Learning Chess The Easy Way

6/25/2020 – Chess is fun and chess should be fun! But a lot of people do not have particularly fond memories of their first steps in chess. Andy Trattner knows how to teach beginners and he has a few ideas how to make chess fun from the very beginning. | Photos: Andrew Trattner

Johannes Haug wins Offerspill Invitational

6/25/2020 – The Offerspill Chess Club organized an over-the-board 9-round Swiss tournament as soon as the Norwegian coronavirus-related restrictions allowed them to do so. Four GMs and eight IMs participated in the 30-player closed event. IM Johannes Haug was the clear winner after scoring 7 points. IM Linus Johansson and GM Frode Urkedal finished second and third respectively. | Photo: Offerspill Sjakklubb

Game of the Week: Dubov vs Artemiev

6/24/2020 – In times when modern top players all have a fairly universal style, it is fascinating to see Daniil Dubov at work – he clearly has his own style. His game against Vladislav Artemiev at the Chessable Masters, in which he brought no less than three positional sacrifices, is perfect study material for Merijn van Delft's "Game of the Week". | Merijn's show is available at 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Bamberg 1968, Round 2: Missed opportunities

6/24/2020 – The second round of the Jubilee Tournament in Bamberg was a round of missed opportunities. Unzicker had good chances against World Champion Petrosian but then was content with a draw. Keres was lucky to draw against Bobotsov, and Kestler missed a win against Teufel. The only winner of the round was Szabo who defeated Dückstein. | Photo: Michelsberg

The Chess Handshake Challenge

6/24/2020 – How far away are you from the World Champion, in terms of handshakes? Have you shaken hands with someone who has shaken hands with him? How far from Boris Spassky? Capablanca? Morphy? Here's this week's challenge: try to find the shortest handshake chain from you to the most famous chess players you can think of. There's a prize for the most impressive submission.

Guess the movie: a chess movie film quiz (4)

6/24/2020 – Part 4 of the "Chess Movies Film Quiz" presents four movies that were released between 1999 and 2001. A comedy/parody (Austin Powers - 1999), a drama (Bicentennial Man - 1999), a film that is very much about chess (The Luzhin Defence - 2000), and the screen adaptation of J.K. Rowling's novel "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". The novel appeared in 1997, the film in 2001.

Chessable Masters: Twists and turns

6/24/2020 – Anish Giri, Ding Liren, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana reached the quarterfinals of the Chessable Masters. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Teimour Radjabov were eliminated from the competition — ‘MVL’ lost four in a row on Tuesday while Radjabov played well but could not recover from his subpar performance in the first half. Caruana is set to face Magnus Carlsen in the most anticipated matchup of the quarterfinals. | Photo: Austin Fuller

The Weekly Show: Carlsen takes revenge

6/23/2020 – In his weekly show IM Lawrence Trent takes a look at the highlights of day 3 of the Chessable Masters, with a particular focus on the brilliant performance by Carlsen vs Dubov in Round 9. | Lawrence' 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: Lennart Ootes (Archive)

Bamberg 1968, Round 1: Keres wins against Schmid

6/23/2020 – World Champion Tigran Petrosian and Paul Keres, since more than thirty years one of the world's best players, are favourites to win in Bamberg. Both started well: in round one Petrosian won with Black against Laszlo Szabo while Keres won with White against Lothar Schmid, for many a secret favourite to win the event. | Photo: The town hall of Bamberg (Pixabay)

Getting the most out of ChessBase 15: a step-by-step guide #6 – UCI Engines

6/23/2020 – Chess engines like Fritz 17 and Komodo 14 can be easily used within ChessBase 15, thanks to something called UCI. It may sound complicated at first, but is actually incredibly simple. Adding UCI engines to ChessBase 15 is a straightforward process, and Nick Murphy shows you how to do it.

53rd Biel International Chess Festival

6/23/2020 – The organizers in Biel were confident that they would be able to hold the 53rd Chess Festival this year as planned. In a press release they now confirm that the event will indeed take place. From 18 to 29 July 2020 the tournament will be played in the Biel Congress House. Time to register!

New: Nicholas Pert - An attacking Repertoire with 1.d4

6/23/2020 – The third volume of Nicholas Pert's 1.d4 repertoire concludes his trilogy. Pert shows how White can get promising positions against the King's Indian and the Grünfeld, how White can counter offbeat openings by Black, and he also offers comprehensive analysis how to fight the Dutch, the Modern and the Pirc.

Kingside killer pawns

6/23/2020 – Passed pawns can be powerful, especially in the ending, and pawn majorities allow you to create passed pawns. Therefore, having a far advanced pawn majority is often a big advantage.

Chessable Masters: Dubov barely knocked out

6/23/2020 – In Group A of the Chessable Masters preliminary round-robin, Daniil Dubov was sharing the lead after 8 (out of 10) rounds, but back-to-back losses against Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura left him out of the competition. Pentala Harikrishna was also eliminated, as Vladislav Artemiev, Carlsen, Nakamura and Alexander Grischuk moved on to the quarterfinals. | Photo: Abu Dhabi Masters Tournament

The International Tournament in Bamberg starts!

6/22/2020 – On the occasion of its 100th anniversary, the SC Bamberg, founded in 1868, has organized a large international chess tournament. The best German players meet top players from all over the world, among them Paul Keres and World Champion Tigran Petrosian. Transmission of the games start at 18.00 local time (14:00 UTC, 10:00 EDT).

Simon Says: Brilliancies and Blindness at the Chessable Masters

6/22/2020 – In this "Simon Says" Simon looks at the latest games from the Chessable Masters. He takes a look at the highlights and lowlights from the first six rounds and throws a glance at a curious case of "Chess Blindness", an illness most chess players know, and for which Dr. Tarrasch even coined a Latin term. | Watch "Simon Says" for free and on-demand (for a limited time, or forever with a ChessBase Premium account). (Normally 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST / 12 Noon EST). | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Koneru Humpy – public and private

6/22/2020 – In 2014 she married Anvesh, in 2017 she gave birth to baby Ahana. Then, after protracted maternity leave, Indian grandmaster Humpy returned to chess with a vengeance and has risen back to second place in the world women's rankings. Now she is poised to qualify for the Candidates. Elisabeth Pähtz portrays this extraordinary player, analyzing her games and telling us how Humpy is dealing with the strict lockdown in her country.

Chessable Masters: A tight race in Group B

6/22/2020 – The first half of the Chessable Masters Group B preliminary round-robin was played on Sunday. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Anish Giri are sharing first place after five rounds, with 3 points each. Three players stand a half point behind on fifty percent, while Teimour Radjabov is in desperate need of wins in the second half if he wants to reach the quarterfinals. Four out of six players will move on to the knockout phase. | Photo: Justin Kellar

Metamorphosis: The promotion of passed pawns

6/21/2020 – Jonathan Speelman explores an overriding aim in most endgames — the promotion of passed pawns. He explains: “One could see this as a form of parthenogenesis, as the piece (like Athena from Zeus's head) springs fully formed onto the board, sadly and inevitably killing the pawn in the process”.

Chessable Masters: Artemiev leads Group A

6/21/2020 – Vladislav Artemiev kicked off the first day of the preliminaries with two whites and two wins at the Chessable Masters. He drew the remaining three games of the day to finish in the sole lead with 3½ points. The winner of the previous event of the ‘Magnus Carlsen Tour’, Daniil Dubov, is in sole second place a half point behind — the Russian defeated Magnus Carlsen in round 4. | Photo: Patricia Claros Aguilar

"Online chess is the way to go" - The Times of India interviews Anish Giri

6/20/2020 – As the Chessable Masters is about to begin, Anish Giri talked to the Times of India about the future of online chess. The Dutch star thinks that "all the positive things that happened to chess online (like the tournament and twitch and youtube streamers) are there to stay". | Photo: FIDE

Kramnik for The Mind Behind: “I’m not a sportsman by nature”

6/20/2020 – Earlier this week, former world champion Vladimir Kramnik was interviewed by Tania Sachdev for Red Bull's series ‘The Mind Behind’. Among other subjects, the Russian talked about how he is coping with the lockdown, his biggest chess influence as a kid, his main strength as a competitor and his favourite world championship match to date. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Daniel King's Power Play Show: Can Hikaru Nakamura win the Chessable Masters?

6/19/2020 – In this Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King will present an interesting endgame and a problem by Sam Loyd. But he will also look at the current form of Hikaru Nakamura who hopes to win the Chessable Masters, the next Magnus Carlsen Tour event will start tomorrow, Saturday, June 20. | 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: Lennart Ootes

What to do against 1.d4

6/19/2020 – Some players have difficulties to find a solid repertoire against 1.d4. IM Sagar Shah, founder and CEO of ChessBase India, has some advice. In his series "Improve your chess openings" on the YouTube channel of ChessBase India, he takes a look at a number of different openings. Here's an example you can replay in full: A repertoire for Black against 1.d4, based on the Nimzo-Indian. The session is an hour and a half long, and completely free. Try it and get better!