All ChessBase 15 tutorials at a glance

2/6/2019 – Vishy Anand was delighted: "ChessBase 15 – awesome!". In recent weeks we have presented the new features and tools of ChessBase 15 in a number of tutorials: the replay training that helps you to improve, the fast reference search that makes opening study easy, the new search mask or the raytracing technique, and other features. Here are all these tutorials at one glance. Read them and see what Vishy Anand means!
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1st Prague International Chess Festival 2019

2/5/2019 – A new tournament is launching in Prague next month from March 5th to 16th by the organisers behind the Czech Novy Bor Chess Club. Similar to the Tata Steel Chess model, the 1st Prague International Chess Festival 2019 will feature a Masters tournament, and a Challengers tournament, plus multiple open events for players of various rating classes. The full roster of players in the Masters was announced today.

The Weekly Show: Gibraltar

2/5/2019 – IM Lawrence Trent brings you the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments ever Tuesdays at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, Noon EST). This week he looks at games from the Gibraltar Chess Festival. Free to watch on-demand for a limited time with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.

Carlsen: "You cannot second-guess your intuition"

2/5/2019 – Magnus Carlsen has published a guest post for the website of American business magazine Forbes about his own chess career and the positive effects of learning chess on children and adolescents in general. Chess helps to master other tasks of life, Carlsen is convinced. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

The ram

2/5/2019 – Fortresses are sometimes very solid and difficult to break.

The Adventure of Chess Programming (Part 1)

2/5/2019 – The recent World Championship in London was closely followed by Europe's largest (and most influential) news portal. Der Spiegel had live coverage and game commentary. They also posted a three-part series on the history of chess programming, authored by Frederic Friedel, emeritus editor of this news page. In the early 1980s Frederic was instrumental to bringing computer chess to the attention of the German public, and in 1987 he co-founded ChessBase. Here is part one of his series.

Simon Says — Gibraltar highlights

2/4/2019 – In this Simon Says we take a look at highlights of the recently finished Gibraltar tournament. Simon is live this week at 22:00 CET (21:00 UTC). If you miss the show, you can watch it in the archive with a ChessBase Account. Don't have an account? You can register a free 90-day account to watch!

GM Darryl Johansen Turns 60

2/4/2019 – Darryl Johansen, an Australian Grandmaster who broke barriers for Australian players but retired from the international circuit at 30, celebrates his 60th birthday today, February 4th. He became the second Australian (after Ian Rogers) to earn the Grandmaster title. We take a brief look at his career, including two games annotated by GM Rogers from MegaBase 2019.

Anand on Wijk: "It's a bit like coming home"

2/4/2019 – The Tata Steel has been one of Vishy Anand's very favourite tournaments. He has played there nineteen times thus far and has bagged five tournament titles. This year, he completed 30 years since his maiden appearance there, scoring a solid 7½/13. After his final round game, ADITYA PAI caught up with the Indian ace for a brief interview in the press room at Wijk aan Zee to talk about his journey. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

Women take centre stage at Cairns Cup

2/4/2019 – Ten of the world's top female chess players will soon compete in a new event at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis: The "Cairns Cup" from February 6th to 16th. The tournament is similar to the Sinquefield Cup, but for women. The top six, including World Champion Ju Wenjun, are not attending, however. All the info, and how to watch...

Resigning a won game

2/3/2019 – True Agony! Columnist GM JON SPEELMAN briefly rifs on AlphaZero and Giri-Shankland before turning his attention to this week's submission from Zimbabwean Class A player, Tapiwa Allister Gora. Feel free to 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! | Photo: Tapiwa Gora (right) vs Simon Bokamoso at a recent tournament

The strongest chess boom in Iran, ever

2/3/2019 – Prior to 2018, there were few world-class chess tournaments dominated by Iranian players — just the odd youth championship. Now Iran is climbing the list of the top countries in the world — currently at number 25, with the average rating of the top ten players rising by the month. The country's 15 GMs, 23 IMs, and 125 total titled players obscures the fact that among the top ten, only two were born before 1995. SHAHROKH MOJTABAEI takes a look at the recent history. | Pictured: Coach Ivan Sokolov with Masoud Mosadeghpour, Alireza Firouzja, Parham Maghsoodloo, Pouya Idani, Seyed Mohammad Amin Tabatabaei | Photo: Iranian Chess Federation

Anne Haast wins ARVES study solving competition

2/2/2019 – After Magnus Carlsen and Vladislav Kovalev won the Tata Steel Masters and Challengers tournaments, the ARVES Chess Endgame Studies Association organised a study solving competition in Wijk aan Zee for the tenth time. Former woman Dutch champion Anne Haast — the youngest participant — was the surprising winner. YOCHANAN AFEK composed three out of the nine studies that were used in the event and sent a report from the North Sea coastal city. | Photos: Harry Gielen

Team Tal: Epilogue

2/2/2019 – The story of Tal can never be finished and his fans always want more. Only this series has to end for now. In the concluding installment here our columnist offers his final observations on Team Tal, the last testament of Valentin Kirillov. | Photo: chesspro.ru

February 2019 FIDE Ratings

2/1/2019 – February ratings are out with changes resulting mainly from the Tata Steel Chess tournament. Gibraltar ended just past the cutoff time, so this month's update is, to a certain extent, already out of date. Carlsen is, of course, still first on all three lists. He is at his highest point since November 2016. Anish Giri, at 2797, is just one point shy of his career best, and Jan Nepomniachtchi has set a new career peak for himself at 2771. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

Artemiev atop Gibraltar Masters

2/1/2019 – Vladislav Artemiev left no doubt by winning with Black against Yu Yangyi to take clear first and avoid a possible playoff. It's the first time the Gibraltar Masters has had a single player in first place after ten rounds since 2015. Karthikeyan Murali capped a fantastic tournament by beating Maxim Vachier-Lagrave and thereby finishing in sole second place. Tan Zhongyi from China took the top women's prize | Photo: John Saunders

Shirov impressive in Arica

2/1/2019 – A large ten-round Swiss tournament was organised at the Chilean port city of Arica. Players from seventeen countries arrived in the northernmost city of the Andean country. Top seed Alexei Shirov took first place after finishing with an undefeated 8½/10 score. Peruvian IM Renato Terry surprised by ending up second and Farrukh Amonatov clinched third place on tiebreaks. Full pictorial report provided by club "Jaque 64".

The vulnerable third

2/1/2019 – In the diagram White's softened king position far outweighs the hanging rook on d8. Yet precision is still required. Your (black attacking) move, please!

Game Changer: AlphaZero revitalizing the attack

1/31/2019 – AlphaZero became a worldwide sensation when it defeated the world's strongest chess engine in a long match just hours after being fed the rules of the game. At the time, Garry Kasparov said that it had shaken chess to its roots. In the opinion of Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan, the authors of the book 'Game Changer: AlphaZero's Groundbreaking Chess Strategies and the Promise of AI' this all-new silicon monster developed by DeepMind has helped us discover that there is lots of fresh potential in chess. ADITYA PAI spoke with the authors about their book, the impact AlphaZero has (and will have) on our royal game and whether chess will be solved one day in the light of such technological advancements.

Gibraltar Masters 2019 Round 10

1/31/2019 – The Gibraltar International Chess Festival 2019 takes place from January 21st to 31st at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar. The Masters is always incredibly strong and this year there are 14 players Elo rated over 2700. Traditionally, many of the world's best women players also take part and this year World Champion Ju Wenjun is among them. Live games and commentary on Round 10 by IM Jovanka Houska and GM Simon Williams from 10:00 UTC (11:00 CET, 5:00 AM EST).

Gibraltar: Artemiev is the man to beat

1/31/2019 – Vladislav Artemiev beat David Navara on top board and is back in the sole lead with 7½/9. Maxim Vachier-Lagrave dispatched upstart Kirill Alekseenko and is a half point back along with Yu Yangyi and Karthikeyan Murali. Thirteen players have 6½ out of 9. The tournament will be decided on Thursday with Round 10 and a possible playoff. | Photo: John Saunders

Game of the Week: Vintage Kramnik

1/30/2019 – 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: A classic Kramnik game from 1993 against Vassily Ivanchuk. 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.

Monte Carlo instead of Alpha-Beta?

1/30/2019 – Until now, chess programs mostly worked according to the so-called alpha-beta pruning search algorithm. The spectacular Deep Mind project Alpha Zero is based on the Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS). The Komodo developers, too, are now increasingly relying on this method — with success. STEPHEN OLIVER PLATZ explains the difference and shows the progress. | Photo: (Komodo Dragon) Ryan Vaarsi, CC BY 2.0

Reviewing the new-look ChessBase Magazine

1/30/2019 – Daily training to improve and keep us in shape has to be fun as well as intellectually enlightening. We need to keep up our interest in order to perform well in tournaments. Reviewer DAVIDE NASTASIO likes to do that by engaging with a variety of learning tools. This time he turns his training eye on the new ChessBase Magazine. CBM encompasses different training methods covering all areas, from theoretical opening articles, to tactical and endgame training with video feedback. CBM 187 is a great way to translate your training time into practical success. Here's an overview with examples.