Clutch Chess International QF: Carlsen and So qualify to the semifinals

6/9/2020 – Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So are the first players to reach the semifinals of the Clutch Chess International Tournament. Carlsen had some trouble in the mid-part of his match against Jeffery Xiong, but recovered control after a crucial win in the third game of the day. Meanwhile, So delivered when it mattered the most, winning both “clutch games” of day two to beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave by a massive score. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Simon Says: Online games and thoughts about the Fajarowicz Variation

6/8/2020 – In this Simon Says I show you a couple of fun games that I have had online. We then look at a new opening that I have been trying, 'The Fajarowicz Variation'! | Watch 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).

Daniel King's Power Play Show: Dubov wins Lindores Abbey Challenge

6/8/2020 – In this Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King takes a look at what happened in the final of the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge. Daniil Dubov faced Hikaru Nakamura and after four interesting rapid games the match and the tournament was decided in the Armageddon play-off. | Photo: Daniil Dubov | Photo: Niki Riga

AVRO, Round 6: The World Champions lose

6/8/2020 – Three World Champions are competing in the 1938 AVRO tournament: José Raúl Capablanca, Max Euwe and Alexander Alekhine, the reigning World Champion. But in round 6 all three lost. Capablanca was outplayed by Paul Keres (pictured), Alekhine found no remedy against Reuben Fine's stubborn defense and lost in the endgame while Euwe was too optimistic against Samuel Reshevsky. Salo Flohr and Mikhail Botvinnik drew. With 5,5 out of 6, Fine is still the sole leader. | Photo: Paul Keres | Photo: Valter Heuer (Archive)

Riddle solved: Spielmann could have drawn!

6/8/2020 – The famous rook endgame Spielmann-Rubinstein is indeed amazingly deep, and all published analysis is incomplete or partly wrong. Most controversial was the question about which was Spielmann's last mistake. Charles Sullivan has solved this riddle and proved that with 60.Rc1! Spielmann could still have drawn. This is a challenge even for the modern engines, as an eight-piece rook ending with three against one pawn must be evaluated as a draw at the end of a critical line.

Clutch Chess International QF: Aronian and Caruana start strong

6/8/2020 – The international edition of the “Clutch Chess Champions Showdown” had its second day of action on Sunday. The second pair of quarterfinal matches saw Levon Aronian and Fabiano Caruana getting ahead on the scoreboard. Aronian is leading his matchup against Alexander Grischuk 5:3, while Caruana has a 5½:2½ lead over Leinier Dominguez. These confrontations are set to continue on Tuesday. | Photo: Cyrstal Fuller

Reginacide II: Jettisoning the Lady

6/7/2020 – Star columnist Jonathan Speelman continues looking at queen sacrifices — or “reginacides”. In this instalment, he analyzes two from his games and two from games played by Ding Liren. Not to be missed! | Painting by Abel de Pujol: "La mort de Marie Stuart", 1587

CBM 195: Boys will be boys!

6/7/2020 – ChessBase offers a window to the world of professional chess. The current issue offers a bird’s eye view of three major events, the Candidates 2020, the FIDE Women's Grand Prix and Moscow Aeroflot, 918 games, 11 opening surveys, demo lectures and exercises for training. It also includes games annotated by Boris Gelfand, Anish Giri and Romain Edouard, just to mention a few. Columnist Nagesh Havanur takes a look. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / FIDE

AVRO 1938, Round 5: Fine profits from his rivals’ draws

6/7/2020 – At the AVRO tournament in the Netherlands, the lead of the young American Reuben Fine over his closest rivals has increased further. Now that about a third of the games have been played, Fine has collected 4½ points, while World Champions Alexander Alekhine and Paul Keres are lagging behind with 3 points apiece in second place. In round five, Fine was the only one to score a win, while the game between Alekhine and Keres was drawn. | Pictured: Studios of the broadcasting company "AVRO" in Hilversum

Clutch Chess International QF: So grabs big lead

6/7/2020 – The “clutch chess” format returns a week after the four highest-rated players of the United States tried it out for the first time. With international players included now, the first pair of quarterfinal matches took place on Saturday. Six games were played in each confrontation, with the last two worth two points apiece. Wesley So grabbed a big lead over Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, while world champion Magnus Carlsen has a one-point advantage over Jeffery Xiong. | Photo: Justin Kellar

Chemo brain and chess: One master’s story

6/6/2020 – In 2011, Mike Walder had stage 4 inoperable stomach cancer and less than a 4% chance to survive for one more year. In 2014, he started playing chess again to counteract ‘chemo brain’, a term which describes the thinking and memory problems experienced by many chemotherapy patients. WIM Alexey Root interviews Walder about his two chess master roommates, losing chess rating points, and chemotherapy. | Pictured: Mike Walder (2019) | Photo: Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club

AVRO 1938, Round 4: Fine keeps the lead

6/6/2020 – After another win in the fourth round, this time against former world champion Max Euwe, 24-year-old Reuben Fine from New York (pictured) is still leading the standings table of the AVRO tournament in the Netherlands. Fine has collected 3½ points, and thus has a full-point advantage over World Champion Alexander Alekhine and Paul Keres.

Guess the movie: a chess movie film quiz (3)

6/6/2020 – We would like to invite you to another movie quiz. This time, we present four films in which a computer plays a minor or major role. The oldest film "2001: A Space Odyssey" is from 1968, the newest movie "Chess Computer" is 45 years older. In addition, we have the "The Thing" from 1982 and "Knight Moves", an erotic thriller. But do you know which still belongs to which film?

Alex Yermolinsky: My most memorable game

6/6/2020 – Life as a professional chess player can be tough. Alex Yermolinsky, a.k.a. ‘Yermo’, knows it all too well. In an unmissable edition of this new series, the Soviet-born American grandmaster tells the backstory surrounding an impressive attacking win over Veselin Topalov in Wijk aan Zee. Things were not going well for him, nor at the chessboard nor in life, but he pulled through: “Every line I calculated was going through my mind like a flash, with uncanny accuracy as well”. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club

Start chess in your late teens and become a grandmaster?

6/5/2020 – Today, young kids are becoming very strong very early and some even become grandmasters at the age of twelve and thirteen. They take to chess like a fledgling bird learning to fly. But can you start a serious chess career at the ripe old age of seventeen? Yes, you can, says one player, who managed just that. Let Shivananda tell you how this worked. Maybe you can do the same?!

AVRO 1938, Round 3: Alekhine and Botvinnik impress

6/5/2020 – Round 3 of the AVRO Tournament 1938 brought a number of remarkable games. Mikhail Botvinnik convincingly outplayed Samuel Reshevsky, and Alexander Alekhine showed against Max Euwe why he is considered to be one of the best attacking players in chess history. Reuben Fine and José Raúl Capablanca drew after both had missed good chances. With 2½/3 Fine continues to be sole first. | Photo: Alexander Aljechin

Anniversary Chess Match: Space – Earth

6/5/2020 – On June 9, a chess match between Space and Earth is scheduled to take place in the main hall of the Moscow Museum of Cosmonautics. The event is co-organized by the Moscow Museum of Cosmonautics, the Roscosmos State Corporation, and the Chess Federation of Russia. The match is timed precisely to celebrate the half-century anniversary of the first Space – Earth game of chess played on June 9, 1970. | Photos: Archives of the Moscow Museum of Cosmonautics and Chess in the USSR magazine

Do you have an eye for tactics? (1)

6/5/2020 – In the diagram position White played 36.Kh3 and after 36...Qd3 37.Kh4 Qc2 37.Kh3 the game ended in a draw. Trying to continue the fight with 36.h3? (instead of 36.Kh3) is not a good idea - do you see why?

Throwback Thursday: Anand shines at Amber Tournament 2005

6/5/2020 – A memorable and dearly missed event for chess fans — the Melody Amber Tournament took place each year since 1992 until 2011. In its fourteenth edition, Vishy Anand won both sections outright, blindfold and rapid. This was the second time a player managed to do it. But who was the first one to do it? Vishy himself! He achieved the same feat back in 1997.

Computer Chess: Longest-Running Experiment in Computing Science

6/4/2020 – On August 31, 1970, an experiment began that continues to this day. The first chess tournament for computers was held as part of the ACM’s National Conference. The interest generated was tremendous, leading to ACM sponsoring an annual event until 1994. Professor Jonathan Schaeffer has provided us with a retrospect of what it was like at this pioneering time, which was the beginning of a 50-year project to build a chess program capable of competing with (and, eventually exceeding the abilities of) strong human players. The experiment continues to this day and for the foreseeable future, he says.

Fast and Furious: Alekhine Defense Four Pawns Attack

6/4/2020 – This week Robert Ris takes a look at the Four Pawns Attack in the Alekhine Defense, a variation that can lead to fascinating positions. "Fast and Furious" is available from 17:00 UTC (19:00 CEST / 15:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

NEW: ChessBase Magazine Extra #195

6/4/2020 – The new ChessBase Magazine Extra #195 offers a lot of chess highlights, including a review by Ju Wenjun who talks about her narrow victory against Aleksandra Goryachkina in the last Women's World Championship match. Georgios Souleidis shows the power of the "Firouzja-Express" and opening surveys, endgame and middlegame columns and lots of other training materials help you to sharpen your game. A must for every serious chess player.

The best I saw in chess - by Stuart Rachels

6/4/2020 – In the early 1990s, International Master Stuart Rachels was one of the very best US chess players. He played games against Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Nigel Short, Anthony Miles and Boris Spassky, only to name a few. His chess adventures are funny, beautiful, interesting and honest. His book "The Best I Saw In Chess" which just came out, is a blast to read. We conducted an interview with Rachels about the book, the chess greats he met, his decision to quit chess and the ego of chess players. | Photos: Stuart Rachels

AVRO 1938, Round 2: Reuben Fine starts with 2.0/2

6/4/2020 – Reuben Fine started well into the AVRO tournament. After his win against Mikhail Botvinnik in round 1 Fine also defeated his old rival Samuel Reshevsky in round 2. Max Euwe outplayed Salo Flohr and scored the second win of the round. José Raúl Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine drew as did Paul Keres and Botvinnik. With 2.0/2 Fine is now sole leader. | Photo: Tartakower, Keres, Fine and Euwe analyse at the beach with a pocket chess set.