World Championship Game 7: Black is fine

11/19/2018 – Another day, another draw. The long-awaited 2018 World Championship has seen the players hold their own with the black pieces, and even get the upper hand — once Caruana and once Carlsen — when having to move second. The seventh game was a Queen's Gambit Declined where Fabiano unleashed the first surprise and ended up getting a rather comfortable half point. DANIEL FERNANDEZ and YANNICK PELLETIER took a closer look at what happened over the board | Photos: Nikolai Dunaevsky / World Chess

Eight egregious elite errors

11/18/2018 – This week, in honour of the Carlsen vs Caruana match, GM JON SPEELMAN examines eight blunders from World Championship history. One of them features Magnus himself! But, dear regular column readers, do continue sending 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!

Carlsen vs Karjakin 2016 revisited

11/18/2018 – With the long-awaited World Championship match between World Champion Magnus Carlsen and his Challenger Fabiano Caruana finally underway, GM LARS BO HANSEN was inspired to revisit some analyses from the previous World Championship match in New York between Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin in November 2016. As most readers will recall, the reigning World Champion survived a scare in the regular games before eventually dominating the rapid playoff. What conclusions can we draw and how might that impact the 2018 contest? | Photo: Albert Silver

Garry Kasparov on Bill Maher

11/17/2018 – On Friday American comedian, talk show host and political agitator had, for the third time at least, former World Champion Garry Kasparov on his show. Kasparov, who lives in quasi-exile in New York, is a ferocious critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and in recent years has been equally critical of the US President Donald Trump. You can watch the Real Time with Bill Maher show on HBO, or catch the section with Kasparov on YouTube.

Women's World Ch: Lagno will take on Ju Wenjun in the final

11/17/2018 – The tiebreaks of the semi-final match between Kateryna Lagno and Mariya Muzychuk took place on Saturday in Khanty-Mansiysk. Lagno won both rapid games to take down a visibly exhausted Muzychuk, who came from playing a demanding series of tiebreak games against Zhansaya Abdumalik. The victory for Lagno means she will have a shot at winning her first World Championship in the final — set to take off on Monday — against Ju Wenjun. | Photos: Official site

Moradiabadi's travels in South Carolina

11/17/2018 – Chess is booming in the USA now with the help of the current challenger for the highest honour in chess, Fabiano Caruana, who was born in Miami, grew up in Brooklyn, NY and lives in St. Louis. Currently, he is in a 3-3 tie with the incumbent, World Champion Magnus Carlsen, after a week of intense play. GM ELSHAN MORADIABADI — seen here either practising his 70s disco skills or calling on one of the kids — reports on his recent travels in South Carolina. | Photos: David Grimaud

World Championship Game 6: A Petroff, a marathon, a draw

11/17/2018 – The deadlock is yet to be broken. The sixth game of the World Championship match saw Magnus Carlsen use 1.e4 for the first time and, predictably, Fabiano Caruana responded with the Petroff Defence. What seemed to be a boring position that would unavoidably lead to a draw turned into a real fight when Caruana opened the centre. Carlsen ended up suffering to secure a draw after sacrificing a piece for two pawns. EFSTRATIOS GRIVAS and LAWRENCE TRENT analysed the game. | Photos: Nikolai Dunaevsky / World Chess

Women's World Ch: Ju Wenjun reaches the final

11/16/2018 – Defending champion Ju Wenjun (pictured) qualified for the final at the 2018 Women's World Championship knockout. With a safe draw in the second game of the semi-final, the current World Champion won her mini-match 1½-½ over Alexandra Kosteniuk. In the second match of the semi-final, Kateryna Lagno and Mariya Muzychuk also drew and therefore have to play a tiebreak match Saturday for the remaining spot in the final. | Photos: Official site

Vintage Vishy wins blitz and hearts at Tata Steel Chess in Kolkata

11/16/2018 – The strongest chess event on Indian soil was held from November 9th to the 14th, 2018 with three days of rapid chess and two days of blitz. Hikaru Nakamura had already won the rapid section with a dominating performance. In the blitz event, the American GM was racing ahead on the first day with 6½/9. It seemed as if Nakamura would take home both the titles, but Vishy Anand had other plans. The 48-year-old former World Champion showed his class as he notched up one win after another. By scoring 7½/9 on day two he tied with Nakamura for the top spot. We then had a blitz playoff in which Anand triumphed and won the Tata Steel Chess India Blitz 2018. IM SAGAR SHAH and AMRUTA MOKAL provide pictures, videos, game analysis from Kolkata.

Hazardous queens

11/16/2018 – White's 17.Qh5 threatens checkmate on h7, and after 17...h6 he wants to strike with 18.Nxf7. Flying colours or flop? What would you predict?

Anand: "Switching to a main line Sicilian is getting harder"

11/16/2018 – Magnus Carlsen noted in the post-game press conference that "obviously 6.b4 wasn't new to me" and former World Champion VISWANATHAN ANAND agrees in his analysis of Game 5 for the next ChessBase Magazine. Here's a sneak peek and also a candid video interview with Anand on his victory in the blitz tournament of Tata Steel Chess India after a tiebreak match. | Photo: (left) World Chess / (right) Amruta Mokal

World Championship Game 5: Even Gurgenidze is not enough to win

11/16/2018 – In today's 5th game of the World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana, the two players honoured Georgian champion Bukhtuti Gurgenidze with their opening selection and after a mild-mannered struggle, the game ended in a draw. (The 2017 World Junior Champion GM ARYAN TARI annotates.) The press conference, however, was once again lively. When asked which player Carlsen most admired from the past, he brought down the house with the original reply, "myself from three or four years ago". | Photo: Nikolai Dunaevsky / World Chess

Misha in memoriam

11/15/2018 – Last week saw the birth anniversary of Mikhail Tal, (1936-1992) 8th World Champion and legendary player. Few players captured the imagination of the chess world as he and Bobby Fischer did. We offered him a small tribute and here is another by our columnist who also draws our attention to a slim volume that deserves to be better known. | Photo: Riga greets Tal

ChessBase 15: Replay Training (part 1)

11/15/2018 – In this tutorial, learn all about "replay training", a new feature of ChessBase 15 that invites you to guess the moves in games — a well-known and powerful way to improve. Correct proposals are rewarded with points which allows you to measure your progress. "Replay training" is a nice feature that you can use for light-hearted fun and playful challenges but also for some serious training. Give it a try! | Drawing: ChessBase
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ChessBase 15 now released

11/15/2018 – ChessBase is a personal, stand-alone chess database that has become the international standard for top players, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. The latest version, ChessBase 15, has now been released. It brings you spectacular new training features, all geared to improve your playing strength in the most enjoyable way possible. The program also generates beautiful ray-trace chess movies you can post on social media. Start your personal success story with ChessBase and enjoy your chess even more.
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Women's World Ch: Tension

11/14/2018 – The four semi-finalists of the 2018 Women's World Championship — all of which qualified to an upcoming Candidates tournament — have been decided. Ju Wenjun and Kateryna Lagno got their tickets in the classical portion, Alexandra Kosteniuk defeated Anna Muzychuk in a tense 25+30 rapid phase, and Mariya Muzychuk (pictured) eliminated Zhansaya Abudmalik in the second 5+3 blitz game, after the players traded blows all throughout the match. | Photos: Official site

Vachier-Lagrave awarded Shenzen Masters win after three-way tie

11/14/2018 – As tournaments go, this was an odd one: with nine draws and one win, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave took the Shenzhen Masters with a mere 5½ points from 10 games. Since Ding Liren and Anish Giri both also scored 5½, but 'MVL' beat Ding in their direct encounter, the Frenchman had the better tiebreak. Giri earned a notable first victory in the final round against Radoslaw Wojtaszek. GM ALEX YERMOLINSKY sends his final thoughts. | Photo: qipai.org.cn

Game of the Week: The end of the streak

11/14/2018 – 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: How Ding's 100 games undefeated came to an end. 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.

Tata Steel Chess India Rapid: Nakamura is champion

11/14/2018 – The Tata Steel Chess India 2018 Rapid came to an end on November 11th with American GM Hikaru Nakamura taking home the first prize with 6.0/9. Nakamura played the event as per the demands of the situation — calm on first and third days and three victories on day two! It was excellent news for Indian fans that Harikrishna managed to fight back with two wins against Levon Aronian and Vidit Gujrathi in last two rounds to finish second. Levon Aronian had to settle for the third spot. IM SAGAR SHAH brings you six things that happened on the last day of the rapid and reflections on the first super tournament held in his native India! Of course, one mustn't forget the small sensation — Vishy Anand was beaten by his former second Surya Sekhar Ganguly in the final round.

Tata Steel India Blitz LIVE

11/14/2018 – The Tata Steel India blitz tournament has started in Kolkata. From Tuesday, November 13th to Wednesday the 14th you can get warmed up for the World Championship by watching blitz chess with former Candidates: Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Levon Aronian, Wesley So, former World Champion Viswanathan Anand and India's top talent, Harikrishna, Vidit, Sarin and Ganguly. Live commentary with IM Lawrence Trent and IM Tania Sachdev. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / TataSteelChess.in

World Championship: Game 4 drawn amid 'videogate'

11/14/2018 – The fourth game of the World Chess Championship in London between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana also ended without a winner. With White, the World Champion did not get anything out of the English opening and on the 34th move, he offered to draw. That left spectators pondering over the potential ramifications of a video promoting Caruana which may have inadvertently provided the Carlsen camp with insights into the Challenger's opening preparation. | Pictured: Ellisiv Reppen makes the ceremonial first move for Carlsen | Photos: Nadia Panteleeva / World Chess

The Weekly Show with Lawrence Trent

11/13/2018 – 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 on-demand 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 covers the recently concluded rapid tournament as part of Tata Steel Chess India.

Baden-Baden wins Bundesliga opener

11/13/2018 – The defending champion of the German top league, OSG Baden-Baden, had a difficult hurdle on the first weekend of the new season facing Werder Bremen. The favourites pulled through, thanks to a victory from Peter Svidler over Luke McShane in a game that was so interesting for the St. Petersburg grandmaster that he postponed his return journey to Hamburg. | Photos: Dariusz Gorzinski

Small army, strong attack

11/13/2018 – Mate ends the game — it is easy to forget this basic rule when trying to comprehend the subtle differences between various opening lines and the dos and don'ts of middle and endgame. But to forget about mating attacks might cost valuable points.