Attacking with opposite-coloured bishops

5/22/2020 – There are a few rules of thumb about opposite-coloured bishops, e.g. "in the middlegame, they favour the attacker" or "endgames with opposite-coloured bishops are difficult to win". But there are also guidelines how to attack in a middlegame with opposite-coloured bishops. In ChessBase Magazine #195 Mihail Marin shows how strong players handle opposite-coloured bishops in complex positions. Have a look!
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Fischer Random tournament on 23rd May 2020 on Playchess

5/22/2020 – After the successful online event on Playchess in April the Buddhibal Kreeda Trust (BKT) is back with another tournament. The tournament has a prize fund of ₹35000 and is a Fischer Random (Chess960) tournament. The first prize is ₹11000. With rating category prizes and prizes for women, it's a tournament you cannot afford to miss. It will take place on Saturday 23rd of May at 8 p.m. Indian Standard Time (16:30 CEST, 14:30 UTC, 09:30 EST) in Chess960 Tournaments in the "Thematic Chess" room on Playchess.com. Entry is FREE for GMs, IMs, WGMs and WIMs. For everyone else the entry fee is ₹300. Registration is on.

Lindores Abbey: On to the quarter-finals

5/21/2020 – Four players dropped out of the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge after the preliminary single round robin finished on Thursday. Alexander Grischuk was eliminated on tiebreaks despite getting a last-round win over Wei Yi. Wei, Alireza Firouzja and Jan-Krzysztof Duda are also out of contention. The round robin was won by Hikaru Nakamura, who collected 7½ points in 11 games. The quarter-finals kick off on Saturday. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Vladimir Jagr

Disaster

5/21/2020 – In the diagram position White's bishop a2 fires against the knight e6. The intermediate exchange 31...Rxd1 32.Rxd1 is still okay for Black, however, offering a second rook trade with 32...Rd8?? leads to disaster. Can you see why?

The old riddle of Botvinnik vs Fischer

5/21/2020 – Let us remind you: In 1958 the 15-year-old US champion Bobby Fischer had refused to play in the Munich Olympiad, because his demand for board one ahead of Samuel Reshevsky was rejected. After that Fischer represented the United States on first board at four Men's Chess Olympiads. In Varna, Bulgaria, he outplayed world champion Mikhail Botvinnik, and in a winning position blundered it to a draw. He left the hall with tears in his eyes. Can you help GM Karsten Müller to find the win that Fischer missed?

Your chess tutor with a double major in Economics and Statistics!

5/21/2020 – The biggest two problems that every beginner faces in a game of chess are - starting out right and not blundering pieces! Openings and Tactics are truly the two most essential cornerstones of becoming better at chess. And there is no one better than WGM Qiyu Zhou to be your trainer! Qiyu is not just a WGM and a former World Under-14 champion, she is also doing her double major in Economics and Statistics, with a minor in Mathematics from the University of Toronto. Zhou is an intelligent and charming presenter and if you are a beginner then these two DVDs are just what you need to improve at chess!

The Nihal Challenge

5/21/2020 – On Monday we gave you a very interesting, highly complex position to analyse: was the tempting queen sacrifice, that immediately strikes our eye, justified? Does it win, or simply hold a draw (which is otherwise available), or is it in fact a losing mistake. In crowd analysis no final conclusion was reached, so we turn to the author Sagar Shah for his assessment: a complex position that is objectively winning for White. Watch his comprehensive analysis of all aspects of the Nihal Challenge. You might learn a thing or two.

New York 1924, Round 17: Lasker extends lead

5/21/2020 – The field at the tournament in New York 1924 consists of eleven players, and in each round one player has a bye. This distorts the table but after 17 of 22 rounds, the situation at the top has cleared up. In round 17 Capablanca had the bye while Emanuel Lasker won with Black against Yates, and with 11½/17 Lasker is now sole first and 1½ points ahead of Capablanca, who is second with 10.0/17. Alekhine follows in third place with 9½/16. | Photo: Lower Manhattan

Lindores Abbey: Karjakin and Nakamura in the lead

5/21/2020 – No one scored more than 2½ points on day two of the Lindores Abbey Chess Challenge, as Hikaru Nakamura and Sergey Karjakin remain as co-leaders after round eight. Magnus Carlsen had a subpar performance, losing to Yu Yangyi and Jan-Krzysztof Duda, and is now sharing third place with Wesley So. In the fight to get a pass to the quarter-finals, Alireza Firouzja and Wei Yi will need to step up their game in the last three rounds of the preliminaries in order to stay in the tournament. | Photos: Georgios Souleidis / Amruta Mokal

Game of the Week: Carlsen vs Nakamura

5/20/2020 – In this show Merijn van Delft takes a look at the game between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura played at the Lindores Abbey Chess Challenge tournament. | 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.

New York 1924, Round 16: Dr. Lasker beats Reti!

5/20/2020 – Former World Champion Dr. Emanuel Lasker is back in shape. In round 14 of the tournament in New York he suffered a bitter defeat against Capablanca, in round 15 he had a bye, but now, in round 16, he convincingly won against Reti and his hypermodern opening 1.Nf3. After this victory Dr. Lasker has 10½/14 and is again sole first. In the other games of the round a lot of chances were missed.

Riddle solved: Fischer was winning!

5/20/2020 – The endgame of the fourth game of the famous Fischer-Taimanov candidates match Vancouver 1971 left an intriguing puzzle. Was the adjourned position already lost or was Taimanov's 42th move, played after the adjournment session, a decisive mistake? We asked our readers to help settle the historical debate. And they helped our endgame expert GM Karsten Müller to settle the question.

Lindores Abbey: Four leaders after day one

5/20/2020 – The four first rounds of the Lindores Abbey Chess Challenge were played on Tuesday, and four players are sharing the lead on 3 points. Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura won with white and drew with black, Wesley So also won two despite playing three times with black, while Sergey Karjakin won three games and lost one. The twelve-player round-robin that continues until Thursday will eliminate the bottom four before the knockout kicks off after a rest day. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

The Weekly Show: Mir Sultan Khan

5/19/2020 – In his weekly show IM Lawrence Trent takes a look at the games of Mir Sultan Khan, the FIDE Online Steinitz Memorial and other planned online tournaments. | 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.

Long-distance chess

5/19/2020 – The whole chess community plays only online. The whole chess community? No. Five brave players from Vienna met in a park to play a tournament. In strict adherence to the Covid-19 rules. Stefan Löffler was one of the players.| Photos: Joe Wallner

A tricky knight

5/19/2020 – Knights can fork king and queen but in endgames they are often helpless against king and pawn. Knights often seem to be slow but then they suddenly catch pawns that are close to queening. No wonder knight endings are tricky - and often fun.

New York 1924, Round 15: Five games - five wins

5/19/2020 – Round 15 of the New York Tournament 1924 was a lively affair and the spectators in the Hotel Alamac saw five wins. Capablanca won against Janowsky, the strategist Reti was defeated by the tactician Marshall, Alekhine won against Yates, Bogoljubow outplayed Tartakower in the endgame and Maroczy defeated Edward Lasker. Emanuel Lasker had a bye and with 8½/13 he now shares first with Capablanca who has 8½/14.

Become a Chess Puzzle Guru

5/19/2020 – The acronym “AMA” stands for “American Medical Association” or “Ask Me Anything.” Another AMA acronym means “Ask Me Another,” a National Public Radio show featuring Puzzle Gurus. National Master Jeff Ashton is an aspiring Puzzle Guru, selecting and creating chess puzzles for his students. WIM Alexey Root shares Ashton’s efforts.

The Nihal Challenge

5/18/2020 – Here's a very interesting analysis task for you during this lock-in days: imagine you have reached a fairly complex position where you spot a beautiful queen sacrifice. Before you play it you have to analyse all the lines, in your mind, and come to the conclusion whether it wins, holds a draw or loses. Try it with our challenge position. You can move pieces on the analysis board, but must not consult an engine. Have fun, test your analysis skills.

Simon Says: Improve your Attacking Play

5/18/2020 – In this Simon Says we will look at some typical attacking patterns and test you in some complex situations. Attacking is, after all, one of the most exciting aspects of chess! | 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).

Guess the movie: a chess movie film quiz (2)

5/18/2020 – As we promised in our last article, we now proceed to another round of guessing the movie stills. This time we take a look at films which are exclusively from the 1960s. The films are "From Russia with Love", "The Fire Within", "Becket" and "The Thomas Crown Affair". Once again, you are very welcome to participate in our little movie guessing quiz, where you have to guess which chess board still is from which movie.

New York 1924, Round 14: Capablanca wins against Dr. Lasker!

5/18/2020 – Capablanca against Lasker, that was the top encounter of the 14th round of the tournament in New York 1924. The game was exciting, but the circumstances were even more dramatic. Lasker lost and afterwards claimed that the clock had a defect. However, tournament director Norbert Lederer said that the clock was fine but Lasker had forgotten to press the button to stop his clock from running. A bitter controversy ensued. | Photo: Capablanca (left) and Lasker at a previous occasion (Photo: media2-web.britannica)

Carlsen and Lagno win FIDE Online Steinitz Memorial

5/18/2020 – Kateryna Lagno and Magnus Carlsen won the FIDE Online Steinitz Memorial in the women's and open sections respectively. Lagno defeated Lei Tingjie in the Armageddon tiebreaker after both finished the tournament on 12 out of 18. Carlsen scored the same amount of points, but in his case that was enough to secure tournament victory with a round to spare. | Photos: David Llada / Lennart Ootes

Reginacide: The art and the pleasure of sacrificing your queen

5/17/2020 – Our author looks at three games that included a queen sacrifice ('reginacide' means 'the murder of the queen'), and shows a particular case in which a "mad rook" can be neutralized. | Send in your own games! | Jon welcomes submissions from readers. If your games are selected for the Agony column, not only will you get free detailed commentary of your games by one of chess’s great authors and instructors, and former world no. 4 player, but you also win a free three-month ChessBase Premium Account!