European Women's Ch: Fighting chess

4/14/2019 – No less than twenty-two players share first place on 2½ out of 3 at the European Women's Individual Championship in Antalya. Curiously, though, only four of the top ten seeds are in the large leading group, as some of the favourites have been having a hard time trying to take down lower-rated opponents. It has been a hard struggle so far, and only fourteen players will get a ticket to the World Cup. Eight rounds are still ahead. | Photo: Kasia Selbes Photography / Official site

Maxim Matlakov marches to Dubai Open win

4/14/2019 – The 21st Dubai Open witnessed one of the closest finishes that you would see at an open tournament. After nine rounds we had eight players on the same score of 7.0/9. Buchholz was the tiebreak and based on it Maxim Matlakov from Russia finished first and took home USD $13,000 along with the glittering Sheikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Al Maktoum Cup. Other players on 7.0/9 were 14-year-old prodigy Abdusattorov Nodirbek, Le Quang Liem, Yuriy Kuzubov, Eduardo Iturrizaga, Sanal Vahap, Aleksandar Indjic and P. Iniyan. A detailed report from Dubai by NIKLESH JAIN.

The Magician from Moscow

4/13/2019 – Vassily Smyslov adored him. Garry Kasparov admires him. Magnus Carlsen enjoys him. Who is he? Discerning readers would have guessed his name by now. Our columnist revisits the life and work of the eminent composer. Before you read on, try out the problem in the picture. It’s fun. | Photo: chessnews.ru

Reykjavik Open: Firouzja shines

4/13/2019 – Five out of nine rounds of the Reykjavik Open have been completed, and four players share the lead on 4½/5. Tied with the best tie-break score are Robert Hovhannisyan from Armenia and 15-year-old Alireza Firouzja from Iran, who in addition finished in clear first place at the Fischer Random side event. Also co-leading are Sergei Movsesian and Constantin Lupulescu. Seven players are a half point behind. | Photo: Fiona Steil-Antoni / Official site

A chess weekend in Katowice

4/12/2019 – This weekend, the Polish-Hungarian friendship tournament will be played in Katowice. Together with the Polish individual and team lightning championships, 1000 chess friends are expected. Anne Kantane invites you for a preview. | Photo: M. Walusza

The Power Play Show: "The Octopus"

4/12/2019 – 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: "The Octopus" as seen in Karjakin vs Carlsen. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

Mar del Plata Open turns 50

4/12/2019 – From 1928, the Argentine city of Mar del Plata has hosted a large number of remarkable chess events. The 50th edition of the "Abierto de Mar del Plata" will take place on April 13th-20th, with about two-hundred players participating. SERGIO NEGRI takes us through some of the biggest chess milestones that transpired in the tourist destination, which even gave name to a variation of the King's Indian Defence. | Photo: Leandro Kibisz (CC BY-SA) via Wikimedia Commons

Yours truly lucky

4/12/2019 – The best move for White in the diagram position is 28.Rd3!, but following 28...Qc8 29.Rg3? throws the win away. Can you spot Black's saving trick after that?

Mouth-watering clash: Short vs Gustafsson in Bangkok

4/12/2019 – The 19th edition of the Bangkok Open 2019 has reached its pinnacle of excitement. After six rounds, we have two leaders: top seed Nigel Short and second seed Jan Gustafsson. Both of them on 5½/6. They have set up the top board clash in round seven. In this article, SHAHID AHMED, reporting from Bangkok, takes us through some of the most interesting games that have been played by Short and Gustafsson in this tournament.

Studying openings with "Let's Check" and ChessBase Magazine

4/11/2019 – It helps to get help when studying openings. The ChessBase "Let's Check" function offers a lot of help. It is a database with analyses made by other "Let's Check" users, often with top engines and powerful computers. "Let's Check" gives you access to these analyses and you can check, broaden, and sharpen your repertoire. Together with the ChessBase Magazine "Let's Check" is particularly powerful. | Drawing: ChessBase
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European Championship for Women starts in Antalya

4/11/2019 – Today the first round of the European Women's Championship will be played in Antalya. In all 130 players are on the starting list but only the top 14 finishers will qualify for the World Cup. The top seeds are Aleksandra Goryachkina (Russia, 2534) and Nana Dzagnidze (Georgia, 2513). Live games kick off each day at 12 Noon UTC (14:00 CEST / 8 AM EDT) from April 11th to 22nd with a rest day on April 17th (and the last round four hours earlier). Commentary by GM Ioannis Papaioannou & IM Can Arduman Official site: eiwcc2019.tsf.org.tr

Grivas: "Talent is the excuse of the failed!"

4/11/2019 – Once upon a time, in a now nearly forgotten past, when phones were attached to walls, or rested on furniture, and "to dial" meant to carefully rotate a disc, a young man, just 13, entered the world of chess. As always, the chess journey is quite harsh, in fact he lost all the games of his first tournament. But persistence, and his love for the sport, made him go on, 'till a decade later he became a Grandmaster! Here we can read more about the story and chess journey of Greek GM Efstratios Grivas, who recently celebrated his 53rd birthday.

Using the Knight's Tour to impress

4/10/2019 – You know what the Knight's Tour is: move the knight so it visits every square of the chessboard just once. There are around 30 trillion ways to do this, but it is certainly not easy for humans to execute a single one correctly — least of all blindfolded and starting from a random square. Or is it? If you invest a couple of hours into the task you stand to entertain people at parties — or even appear on a hit television show.

Game of the Week: Giri in Shamkir

4/10/2019 – Ideas and strategies in Grandmaster games can be quite instructive. IM Merijn van Delft presents games like these every Wednesday at 18:00 UTC (20:00 CEST / 2 PM EDT). On this week's show: Wrapping up Shamkir Chess with a look at the tournament from the Dutch perspective. The live show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows.

Start of the GAMMA Reykjavik Open

4/10/2019 – The 33rd Reykjavik International started at the Harpa Concert Hall (pictured) in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik on Monday. The two sometime-2700s Gawain Jones and Nils Grandelius have both dropped half points, leaving two GMs, an IM, a class A and even a class B player (!) as the only perfect scores through three rounds. Highlights and live commentary of Round 4 (from 17:00 UTC / 19:00 CEST / 13:00 EDT) | Photo: Lennart Ootes / ReykjavikOpen.com

New and exciting, and still essential

4/10/2019 – There's a new edition of our very popular compilation of opening knowledge — but it's more than an update. Naturally, the Opening Encyclopaedia 2019 has been extended to include all the latest lines and trends, but it has also been redesigned to enhance its usability for fast and easy access to your favourite openings. It has hundreds of opening articles by leading experts, and high-class opening videos to enhance your understanding. Is there a better way to keep abreast of openings theory?

Shamkir, Round 9: Magnus makes it five

4/9/2019 – A third consecutive win in Shamkir meant Magnus Carlsen finished on 7 out of 9, two points ahead of his closer pursuers, with an out-of-this-world rating performance of 2988. His last victim was Alexander Grischuk, who was duly overrun both on the board and on the clock. The rest of the games finished drawn. LAWRENCE TRENT took a closer look at the final encounters of the sixth Gashimov Memorial. | Photo: Official site

Baden-Baden wins German League

4/9/2019 – The last weekend of Germany's Premier League, (a.k.a. the Bundesliga), brought the perennial champions OSG Baden-Baden another success. With a 7-1 victory against Düsseldorf, Baden-Baden (pictured) once again became German Team Champion, securing their 13th title in 14 years. 14-year old German talent Vincent Keymer narrowly missed his third and final GM norm. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

The Weekly Show: Reykjavik Open kickoff

4/9/2019 – In the Reykjavik Open a young Icelandic kid beat GM Andrew Tang with Black. IM Lawrence Trent shows you the game and what it can teach us about playing much higher rated opponents. Each week, Trent brings you the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments every Tuesday at 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST, 12 Noon EDT). Free to watch on-demand for a limited time with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.

Shamkir Chess 2019: Round 9

4/9/2019 – By winning his fifth game in Shamkir, Magnus Carlsen, who had already won the tournament, finished with a stratospheric 7/9 score, a full two points ahead of his nearest rivals. Carlsen's Elo performance was nearly 3000! Wow! All other games were drawn. | Games and video from 11:00 UTC (12:00 CEST / 6 AM EDT) and daily round-up show at 20:00 UTC (21:00 CEST / 3 PM EDT)

Bring your opponent into a fist-fight from the off!

4/9/2019 – Caro-Kann players like their solid structure. As White the question is how to dismantle such solidity, and rampage the Black territory. That's the topic of this review article from DAVIDE NASTASIO and the hour-long intense theoretical training one can find on the "60 Minutes" video series from IM Lawrence Trent. Don't miss this chance to add a new weapon to your own repertoire and create chaos in the Caro-Kann player's camp!

Where to go with the rook?

4/9/2019 – Rook endings are difficult to win and difficult to draw. The following position is a typical example.

Shamkir, Round 8: Carlsen clinches

4/9/2019 – An implacable Magnus Carlsen beat Sergey Karjakin in the penultimate day of action in Shamkir to secure the title with a round to spare. This is the World Champion's fourth triumph in four attempts at the Gashimov Memorial. Alexander Grischuk and Ding Liren also won and now share second place with Sergey Karjakin, a point and a half behind the champion. LAWRENCE TRENT recapped the action of the eighth round. | Photo: Official site

A chess celebration in Puerto Rico

4/8/2019 – At the end of March, San Juan, the capital and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, hosted what was depicted as the biggest chess event of the island in the last thirty years. Cuban grandmaster Yuri González (pictured) won the main section, finishing ahead of his compatriot Reynaldo Vera and American veterans Alex Yermolinksy and Alexander Shabalov. CRISTÓBAL VEGA ADORNO wrote a full report, while GM ALEX YERMOLINKSY sent expert analysis of two games. | Photo: Puerto Rico Chess Academy