serious team matches using a classical formats? On PlayChess! For example at the DSOL (German Online Chess League), in which 246 teams are participating. You do not need to play at the DSOL to play with your team though — anyone can do it! You can set up a round-robin event with a fixed board order or use the Scheveningen system. As in over-the-board tournaments, the players can concentrate exclusively on their games and do not have to worry about the pairings or how to challenge others. Only the team captains have to put in some more work, just like in “normal” team matches.

“Head of the Sicilian clan” - Remembering Lev Polugaevsky

9/3/2020 – Lev Polugaevsky was one of the best players in the world and a leading expert on the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian in the 1970s and 1980s. A sub-variation is named after him. Last week was the 25th anniversary of his death. Dagobert Kohlmeyer pays tribute to the Soviet grandmaster.

Your Top Grandmaster analyses

9/3/2020 – The new ChessBase Magazine # 197 comes with two exciting "Specials". The first is the exclusive contribution by Anish Giri: the current number 10 in the world shows you his nine best games with the Italian. Top games with a cutting-edge opening, commented in detail by one of the strongest grandmasters in the world! Today, we offer you one of these nine analyses as a reading sample. Enjoy!
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Call for interest: Chess Olympiad 2022

9/3/2020 – The 2022 World Chess Olympiad in Minsk (Belarus), as well as a number of side events, are at risk after the current organizers failed to comply with their obligations. Unless the Minsk organizers meet their obligations in the upcoming days, FIDE will be forced to change the hosting country for the 2022 World Chess Olympiad and related events.

Donchenko and Saric share first place in Skalica

9/3/2020 – At the grandmaster tournament in Skalica, Slovakia, Alexander Donchenko and Ivan Saric shared first place on 7½ out of 9 points. While Saric finished undefeated with six wins and three draws, Donchenko, who incidentally was defeated by Saric in round 4, obtained seven wins, drew once and lost once. | Photos: Amruta Mokal / Sophie Nikoladze

Winning with the King’s Indian and our summer special!

9/2/2020 – The second-to-last week of our Summer Special has arrived, and we are offering yet another great DVD bundle, this time with Fritztrainers by Victor Bologan. The Moldovan grandmaster teaches us how to win with the King’s Indian attack, an opening which is very popular amongst several titled players. We have also added his DVD “King’s Indian: A modern approach”, where Bologan presents a full repertoire in over seven hours of instruction. To sum the bundle up, you will also get the opening’s 2019 Powerbook and Powerbase DVDs, with over 100,000 games. And finally, we add another signed-DVD raffle to all buyers!

Game of the Week: Dvirnyy vs. Shirov

9/2/2020 – In his “Game of the Week” show, Merijn van Delft looks at yet another impressive attacking effort by “Fire on Board” author Alexei Shirov! | 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: Lars OA Hedlund

Chess and Golf for amateurs during the pandemic

9/2/2020 – During the pandemic, in-person chess almost disappeared while golf survived relatively intact. In this article, WIM Alexey Root and her co-author, amateur golfer and US Chess Senior Tournament Director Reka Sztaray, compare golf and chess under COVID-19 restrictions, as well as discuss costs and team competitions in both sports.

Spanish Championship kicks off in Linares

9/2/2020 – The 2020 Spanish Championship 2020 is taking place in Linares, as an over-the-board tournament. 138 participants have registered to participate. It is a 9-round Swiss open, which will also serve to decide who becomes the 2020 Spanish Women’s champion. The games start at 17:00 CEST and can be followed live at Live.ChessBase.com | Photo: Patricia Claros (FEDA)

GoodEarth Online Blitz Open

9/2/2020 – The next Playchess Online Blitz Open is scheduled for Saturday September 5th 2020 at 4:30 p.m. European time. The tournament is sponsored by the Indian environment-friendly enterprise GoodEarth, and is organized by ChessBase India. There is a low entry fee — just €4 for international amateurs — and a total prize sum of €685 (US $815). Registration has started, the last date for registration is September 4th.

The Best in - Trinidad and Tobago

9/2/2020 – In our “The Best in” series, we already talked to talented players from the Bahamas and Aruba. This time around, we will explore another island from the Caribbean — Trinidad and Tobago. While Jasel Lopez stands out in Aruba, Alan-Safar Ramoutar is the best chess player in Trinidad and Tobago, as he recently surpassed the 2300 rating barrier! He started playing chess in 2015, and only five years later he is getting closer to his goal of reaching a 2700+ Elo rating.

September FIDE ratings

9/1/2020 – FIDE’s world ranking has mostly stagnated since the beginning of the corona crisis and the cessation of over-the-board tournaments, especially at the top level. The best in the world have been playing, but only unrated online rapid tournaments. Nevertheless, a few “real” tournaments have taken place lately. | Pictured: Luis Engel, winner of the German Individual Championship | Photo: Frank Hoppe

The Weekly Show: Czech Championships

9/1/2020 – In his weekly show IM Lawrence Trent talks about what has been going on in the chess world. Lawrence focuses on the Czech Championships, more specifically in a win by eventual champion David Navara, who obtained his tenth national title in Pilsen. | Lawrence’s show is available at 17:00 UTC (19:00 CEST, 13:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Official site