ChessBase 15: Online help and manuals

2/11/2019 – ChessBase 15 is a powerful program with a lot of useful functions. The online support helps you to get the most out of ChessBase 15 and is easy to access. And if you really want to explore the depths of the program the ChessBase 15 online manual will help you. It is free and available in four languages! | Drawing: ChessBase
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Cairns Cup: A three-horse race

2/11/2019 – All five games of round five at the Cairns Cup could have easily finished with decisive results, as all boards saw the players relentless in attack and defence — the fighting spirit was at its peak in Saint Louis. Eventually, however, the three top contenders ended up scoring wins and widening the gap with the rest of the field. Thus, Alexandra Kosteniuk is still the sole leader, while Valentina Gunina and Irina Krush remain a half point behind. | Photo: Crystal Fuller / Saint Louis Chess Club

Chess in Blue

2/11/2019 – Chefchaouen, a small city in the North-West Morocco, has its houses, doors, pavements and streets partially washed in shades of blue. It is popularly known as the ‘blue city’, or the ‘blue pearl’ of Morocco. DIANA MIHAJLOVA brings you a photo diary of the annual chess activities in this colourful town, with the 18th edition of its chess tournament scheduled for July. All photos: D.M.

Cairns Cup: No lack of excitement

2/10/2019 – Four decisive results in round four of the Cairns Cup left Alexandra Kosteniuk at the top of the standings with 3½/4. She cannot sit back and relax though, as both chasers — Valentina Gunina and Irina Krush — also won and are still half a point behind. The games were full of ups and downs, with the players showing great fighting spirit on all boards. Sunday's fifth round will be the last one before the rest day. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club

Opening Trends (III): More Gibraltar

2/9/2019 – The Gibraltar Masters was the first very strong open of 2019 and it might indicate which openings will be particularly popular in 2019. THORSTEN CMIEL had a look which openings were "trendy" in Gibraltar and how the Grandmasters started the new year. Yesterday we looked at Black's choices after 1.e4. Now Thorsten tackles 1.d4 and 1.c4/1.Nf3 openings.

Cairns Cup: Kosteniuk sole leader

2/9/2019 – The only clash of co-leaders in round three of the Cairns Cup favoured Alexandra Kosteniuk, who defeated Zhansaya Abdumalik with the black pieces to grab the sole lead in the standings. Anna Zatonskih and Nana Dzagnidze won with White and bounced back to 50% after, coincidentally, both having lost their inaugural games in Saint Louis. The other two games finished peacefully rather quickly. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club

Tigran Petrosian honoured on new bill

2/9/2019 – On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Armenian Dram currency, the country's central bank has recently issued new banknotes. The newly introduced 2000 Dram certificate honors the Armenian world chess champion Tigran Petrosian.

The Power Play Show - More AlphaZero

2/8/2019 – Friday at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, Noon EST) Daniel King will go on air on playchess.com. You can watch the episode live for free! All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

Opening Trends (II): Gibraltar

2/8/2019 – The Gibraltar Masters was the first very strong open of 2019 and it might indicate which openings will be particularly popular in 2019. Thorsten Cmiel had a look which openings were "trendy" in Gibraltar and how the Grandmasters started the new year. Previously he examined the openings in the last major event of the year the World Blitz and Rapid. In focus in Part II is 1.e4, met by the Caro-Kann, Sicilian and French.

Greek gift declined

2/8/2019 – The diagram position saw the continuation 18...Nxc3 19.Qh5 whereupon White threatens discovered check and mate. Now, what Black player would be so foolhardy to allow such a seemingly deadly constellation... You!?

KCF promotes USA scholastic events

2/8/2019 – The 53rd Annual Greater New York Scholastic Team and Individual Chess Championships and a similar event in Chicago were held recently, and the Greater Mid-Atlantic Scholastic Championships is coming up in a just over a week. All are in cooperation with the Kasparov Chess Foundation. | Pictured: (Seated) Michael Khodarkovsky and Garry Kasparov (standing) scholastic coach Michael Ellenbogen and New York scholastic players | Photo: Kasparov Chess Foundation

Fast and Furious: Sharp and fun to play

2/7/2019 – Today's topic: The Steinitz Variation of the French Defence. Every two weeks on Thursday's at 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET, 1 pm EST), IM Robert Ris shows sharp and double edged opening lines. If you fancy sacrificing or playing gambits, this show is a must see. Not only will you profit from specific opening ideas but you'll learn a lot of interesting general opening concepts too. 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.

Cairns Cup starts with four wins

2/7/2019 – Over the past decade, the Saint Louis Chess Club has expanded its roster of events from US-centric tournaments for top players, to the international elite, junior tournaments, norm tournament, and now, with the Cairns Cup, a new initiative to support women and girls. The instigators, Rex Sinquefield and Dr Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield welcomed ten of the world's best women chess players to the "chess capital of the USA". | Photo: Austin Fuller / Saint Louis Chess Club

Savchenko and Bodnaruk win Moscow Open

2/7/2019 – Boris Savchenko won the Moscow Open at the RSS University January 26th to February 3rd. In the separate open tournament for women, Anastasia Bodnaruk was the top scorer. In addition to FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, his predecessor, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, visited the tournament and was evidently enchanted by the magic show at the opening ceremony. | Photos: Tournament page

NEW: Lawrence Trent: The Bombastic Bird's

2/7/2019 – An energetic and exciting repertoire after 1.f4. IM Lawrence Trent uncovers "a number of groundbreaking theoretical novelties and new ideas that will soon have scorners of this romantic system regretting they ever doubted its soundness." Even World Champion Magnus Carlsen has taken a shine to the opening, joining a whole host of top grandmasters.

Problem chess with Pal Benko

2/7/2019 – Our Christmas Day problem article really made the rounds. First eminent mathematician and problemist Noam Elkies sent rapid feedback, and then one of truly great problem composers (and GM, and World Championship candidate) sent us his comments. It is none other then Pal Benko who helped convert Frederic Friedel's amateur composition into an "Excelsior", and tried himself to construct a full Excelsior (where the pawn starts with a single step). It's a lesson in problem composition.

Gibraltar: Loving life on the Rock

2/6/2019 – One more look back at the Gibraltar Chess Festival with one of the players, GM JAN WERLE, who takes a tour of the highlights from this year's tournament, including a selection of games from the winners — Vladislav Artemiev, Karthikeyan Murali and Tan Zhongyi — plus the best game prize-winner: Gawain Jones vs Alejandro Ramirez. You'll also find video from GM Simon Williams and IM Lawrence Trent and interviews with Vassily Ivanchuk, Levon Aronian and D. Gukesh — one of the young stars of the festival. | Photo: Niki Riga

Game of the Week: Artemiev vs Navara

2/6/2019 – 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: Artemiev vs Navara from the Gibraltar Chess Festival. 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.

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.