Golden Age of US Chess, for players ages 50 and older

3/6/2019 – A “golden age” for tournament players ages 50 and older has arrived in the United States. In the past three years, US Chess has authorized new tournaments and prizes restricted to seniors. However, women ages 50 and older have not been affected. That may change in March 2019, when US Chess begins grant applications for women’s chess programs. WIM ALEXEY ROOT explains... | Photo: Alex Yermolinsky (with Dmitry Gurevich)

Hou Yifan leads Oxford to victory over Cambridge

3/5/2019 – Hou Yifan played her first rated classical game since December, as she led her team from Oxford University to their third consecutive win over varsity rivals Cambridge. It was the first time the top-rated woman in the world participated, and the 137th such match overall. Cambridge clings to a tiny (and shrinking) lead of 59-56 wins (with 22 draws). Cambridge alumnus GM DANIEL FERNANDEZ takes a look at the games. | Pictured: Oxford's team Andrew Rogozinski (reserve), Daniel Abbas, Hou Yifan, Joris Gerlagh (captain), Benjamin Foo, Lisa Schut, Gordon Scott, Filip Mihov, Isaac Sanders | Photo: John Saunders

The Weekly Show: Batavia

3/5/2019 – IM Lawrence Trent brings you the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments every Tuesday at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, Noon EST). This week he looks at games from the ongoing 11th dMP Batavia Amsterdam Chess Tournament. Free to watch on-demand for a limited time with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.

Endgame Magic with Karsten Mueller and Jan Werle

3/5/2019 – As easy as 123! Endgame Magic #123 that is! This week Karsten is joined by Dutch Grandmaster Jan Werle. The show is live at 14:00 UTC (15:00 CET, 9:00 AM EST) and FREE to watch on-demand (for a limited time)!

Bishop block

3/5/2019 – Two connected passed pawns are strong but a good bishop is often stronger.

Pia Cramling wins Västgöta Open in Skara

3/5/2019 – The Swedish town of Skara enjoys a good reputation among chess players. The European Team Championship 1980 took place in Skara, and in this tournament English Grandmaster Tony Miles defeated World Champion Anatoly Karpov with 1...a6. Skara's chess tratition is still alive, though on a smaller scale. | Photo: Lars OA Hedlund

Flying High: GM Timur Gareyev

3/4/2019 – When you think about popularizing the game of chess, a lot of ideas may cross your mind, but few could be crazier than what Timur Gareyev did in collaboration with US Chess Federation last year: Sky-diving for the Chess Life magazine cover. Watch the amazing video and read a new interview along with recollections from IM Sagar Shah on Gareyev's trip through India. Next stop: The U.S. Championship in St. Louis!

Solingen catches Baden-Baden as stars gather in Berlin

3/4/2019 – It was an eventful weekend in the Bundesliga, as leaders and clear favourites OSG Baden-Baden lined up their best squad but ended up giving up two crucial match points, allowing SG Solingen to catch up with them in the standings. It was giant-killing season in Berlin for Peter Leko, Gata Kamsky and Anton Korobov, who took down top-ten stars Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Vishy Anand. Games, standings and great video content from the organisers below. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

Recalling a famous pawn ending

3/3/2019 – This week, JON SPEELMAN takes a gander at the games of an Indian junior rated 1628. The Agony is a London System that turned into a difficult rook endgame. Send in your own games! Jon can always use more material 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!

German League central weekend

3/3/2019 – From Friday to Sunday the German capital of Berlin is also the capital of chess. Then the central rounds of the "Schach Bundesliga" and the women's Bundesliga are to be played and many global stars will be there. ChessBase will also be present with a booth from Friday onwards. Live games of Round 10 at 13:00 CET (12 Noon UTC, 7:00 AM EST) plus a preview from GEORGIOS SOULEIDIS. | Photos: Georgios Souleidis

Astana to host World Team Championships

3/3/2019 – The Open and Women's World Team Championships will take place on March 4th-14th in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana. Both events will be nine-round single round robin tournaments. The open section will have Russia and China as the clear front-runners, while the women's meeting is much harder to call in advance, with rating favourites Russia having to contend against strong squads from Ukraine, China, Georgia and India. | Photo: Official site

Are Elo ratings going down?

3/2/2019 – Chess fans tend to focus on the FIDE ratings of the top players in the world which are updated monthly. But the Elo system wants to reflect the strength of the chess players of all strengths all over the world. Since its introduction in 1970 it has become immensely popular and important for the chess world. However, it is not without problems. Why, for example, are junior players from Russia or India continuously underrated and how does this affect other players? To answer this and other questions, WALTER WOLF took a close look at the development of some ratings over time. | Photo: Junior players from India, courtesy ChessBase India

March 2019 FIDE Ratings

3/1/2019 – FIDE's March ratings reflect changes from the Gibraltar Masters, the Cairns Cup and Champions Showdown in St. Louis. Vladislav Artemiev took a big step up the classical list after his Gibraltar win. Valentina Gunina can point to her fine performance in the USA to justify her re-entrance into the top 10 among women. And Fabiano Caruana showed that he really has worked on his rapid chess. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

NEW: ChessBase Magazine #188

3/1/2019 – Enjoy top class training in the new ChessBase Magazine layout! Tata Steel 2019 with analyses by Anish Giri, Vishy Anand, Vidit, Peter Svidler etc. Yannick Pelletier, Erwin l'Ami and Mihail Marin present selected games in video format. Plus 11 opening articles with new repertoire ideas, e.g. Dutch with 2.Bg5!? Take a look!

No chess at the Olympics anytime soon

3/1/2019 – The organizers of the Olympic Games periodically consider proposals for new sports to be included. FIDE has applied for chess to be on the list. Just two weeks ago we reported "the Olympic dream is alive", but once more the sport did not make the cut. LA 2028 anyone?

Ganguly's calculus

3/1/2019 – Black can obtain a clear advantage after 26...f5! 27.Nxd4 Bxd4 28.Qxh6 with the right continuation at hand. Are you ready to follow in (five of) his footsteps then?

Kaido Kulaots celebrates birthday with Aeroflot Open win

2/28/2019 – The surprise winner of the 17th Aeroflot Open is Kaido Kulaots who turns 43 today. The Estonian grandmaster was able to win his game in the final round and had more black games — the tiebreak — (not to mention better performance rating) after both he and Haik Martirosyan finished with 7.0/9. Kulaots is expected to receive an invitation to the Dortmund supertournament to be held in July. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

Kramnik's challenge: Anand provides the solution

2/28/2019 – On Monday we told you about a very tough problem which was given to Vishy Anand by Vladimir Kramnik — and challenged you to solve it. A number of GMs and IMs had not succeeded, when Anand gave the problem to the players of Pune. In the end he discussed the moves that needed to be found, and Sagar Shah filmed it all for us to see. Don't miss Vishy showing you the solution.

Fun and instructive: the new search mask in ChessBase 15

2/28/2019 – The ChessBase Mega Database and other game collections contain fantastic examples for all important chess manoeuvres. However, they often remain hidden. The new search mask in ChessBase 15 can help find these hidden gems. A powerful function that is simply fun to use! Sagar Shah has prepared an instructive video.
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Review: Extreme Calculation Training

2/28/2019 – In order to keep our chess brains sharp, we need to practice a wide variety of calculation exercises. Although many are looking for a way to become titled players without doing much effort, the only true path to reach master-level strength involves solving endless exercises. DAVIDE NASTASIO takes a look at the latest work by Robert Ris, which includes exercises that clearly mimic the positions we can find in tournament games. The video series takes us into the depth of calculation, showing once and again why we must not stop at the surface, but dig deep under!

Arnold Denker: US Champion, Author, Chess Enthusiast

2/27/2019 – In the 1930s and 1940s Arnold Denker (February 20, 1914 – January 2, 2005) was one of the strongest players in the US and in 1944 and 1946 he became US Champion. After the end of his chess career Denker became a successful businessman, chess promoter and chess official. He is also the co-author of "The Bobby Fischer I knew", a wonderful and charming collection of chess memories. On February 20, 2019 Denker would have celebrated his 105th birtday.

Game of the Week: Goganov vs Puranik

2/27/2019 – Ideas and strategies in Grandmaster games can be quite instructive. IM Merijn van Delft presents games like these every Wednesday at 19:00 UTC (20:00 CET, 2 pm EST). On this week's show: Goganov vs Puranik from Round 8 of the Aeroflot Open. 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.

Aeroflot Open, Round 9

2/27/2019 – The Aeroflot Open in Moscow is one of the strongest open tournaments of the world. In the A-Group 101 players take part, and almost all of them are International Masters or Grandmasters. 76 participants have a rating of 2500+. Round 3 starts at 15:00 local time (13:00 CET, 12:00 UTC, 7:00 AM EST) and you can follow the games live.

Review: ChessBase Extra 187

2/27/2019 – The Chessbase Magazine Extra packs a lot of content, useful for tournament preparation. It's an easy way to update one's own opening repertoire. There are videos to give us new ideas, and a new "lucky bag", with many top master level games. The quality of the annotations rival all top chess magazines, but the electronic format gives more space to the authors than the paper version, giving the readers plenty of material to study. Reviewer DAVIDE NASTASIO takes a look...