Chess for the homeless

2/6/2021 – Every Monday and Wednesday, a chess workshop takes place at the “Centro Vida de Cáritas Diocesana”, a centre for homeless people in the Spanish city of Coria-Cáceres. For eight consecutive years the workshop has been organized thanks to an agreement between Cáritas and the Club “Magic Extremadura Deportivo-Social”. Juan Antonio Montero and Ainoa Jiménez share an encouraging, inspiring story.

Salamanca Masters - Results and games

2/6/2021 – The Salamanca Chess Festival is taking place on 2-6 February at the Colegio Mayor de Fonseca, a historical edifice founded over five centuries ago, in 1519. The main event is an 8-player rapid tournament including an equal number of male and female representatives — Veselin Topalov, David Antón, Alexei Shirov, Eduardo Iturrizaga, Elisabeth Paehtz, Almira Skripchenko, Nurgyul Salimova and Sabrina Vega. The action kicks off at 16.00 CET

Salamanca: Shirov beats Skripchenko to grab the sole lead

2/6/2021 – An eventful fifth round in Salamanca left Alexei Shirov as the sole leader of the single round robin tournament. In typical style, Shirov went all in for a kingside attack — which the engines evaluated as unsound — to take down Almira Skripchenko. Former co-leader Veselin Topalov, in the meantime, was defeated by Eduardo Iturrizaga. Expert analysis by GM Karsten Müller. | Photos: Official site

The Opera Euro Rapid Tournaments starts on Saturday

2/5/2021 – On Saturday, February 6, the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour continues. 16 top players will start in the Opera Euro Rapid to fight for a prize pool of $100,000. Title sponsor is the Norwegian company "Opera Software", number one seed is Magnus Carlsen. All rounds begin at 11:00 AM ET, 5:00 PM CET, 9:30 IST.

Daniel King’s Power Play Show: Tata Steel tactics test

2/5/2021 – In this Power Play Show, GM Daniel King looks back to Wijk aan Zee and offers a "Tata Steel tactics test". Do you see what the grandmasters saw or did not see? | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, 13:00 ET). All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer.

Salamanca: Shirov and Topalov in the lead

2/5/2021 – Veterans Alexei Shirov and Veselin Topalov are sharing the lead at the Salamanca Masters, taking place this week as an over-the-board rapid tournament. David Antón and Eduardo Iturrizaga are trailing the leaders a half point behind and are yet to face the Bulgarian. Only round 5 will be played on Friday, while the tournament will come to an end on Saturday. | Photos: Official site

Light cavalry

2/5/2021 – White's 8.Nh3?? in the diagram position (which according to the Mega Database occurred in the first recorded game that started with the moves 1.e4 Nf6) allowed Napoleon to finish in style - don't hold your horses!

Chess Hero Lukasz Nowak

2/5/2021 – We guarantee you have never seen anything like this in you life! Or even thought it possible. This young lad, who is struck with spinal muscular atrophy in its severest form, has found his talent in chess, where he shows Tal-like brilliance. Sagar Shah interviewed him live, and discussed his games with this incredibly brave person. Be prepared to be deeply inspired – like the viewers who watched the interview live.

Robert Ris' Fast and Furious: Jorden van Foreest with Black

2/4/2021 – In this week's show, well-known Dutch trainer Robert Ris takes a look at some of the powerful opening ideas that helped Jorden van Foreest to win the Tata Steel Tournament in Wijk aan Zee. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Salamanca: Topalov and Salimova start strong

2/4/2021 – Four men and four women are playing at the Masters Tournament in Salamanca. Bulgarians Veselin Topalov and Nurgyul Salimova had a perfect start on day 1, as they scored back-to-back victories to take the lead in the standings table. | Photos: Official site

Chess in films: Anna, the chess playing assassin

2/4/2021 – Chess has always been a popular theme in films. French director Luc Besson uses it in his latest film "Anna", an action movie released in 2019. Anna Poliatova, the main character of the film, is an excellent chess player, but unlike Beth Harmon in "The Queen's Gambit", she fails to have a successful tournament career but instead works as an assassin. | Photos: Studiocanal

Capablanca's student: María Teresa Mora Iturralde

2/4/2021 – The success of “The Queen’s Gambit” inspired a lot of comparisons between real chess players and Beth Harmon, the hero of the Netflix series. This in turn led to plenty of stories about women players from the previous century. One such player was María Teresa Mora Iturralde, the only student José Raúl Capablanca ever had, and the first woman to win the Copa Dewar, the equivalent of the Cuban National Championship. | Photo: Source https://www.ecured.cu/Mar%C3%ADa_Teresa_Mora_Iturralde

Game of the Week: A. Giri vs R. Wojtaszek

2/3/2021 – This week Merijn van Delft again looks back to the Tata Steel Tournament 2021 in Wijk aan Zee and analyses how Anish Giri managed to squeeze a nice win out of a seemingly equal position against Radoslaw Wojtaszek. | Merijn's show is available at 16.00 UTC (17:00 CET, 12:00 EDT) and on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit – Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2021

The hosts of the next match for the crown: Expo 2020 in Dubai

2/3/2021 – The International Chess Federation recently announced the new dates for the next World Championship match, in which Magnus Carlsen will face the winner of the Candidates Tournament. It was confirmed, as well, that the match will be held at Expo 2020 in Dubai. What is this event all about? Let us recap how we got to this point.

New - CBM EXTRA 199

2/3/2021 – In CBM Extra 199 we have detailed analyses, tactics and more from e.g. Jan Werle, Surya Ganguly, Mihail Marin and Adhiban Baskaran. The whole package is complemented by over 44000 newly played games in our update service. ChessBase Magazine Extra is the perfect complement to ChessBase Magazine. Available as a single issue or by subscription (6 issues per year). Available on DVD or as a download.

Salamanca Chess Festival with Topalov, Shirov and Antón

2/2/2021 – The Salamanca Chess Festival will be held on 2-6 February at the Colegio Mayor de Fonseca, a historical edifice founded over five centuries ago, in 1519. The main event will be an 8-player single round robin rapid tournament including an equal number of male and female representatives — Veselin Topalov, David Antón, Alexei Shirov, Eduardo Iturrizaga, Elisabeth Paehtz, Almira Skripchenko, Nurgyul Salimova and Sabrina Vega. | Pictured: Leontxo García giving a lecture in Salamanca (2019)

Masterminds: Chess Prodigies - An exhibtion of the World Chess Hall of Fame

2/2/2021 – "Masterminds: Chess Prodigies" is an exhibition that tells the stories of notable chess phenoms including Bobby Fischer, Magnus Carlsen and the Polgar sisters. Through photographs, videos and mementos of important chess matches and tournaments from the collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame, visitors will learn more about these talented young players as well as their later accomplishments. The exhibition will also highlight the achievements of players who took up the game later in life and still made a mark on the world of chess. Virtual tours of the exhibition are available.

The Weekly Show: Highlights from Wijk

2/2/2021 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent will summarise the action at the Tata Steel Tournament, with a focus on the fantastic last-round game between Jorden van Foreest and Nils Grandelius that helped van Foreest to win the tournament. Lawrence's show is available at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, 12:00 ET) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Nico Zwirs: The flexible Panov – a weapon against the Caro-Kann

2/2/2021 – The Caro-Kann is one of the most solid and respected responses against 1.e4. Since it is so solid, the Caro-Kann is an absolute brainteaser for most 1.e4 players. If you like sharp and attacking lines against this solid opening, but the 3.Nc3 and 3.e5 lines are too theoretical and too explored for you, then the Panov is definitely the solution!

Tata Steel 2021: Winners and Losers

2/2/2021 – Magnus Carlsen has won the Tata Steel tournament seven times, more than any other player. But the tournament in 2021 was a disappointment for the World Champion. He finished with 7½/13, but he was not happy about his play and lost 15.3 rating points. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave fared even worse - he lost more than 26 points, twice as much as Jan-Krzyszof Duda (-13). Rating winners in Wijk are Jorden van Foreest (+ 30), Andrey Esipenko (+24), Anish Giri (+12), and Alireza Firouzja (+10).

Fighting knights

2/2/2021 – Knight endings are often tricky and both sides have to calculate precisely. In the diagram position Black has to make a difficult decision: should he try to advance and to queen the f-pawn or should he catch White's a-pawn and convert the kingside pawns later? What would you do?

Tiviakov: Realizing an Advantage

2/2/2021 – You gain a good positon in a game. That's great, but how can you "realize" your advantage, how can you increase it, what should you focus on, how should you think about the advantage you have gained. That is what this Fritztrainer is about, with many instructive thoughts, ideas and plans pointed out by Grandmaster Sergei Tiviakov, who is a renowned chess trainer and teacher. Review with examples by Mattis Trätmar.

Wijk aan Zee Storytellers (5) - Loek van Wely

2/1/2021 – In the fifth and last episode of the "Wijk aan Zee Storytellers" podcast Eric van Reem talks to his compatriot Loek van Wely. "KingLoek" played 25 times in Wijk and 297 games in group A, only Dutch Grandmaster Jan Hein Donner can boast of more. In the podcast van Wely talks about his first tournament, where he played in group B and lost to all three Polgar sisters, the soccer games on the restdays, the rivalry between the Dutch players, and what the Netflix series "The Queen's Gambit" has to do with Wijk and himself. | Photo: Magnus Carlsen (left) and Loek van Wely (right) during an intense soccer match. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

Daniel King presents highlights from Wijk aan Zee 2021

2/1/2021 – The Tata Steel Tournament 2021 in Wijk aan Zee ended with a dramatic finish. In a nerve-wrecking Armageddon game Jorden van Foreest won the all-Dutch tiebreak against Anish Giri. Daniel King takes a look at this tie-break and other highlights from the last rounds of the Wijk aan Zee Tournament 2021.