A look at "The Complex Najdorf"

5/1/2019 – The Sicilian Najdorf is one of the most popular openings in chess! But what do you do if you wish to enter the Najdorf universe for the first time? What would be the right way to learn such complex opening? Grandmaster Victor Bologan proposes this repertoire to answer all the main lines, and sidelines. The Najdorf is a dynamic opening which matches those players who like to play with intensity. But a less well-known rationale is that if one wants to become stronger as player, then the Najdorf is a gym for the budding chess mind! Thanks to a wealth of ideas, strategic themes and tactical patterns, the Najdorf has all one needs to learn how to play the middlegame.

Chess and whisky

5/1/2019 – On the last weekend of May an unusual tournament will be played in Scotland. Four top players, Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, Ding Liren, and a fourth player who is not yet known, will play a rapid tournament in the Lindores Abbey Distillery, once a famous monastery and perhaps the place where Scotch whisky had its origins. | Photo: Lindores Abbey Distillery

The Weekly Show: Maximum Magnus

4/30/2019 – On the show today, IM Lawrence Trent looks at the monstrously good performance of World Champion Magnus Carlsen at the Grenke Chess Classic. Live at 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST, 12 Noon EDT) and free to watch on-demand for a limited time with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.

A Reykjavik retrospective

4/30/2019 – "A bit of sun and five degrees" — that's how IM ALINA L'AMI begins her photographic tour through the GAMMA Reykjavik Open 2019. In her characteristic way she blends beautiful photography and highlights from the chessboard to paint a picture of one of the most visually stunning tournaments in the world. | Pictured: IM Tania Sachdev who finished with 5½/9 | All photos: Alina l'Ami

Popular chess videos on the Internet

4/30/2019 – Which is the most popular chess video on the Internet? How many people watched the record-breaking YouTube video? And who is the star of the show? Magnus Carlsen? Garry Kasparov? Neither. It is a 13-year-old boy named Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. Really! A single video of him beating a 2650 GM in blitz chess was watched by close to 21 million viewers — chalking up 82 million watch minutes. And that's not all: other games by Pragg have been watched many millions of times as well.

Dancing with knights

4/30/2019 – Knights can be very agile and strong but against far advanced pawns they are sometimes surprisingly helpless.

Grenke Classic: Magnus caps grand performance with a win

4/30/2019 – Magnus Carlsen scored a fourth straight win to claim clear first place at the 2019 GRENKE Chess Classic. The world champion knew in advance that he would win the tournament, as Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian signed a 43-move draw, but kept on pushing to convert his extra pawn against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Arkadij Naiditsch and Francisco Vallejo Pons also finished the tournament with wins. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

Yermo's Travels: The USA in Rhodes (part 3)

4/29/2019 – The top teams won the Senior World Team Championships in Rhodes as both the USA in the 50+ age group Russia in the 65+ age group were unstoppable. GM ALEX YERMOLINSKY (now back in the USA and recovering from jet-lag) completes his trilogy on the exploits of the American cohort, which included swimming and billiards. | Pictured: (L to R) Alexander Shabalov, Joel Benjamin, Igor Novikov, Jaan Ehlvest and Alex Yermolinsky | Photo: Thorsten Cmiel

Simon Says — Pawn Power!

4/29/2019 – Pawns are the "soul of chess", as well all know from François-André Danican Philidor. In this Simon Says, Grandmaster Simon Williams takes a look at games from chess history where pawn power was on full display! Live today at the usual time: 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST / 12 Noon EDT).

Grenke Classic Round 9 Round-up

4/29/2019 – The Grenke Chess Classic runs from April 20th to 29th. Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Levon Aronian and Viswanathan Anand head the nine round-robin. Over 60 grandmasters participate in the A-Open tournament. Live games and commentary (from 13:00 UTC / 15:00 CEST / 9:00 AM EDT) with GM Peter Leko and GM Jan Gustafsson. Official site: grenkechessclassic.com

Endgame Magic with Karsten Mueller and Adrian Mikhalchishin

4/29/2019 – An "impromptu" Endgame Magic Monday! Karsten is joined by Grandmaster and renowned trainer Adrian Mikhalchishin. On-demand for ChessBase account holders. Don't have an account yet? You can register a free 90-day account to watch!

Hort stories: "Pricao mi Gliga..."

4/28/2019 – During the 1950s and 1960s Svetozar Gligoric was one of the world's best players and the Yugoslavian number one. Gligoric was also happily married, a successful journalist and writer, and had fought for the Yugoslavian partisans during World War II. Vlastimil Hort often met Gligoric and now shares his memories.

Grenke Classic: Carlsen mates Svidler

4/28/2019 – After scoring his fifth win of the tournament, Magnus Carlsen almost secured yet another super-tournament triumph. His round eight victim was Peter Svidler, who allowed the world champion to mate him on the board. The only player with chances to catch Magnus is Fabiano Caruana — the American remained one point behind the leader thanks to a win over Georg Meier. Sole third place was taken by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who defeated Vincent Keymer. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

Grenke Classic: Wins for Carlsen, Caruana and Meier

4/28/2019 – A full point still separates Magnus Carlsen from his closest chaser, after the world champion beat Levon Aronian and Fabiano Caruana took down Arkadij Naiditsch in round seven of the GRENKE Chess Classic. Georg Meier also won — the German grandmaster recovered from a four-game losing streak to defeat Vishy Anand with the black pieces. Paco Vallejo and Vincent Keymer got good positions against higher-rated opponents but could not convert. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

Hard work pays off

4/27/2019 – It's the last Saturday of the month, so time once again to enjoy some studies and compositions (plus some Eastern philosophy) curated by our expert SIEGFRIED HORNECKER, whose April subject is Iuri Akobia of the Georgian School of composition. Photos contributed by David Gurgenidze. | Image: Robbert van der Steeg [CC BY-SA 2.0] via Flickr

Grenke Classic: Carlsen widens the gap

4/27/2019 – The standings table at the 2019 GRENKE Chess Classic was seriously shaken up after Magnus Carlsen defeated Georg Meier and Vishy Anand lost against Arkadij Naiditsch in round six. Vishy gave up a pawn in the early middlegame and could never get enough compensation, while Magnus got a winning advantage before the time control but needed close to six hours to finally get the point. The rest of the games were drawn. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

Shenzhen: Giri does it!

4/27/2019 – In Shenzehn, China, Pentala Harikrishna defeated Yu Yangyi in the penultimate round to retake a half point lead over Anish Giri. But he had Black in the final round while Giri was White. Could 'Hari' score his first super-tournament victory? It looked like he was headed for a tournament-clinching draw, but a slip-up gave Ding Liren a chance to turn the tables and Giri a golden opportunity to grab tournament victory. | Photo: cca.imsa.cn

FIDE updates and the World Championship cycle

4/26/2019 – Today FIDE has released new regulations for the upcoming World Championship cycle (both Open and Women). The overall championship match is being extended from 12 to 14 games, and draws will no longer be permitted before move 40. Players can qualify to the Candidates Tournament via the revised Grand Prix, now a series of knockout tournaments, and a new "Grand Swiss" to be held in October on the Isle of Man.

The Power Play Show: "Vladislav Artemiev"

4/26/2019 – Friday at 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST, Noon EDT) Daniel King will go on air on playchess.com. You can watch the episode live for free! Today: "Vladislav Artemiev". All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

Two Indians play non-stop blitz for 53 hours!

4/26/2019 – Everyone loves to play blitz! But two guys from Himachal Pradesh in India Hansraj Thakur and Hitesh Azad decided to take this a notch higher. They played non stop blitz for 53 hours, 17 minutes and 49 seconds and 303 games to create a world record for the longest period of playing non stop blitz chess games. They bettered the total time of Jacek Gajewski and Wojciech Waruga who had played a total of 514 blitz games in 50 hours. In this article FI PRAFUL ZAVERI tells us all about this new world record. We also have all the 303 encounters, just in case you would like to check the quality of the games.

Candidates classic

4/26/2019 – Playing 14.Bb1! in the diagram position, White prepared to create a queen-bishop battery on the diagonal to the enemy king. Black rushed in to block it with 14...g5 15.Qc2 Ng6, and then it will be your turn. Enjoy!

April 1st entertainment — the solution

4/26/2019 – As in the previous year we decided to abandon our decades-long tradition of tricking our readers with false stories on April 1st. For those who are disappointed by this decision we brought you a really fun (and fully genuine) task proposed by Pal Benko for this auspicious day. Initially there was an error in the task, but after we corrected that we received valid solutions. The best came from Mihály Berkics from Hungary, who receives a special prize.

Carlsen at 2861 Elo, but further progress is tough

4/25/2019 – After winning in Shamkir, Carlsen’s live rating was up to 2861, his best since June 2015. After five rounds in Grenke, that's exactly where he remains today (well 2861.6 to be precise!). IM SAGAR SHAH recently took a look at how he's climbing back towards his all-time peak. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis (author of The Open Games - A detailed overview)

NEW: ChessBase Magazine #189

4/25/2019 – Enjoy top class training and the new layout! ChessBase Magazine is the most comprehensive and most sophisticated chess magazine there is. World class players analyse their brilliancies and explain the ideas behind the moves to you, opening specialists present the latest trends in opening theory and offer exciting ideas for your repertoire. Master trainers in the fields of tactics, strategy, and the endgame show you the tricks and techniques a successful tournament player needs! DVD with several hours of video + booklet.