4/23/2020 – The protagonists of the 2018 World Championship match faced each other in round three of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational. Carlsen played his best chess of the event thus far to beat Fabiano Caruana 3:1 and take the sole lead in the standings table. In the other match of the day, Hikaru Nakamura defeated Alireza Firouzja after a disconnect in game one apparently upset the youngster's concentration. Round-up show by GM Daniel King. | Photo: Official site

4/22/2020 – This week Merijn van Delft takes a look at a game Alireza Firouzja played against Magnus Carlsen at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational to judge the strength of the 16-year old who currently has an Elo of 2728 and is number 21 in the world. | You can register a Premium account here. 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.

4/22/2020 – "Queen of Chess" is documentary about Judit Polgar and Garry Kasparov that is scheduled for release at the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022. In six episodes the documentary tells the story of the encounters and battles between Judit Polgar, the greatest female chess player of all time, and Garry Kasparov, who many consider the best male player of all time. In an interview with ChessBase Peter Stern, the producer of "Queen of Chess", reveals details about the project and his passion for chess.

4/22/2020 – Round 13 of the 2. Tournament of Peace in Rovinj/Zagreb was very peaceful. Eight games ended in draw, five of them before move thirty. The only win of the round was scored by Dragoljub Minic who was lucky when Wolfgang Uhlmann blundered in time trouble. After 13 of 17 rounds Bobby Fischer leads with 10½/13 (+9, =3, -1), two points behind follow Viktor Kortschnoi and Svetozar Gligoric. | Photo: Bobby Fischer in round 12.

4/22/2020 – Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi won their round-two matches in sudden death at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational. Both of them did it after winning their fourth rapid encounters on demand. Caruana defeated Ding Liren, while Nepomniachtchi took down Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. With two rounds completed, Caruana is sharing the lead with Magnus Carlsen on five points — incidentally, the co-leaders will face each other on Wednesday. Round-up show by GM Yannick Pelletier | Photo: Official site

4/21/2020 – In his weekly show IM Lawrence Trent takes a look at some of the games Magnus Carlsen and Alireza Firouzja played against each other at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational 2020. | Lawrence' show is available at 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST, 12 Noon EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

4/19/2020 – In the past few years, the Caro-Kann Exchange Variation 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.c3 has become increasingly popular. And White may well be more ambitious than it might seem! But in ChessBase Magazine #194 Roven Vogel offers Black an exciting antidote to White's set-up: after 6... g6 Black wants to develop his bishop to f5 and castle queenside!

4/18/2020 – The Fischer-Petrosian Candidates match of 1971 in Buenos Aires was the third and final round in the eliminations to determine the challenger for the World Championship 1972. After defeating two top grandmasters 6-0 each, the charismatic American faced former World Champion Tigran Petrosian who was considered to be almost undefeatable. Their match started 2½-2½, and then in game six Fischer scored a superb win that turned the match in his favor. Did Petrosian seal the wrong move, could he have defended to a draw? You can help endgame specialist Karsten Müller with his historical analysis – and win a valuable prize.

4/18/2020 – Locked up at home? No visits to the chess club, no social gatherings? So how about taking part in a giant blitz tournament. It is all virtual on the Playchess server, where you can play against more than a dozen GMs, some of whom are the brightest young super-talents in the world, plus 25 IMs, WGMs and WIMs who have confirmed their participation so far. There is a prize fund of Rs. 10,000. Watching and playing is free of charge. Make this a Saturday full of chess!

4/18/2020 – The Magnus Carlsen Invitational kicked off with two stellar match-ups. The world champion traded blows with Hikaru Nakamura and won the Armageddon decider to get two points for the overall standings table, while Ding Liren defeated Alireza Firouzja without needing a tiebreaker. There was no lack of drama, as a small technical glitch and an intervention by the arbiter distracted Nakamura — the American grandmaster was understanding and accepted defeat. Round-up show by Yannick Pelletier. | Photo: Official site

4/18/2020 – Mexican writer Juan José Arreola was a master of brief subgenres, such as the short story, the epigram, and the sketch. He was also a huge chess fan. In this interview by JAVIER VARGAS PEREIRA from 1997, Arreola, with his usual wittiness, talks about why he devoted so much time to the game, explaining that "poetry and chess are impossible for man, they are beyond his reach". | Photo: El Universal México

4/17/2020 – The Tournament of Peace in Rovinj/Zagreb is a round-robin with 18 players but if you want to finish at the top being too peaceful is the wrong strategy. After all, you need to score against the weaker players. In round 9 Viktor Kortschnoi (pictured), Tigran Petrosian and Vlastimil Hort, who all still have a chance to win the tournament did not play brilliancies but showed a professional approach to win their games. | Photo: Viktor Kortschnoi at the Chess Olympiad Leipzig 1960 (Archive)