Annotated highlights from the World Senior Championships

12/3/2018 – Grandmaster ADRIAN MIKHALCHISHIN takes a look at some of the key games from the World Senior Championships recently concluded in Bled, Slovenia. Featured are the games of 65+ runner-up Yuri Balashov and third place Nukhim Rashkovsky, Women 65+ winner Nona Gaprindashvili, best 50+ woman Elvira Berend, Open 50+ champ Karen Movsziszian and runner-up Giorgi Bagaturov | Photo: Tadej Sakelšek

Bled hosts the 2018 World Senior Championships

12/2/2018 – The Slovenian city of Bled received players from more than sixty countries for this year's World Senior Championships. Open and women's tournaments for players aged 50+ and 65+ took place from November 18th to 29th. Nona Gaprindashvili (pictured), Elvira Berend, Vlastimil Jansa and Karen Movsziszian were the winners. During the rest day, some of the participants plus other 'visitors' competed in the Albin Planinc Memorial, a 9-round rapid tournament won by Mladen Palac. | Photos: Official site

'King of the Kebab' Match!

12/2/2018 – Can a master level blitz match be more exciting than an elite level match? Are amateurs or semi-pros able to showcase their creativity, imagination, dazzling combination and sacrifices as well as the big guns? Is over-the-board (OTB) chess more exciting than online chess and streaming? The answer two all these questions a resounding, yes, argues DAVIDE NASTASIO, who presents many positions from a recent match — Meruga vs Mbonu (pictured) — that he finds useful for training. Blitz rules like touching a piece or losing because of an illegal move don't exist in online chess. In OTB chess this makes the difference between life or death! So don't miss the chance to add some tactical ideas or endgame learning to your arsenal!

Pirc power

12/2/2018 – This week GM JON SPEELMAN takes a submission from a Belgian 2200 player featuring the Pirc Defence. 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!

December 2018 FIDE Ratings

12/1/2018 – FIDE's December ratings are out and surprisingly little has changed across all rating categories. The World Championship did not lead to a new number one. The Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun will have to wait to claim the number one spot as well, since Hou Yifan played in the German League and is in no danger of dropping off the rating list due to inactivity despite her ongoing University studies. There was more of a shakeup in rapid and blitz ratings thanks to India's first ever super-tournament which featured both. | Pictured: Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun survived a strong challenge to hang on to her title, not unlike a certain Magnus Carlsen! | Photo: ugra2018.fide.com

The perfect Babson

12/1/2018 – Remember our article on the Babson task? Tim Krabbé told us the tragic story of how a fanatical problem composer failed, after 22 years of exhausting labour, to find a position that required quadruple echo promotion — only to see a 26-year-old soccer trainer succeed with multiple examples. Today there are 20 known examples, but none are free of duals. A very erudite 99-page paper by Peter Hoffmann describes the current state of affairs, and problemist Werner Keym is offering substantial cash prizes for the perfect Babson.

Magnus Carlsen: His career at 28

11/30/2018 – Today, on November 30th, 2018, Magnus Carlsen celebrates his 28th birthday, carefree, as World Champion, after successfully defending his title two days earlier in a match against Fabiano Caruana by a 3-0 win in the rapid tiebreak. Carlsen is already considered one of the best players of all time, but a few numbers show how impressive his career has been, and provide a handy gateway into the ChessBase archives. | Pictured: Magnus Carlsen in the ChessBase office in October 2017 | Photo: Nadja Wittman

The Power Play Show

11/30/2018 – Friday at 18:00 CET (17:00 UTC) 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, plus Daniel will be looking at the tie-break games from the World Championship. Puzzle and the live video...

Amateur chess with a difference

11/30/2018 – The World Championship has naturally dominated the headlines over the past three weeks, but let us not forget that chess is played by millions of amateurs worldwide. That's the focus of a new tournament in Serbia from January 3rd-11th, 2019. DIANA MIHAJLOVA explains. | Pictured: The Amateur Chess International Tournaments are accompanied by an ever-present mascot: a stylized chess piece with a head of a panther, called "Archibald". | Photos: Tournament archive

Princeton wins Ivy Chess Challenge

11/30/2018 – The inaugural Ivy Chess Challenge was the one of the strongest collegiate tournament to be ever held in North America, after the Pan-American Collegiate Championships. Though the name is a bit misleading, as only three out of the six teams were Ivy Leagues, the tournament nevertheless boasted very strong chess-players, on both rating and academics. QIYU ZHOU was there representing the host University of Toronto and sends this report. | Photo: Changong Yu

Fire on the board

11/30/2018 – The diagram position saw the queen sacrifice 18.Bxh6, giving rise to fantastic complications. After 18...Nxf4 19.Bxg7+ Kh7 20.Rxf4 White threatens checkmate. Can you show — or maybe even remember — how Black could have won?

Magnus Carlsen keeps the crown

11/29/2018 – The 2018 World Championship match in London concluded on Wednesday. Two days before his 28th birthday, Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen confirmed his status as World Champion for at least two more years. And he did it in style, getting a 3:0 wipe-out in the rapid tiebreaks over Fabiano Caruana. Both players were deservingly praised for their efforts afterwards, in what was considered one of the most far-reaching chess events in recent history. GM DANIEL FERNANDEZ and GM YANNICK PELLETIER analysed all the games of the tiebreaks. | Photos: World Chess

Misha Tal: The fall of the eagle

11/29/2018 – Last time our columnist offered a glimpse of young Tal as seen by his friend, Valentin Kirillov: Then we saw a young eagle soaring in the sky. Now we see him with wings burning and falling. Here is how the tragedy unfolded. | Pictured: Mikhail Tal and Boris Spassky at blitz | Photo: chess-news.ru

Game of the Week: Beating the Petroff

11/28/2018 – Ideas and strategies in Grandmaster games can be quite instructive. IM Merijn van Delft presents games like these every Wednesday at 20:00 CET (19:00 UT, 2 pm EDT). On this week's show: Magnus Carlsen's attempt in London to beat Caruana's Petroff. The live show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders. To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows.

World Championship 2018 - Closing Ceremony LIVE

11/28/2018 – The moment we've all been waiting for! Live games (for Premium members) from the 2018 World Championship match in London. Every two games will be followed by a rest day until Game 12 (if necessary) on November 26th which will be preceded by an additional rest day. All rounds start at 15:00 UT (London time) / 16:00 CEST / 10:00 EST. If needed there would be a rapid tiebreak match on Wednesday, November 28th. | Photos: Patricia Claros

Kramnik: "Magnus needs to get rid of this fear of losing the title"

11/28/2018 – Former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik is one of many grandmasters and chess fans crestfallen at the string of twelve draws we have witnessed over the past three weeks. He thinks Magnus Carlsen is still the favourite in the tiebreak (60%/40%) but that Caruana has won over a lot of fans, and if he has a good tiebreak match strategy worked out in advance, and makes use of his chances, he can win. | Photos: World Chess

Kings Tournament celebrates Romania's Centenary

11/28/2018 – In honour of the Centenary of Romania's Unification Day, the ROMGAZ Kings Tournament organised an event that included some of the strongest players from the country and the country's diaspora. Viorel Iordachescu and Alina l'Ami won the men's and women's tournaments, respectively. Each event combined rapid and blitz formats with four players in each category. In both cases, there was a close fight for first place. | Photos: Official site

New format for the Women's World Championship Cycle

11/28/2018 – The 2018 Championship ended last Friday, with Chinese GM Ju Wenjun winning the 64-player knockout tournament to retain her title. In the meantime FIDE had revised the system, and surprised the chess world with a comprehensively revised new format. It consists of an eight-player double round robin Candidates Tournament to be held in the first half of 2019, with the winner playing the reigning Women's World Champion at the end of the same year. Here are the details of the whole cycle.

The Weekly Show with Lawrence Trent

11/27/2018 – Tuesdays at 18:00 CEST (5:00 pm UK time, Noon EDT) Lawrence Trent brings you the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments. Lawrence is LIVE this week and free for ChessBase Basic account holders for a limited time! (Why not register for FREE in 30 seconds if you don't already have an account?) This week Lawrence looks at the 'Tournament of Peace' in Zagreb.

Simon Says — My own games (2)

11/27/2018 – For a change, Simon takes a look at some of his own recent games in this episode, including highlights from the Isle of Man open and 4NCL tournament. Simon is live this week. 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!

ChessBase 15: Replay Training (part 2)

11/27/2018 – The first part of the tutorial about the new "Replay Training" function in ChessBase 15 explainded how to use this function. The second part explains how to optimize your training and how to save the results of your replay sessions. Try it, have fun, get better! | Drawing: ChessBase
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A great rook

11/27/2018 – Rook and knight are not always in harmony. Coordinating them properly often requires precision.

World Championship Game 12: And on to the rapids...

11/27/2018 – Two years after Magnus Carlsen openly went for a draw with White in the last classical game of his match against Sergey Karjakin, the World Champion offered a draw in a playable — slightly superior — position to take the struggle to rapid tiebreaks. Fabiano Caruana understandably agreed to split the point and now everything will be decided on Wednesday, when four rapid games — and blitz and Armageddon if the tie is not broken — will determine the champion. Guest analysis by GM WESLEY SO and GM ERWIN L'AMI. | Photos: World Chess

Tata Blitz – a video feast

11/26/2018 – Did you catch the world-class blitz at the Tata Steel tournament in India? For the vast majority the venue, like with so many other events, was just too far away. Thankfully Sagar Shah, who set up ChessBase India, was there and filmed the most interesting games from the best possible angle. You can watch the action at close range, see the players think and react to the opponent's moves, and even analyse on the replay board with engine support. It's highly enjoyable — just ask 1.3 million viewers on YouTube you have watched Praggnanandhaa vs Anand!