Grandmaster Chef: Judit Polgár

7/23/2020 – At her peak rating in 2005, Grandmaster Judit Polgár was ranked number 8 in the world. Although she retired from competing in August of 2014, Judit promotes chess through her Global Chess Festival and serves as Honorary FIDE Vice-President. To show appreciation for Judit on her 44th birthday, this article has a recipe for a dessert, which could serve as her birthday cake. WIM Alexey Root and her co-author WGM Sabina Foisor are former U.S. Women’s Chess Champions. | Pictured: Judit showing Shirov-Polgár (1994) to her children Oliver and Hannah | Photo: Bela Doka, 2012

Game of the Week: Ivanchuk beats Leko with the King’s Gambit

7/22/2020 – In his “Game of the Week” show Merijn van Delft looks at a brilliant win by Vasyl Ivanchuk. In a must-win situation, the Ukrainian genius defeated Peter Leko with the seldom seen King’s Gambit! | 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: sunwaychessfestival.com

Biel: Keymer starts with a brilliant victory

7/22/2020 – Vincent Keymer shows his enthusiasm and hunger for success at the Biel Chess Festival. He ended yesterday’s opening round with a victory over the Spaniard David Anton. Arkadij Naiditsch also won his game. Sebastian Siebrecht reports. | Photos: Simon Bohnenblust

Active vs. the Catalan!

7/22/2020 – The Catalan is a tough nut to crack. Lars Schandoff's article on the opening, included in ChessBase Magazine #196, challenges the solid setup with a fine solution — activity! Deviating from the practice of elite Grandmasters, he suggests a "more entertaining variation" with 5...a6 and the risky 6...Nc6!? Exciting and recommended to everyone who is not satisfied with playing for a draw when having the black pieces!

Checkmate the virus!

7/22/2020 – That's what the chess club in Marburg, Germany, intended when they submitted a video clip for the city initiative to combat the covid pandemic. The three-minute clip was made by quantum physicist and string theorist Vera Spillner, who is a member of the club. It gives chess fans an insight into the game and into club life during Corona, with a clever move, checkmate, included. Vera's video is the first of a series.

Legends of Chess: Carlsen, Svidler and Gelfand start strong

7/22/2020 – Magnus Carlsen picked up where he left off in the last tournament of his own series, as he convincingly defeated Anish Giri in the first round of the ‘Legends of Chess’ tournament. The biggest surprise of the day came from Boris Gelfand, who obtained a clean victory over world number three Ding Liren. Besides Carlsen and Gelfand, Peter Svidler was the one other player to win without needing tiebreaks. | Photo: Ritvo Photography

Biel: The Special Corona Amateur Tournament has begun

7/21/2020 – Following the Rapid Tournament, the Grandmasters were allowed to enjoy a rest day. The open tournament, limited to 150 players due to the corona crisis, kicked off on Monday. Sebastian Siebrecht sent a report. | Photos: Simon Bohnenblust

Anna Ushenina wins FIDE Women’s Speed Chess Championship

7/21/2020 – Anna Ushenina (Ukraine) became the winner of the Women’s Speed Championship. In a dramatic Super Final that was decided in the last bullet game, she defeated the reigning European Blitz Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk 14½:13½. | Photo: David Llada

High-level meeting at the UN: “Chess for recovering better”

7/21/2020 – The virtual meeting between the United Nations and FIDE on the occasion of the International Chess Day was held on July 20. Top chess personalities and representatives of the U.N. gathered to exchange views and insights to strengthen the productive collaboration. Top chess grandmasters present at the meeting, Viswanathan Anand, Hou Yifan, Vladimir Kramnik and Levon Aronian, shared the valuable insights into the abilities and life lessons that chess taught them.

The right exchange

7/21/2020 – This is a crucial question in chess. After all, once pieces have been exchanged they can never return. There are times when you need to keep them on the board, and others when you need to part with them at once. Yet another instructive lesson by endgame specialist Karsten Muller.

Legends of Chess with star-studded lineup

7/21/2020 – The fourth tournament of the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour kicks off on July 21. As the name indicates, the “Legends of Chess” online event will include six illustrious players from the previous generation — Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Vassily Ivanchuk, Boris Gelfand, Peter Leko and Peter Svidler. The legends will be joined by Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren, Anish Giri and Ian Nepomniachtchi. Not to be missed!

Simon Says: Resilience pays off in Leon

7/20/2020 – In this "Simon Says", Simon looks at the Masters section of the Chess Festival in Leon, Spain. Since he was giving commentary for the official website, we get to enjoy a number of insights from the very strong rapid tournament that was played online this year. | 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: Georgios Souleidis

The Chess Personality Test

7/20/2020 – Tell me who you are, and I tell you which opening you should learn. I once made a similar personality study in my chess course on Skillshare and received a lot of nice comments about how fun it was. What better day to share a similar test than International Chess Day? Keep in mind, the whole test shouldn't be taken too seriously. It should be fun to think about yourself and what kind of openings you prefer to play, that's all. | Photos: Pixabay

Four excellent reads to celebrate International Chess Day

7/20/2020 – FIDE has been celebrating International Chess Day on the 20th of July since 1966. To commemorate this date, we have chosen four articles that remind us why we have made of this game such an important part of our lives. An astounding move made by a 13-year-old Bobby Fischer, Vlastimil Hort reminiscing on his encounters with David Bronstein, a Mexican author comparing chess with poetry and a useful piece of advice by an extraordinary player. Happy International Chess Day!

Biel: Wojtaszek dominates the Rapid

7/20/2020 – The first discipline of the ‘Grandmaster Triathlon’, the rapid section, was played on Sunday at the International Chess Festival in Biel. The best player in the 15'+5" tournament was Radoslaw Wojtaszek, who in the end only drew two games and won the rest to get a 6/7 score. Vincent Keymer had another strong performance, as he finished third with 5 points, behind Pentala Harikrishna who obtained the same amount of points but had a better tiebreak score. | Photos: Official website

Andrey Esipenko gets spot in Leon Masters 2021

7/20/2020 – The 33rd edition of the ‘Magistral de Ajedrez Ciudad de León’ has come to an end. The last event of the festival was the ‘1st Tournament for Young Talents’, which was won by rating favourite Andrey Esipenko, who defeated Alexey Sarana in the six-game final. The 18-year-old Russian thus gained a spot in next year’s main event. | Photo: Niki Riga

The Cockroach’s Carapace (and other opening disasters)

7/19/2020 – Remembrances of his first chess books, analysis of a World Championship game, backstories from a Candidates Match and a ‘squashed’ Caro-Kann are all part of the latest column by Jonathan Speelman. The former world number four confesses: “Opening theory has never been my thing, and I was perhaps lucky to be active at a time when it was much less essential”. | Photo: David Llada

Biel: Naiditsch to replace Salem, Harikrishna wins Chess960 event

7/19/2020 – The Biel Chess Festival kicked off on Saturday with the ACCENTUS Chess960 tournament, but not without setbacks, as grandmaster Salem Saleh could not make it to Switzerland from the UAE. The organizers reacted quickly and got late replacements Alexander Donchenko and Arkadij Naiditsch. Donchenko arrived in Biel for the Chess960 event, while Naiditsch will be playing the ‘triathlon’ that starts on Sunday. Pentala Harikrishna won the Chess960 single round-robin tournament. | Photos: Official site

I just wanna call you GM: US Chess Opens with norm opportunities

7/18/2020 – The National Open in September and four other norm-opportunity Opens between December of 2020 and July of 2021 appear ready for offline chess competition. In this article, WIM Alexey Root and her son William share success stories from past Opens and dreams of norms to come.

Teach someone how to play chess on #InternationalChessDay

7/18/2020 – International Chess Day will be celebrated next week, on July 20th, a date that also marks FIDE’s 96th anniversary. The International Chess Federation has a simple but ambitious plan: we want to make an appeal to the members of our chess community and ask you to teach someone how to play chess to mark this day.

Robert Ris: My most memorable game

7/18/2020 – Half his life he has spent teaching chess to players of all ages, especially young talents, and his success as a trainer has a lot to do with the fact that he himself was successful in his teens. In his ‘most memorable game’, Robert Ris analyzes the win that gave him tournament victory at the U20 Dutch Open when he was just 14 years old!

Daniel King’s Power Play Show: Spassky attacks - Part II

7/17/2020 – In this Power Play Show, Grandmaster Daniel King continues to look at attacking games by Boris Spassky, World Champion from 1969 to 1972, who was a universal player with a keen sense for the attack and tactical ideas. | 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: Herbert Behrens / Anefo; / CC BY-SA 3.0 NL

Tani's dreams

7/17/2020 – His full name is Tanitoluwa Emmanuel Adewumi, Tani for short, and he was a Nigerian refugee living in a homeless shelter in Manhattan, USA. There Tani discovered his affinity for chess, and at the age of nine his goal is to become the world’s youngest grandmaster – something the Covid pandemic is making it very difficult to achieve. Watch this inspiring CBS report.

Nihal's Birthday Challenge

7/17/2020 – Last Monday one of our favourite chess prodigies Nihal Sarin celebrated his 16th birthday – not by enjoying a nice evening with family and friends. Nihal is no ordinary youngster! He is a full GM and rated 2620! On his birthday Nihal decided to spend roughly around an hour and a half with ChessBase India solving sixteen positions that IM Sagar Shah had handpicked for him! You can watch him doing it, and join him in his efforts. There is a lot to learn.