Karpov-Korchnoi: 40 years after

10/17/2018 – Today 40 years ago, on October 17th, 1978, a battle of nerves, which lasted over four months and 32 games, ended in Baguio City, the Philippines. The Soviet defector Viktor Korchnoi fought against the Soviet loyalist World Champion Anatoly Karpov for the chess world's highest title. We take a look at a few more details of the match, with photos and discussion of the new feature documentary "Closing Gambit" with producer Alan Byron. | Photos: Screenbound Pictures

The Game of the Week

10/17/2018 – Ideas and strategies in Grandmaster games can be quite instructive. IM Merijn van Delft presents games like these every Wednesday at 20:00 CEST (19:00 UT, 2 pm EDT). On this week's show: European Club Cup and Pavel Eljanov against Gerlev Meins.

The Power Play Show

10/17/2018 – Wednesday at 19:00 CEST (17:00 UT) 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 games from the Olympiad. Puzzle and the live video...

European Club Cup: Nothing yet settled as four teams lead

10/17/2018 – A day filled with close matches at the top left four teams tied for first at the European Club Cup in Porto Carras. Obiettivo Risarcimento Padova held Alkaloid to a draw — and even could have won — while Valerenga and AVE Novy Bor edged Odlar Yurdu and Beer Sheva Chess Club by the closest margin. Therefore, two exciting rounds await with many top teams yet to play each other. In the women's section, Ugra and SSHOR qualified to the final knockout phase. DANIEL FERNANDEZ annotated six key games of the round. | Photo: Niki Riga / eurochess2018.com

Closing Gambit, a new feature documentary

10/17/2018 – “If you were going to write a movie script, you couldn’t have done it better,” says English GM Daniel King. A new feature documentary, Closing Gambit, is being released to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the 1978 World Championship and the start of the Carlsen versus Caruana match in November. The film was successfully screened to international buyers at the Cannes Festival earlier this year, and will become widely available on TV and digital platforms later this year.

Vsevolod Rauzer: A fanatical researcher

10/16/2018 – 110 years ago, on October 16th, 1908, the Soviet Master and famous opening theoretician Vsevolod Rauzer was born in Kiev, Ukraine. Rauzer died in 1941 but during his short career, he discovered a number of new ideas in the opening and the endgame. Rauzer was convinced that 1.e4 is better than 1.d4 and wanted to prove that with all his might. | Diagram: The starting position of the Richter-Rauzer Attack

The Weekly Show with Lawrence Trent

10/16/2018 – 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. The is streamed live, free for all, and will be available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders. This week Lawrence's focus is the ongoing European Club Cup!

Endgame Magic with IM Lawrence Trent

10/16/2018 – English IM Lawrence Trent is back joining Karsten with endgames from Batumi. This week's show is live at 15:00 CEST (13:00 UTC; 9:00 AM EDT) and FREE to watch on-demand (for a limited time)!

Always fascinating: knight vs bishop

10/16/2018 – Which is stronger, the knight or the bishop? Some players prefer knights, others like the bishop better. However, there is only one answer to this question: It depends!

European Club Cup: Alkaloid grab key win

10/16/2018 – Ding Liren inflicted Peter Svidler's third straight loss to give Alkaloid a critical victory over fourth seeded Mednyi Vsadnik. The rating favourites now share the lead with Obiettivo Risarcimento Padova, which barely beat the over-performing Dunajska Streda. Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen drew Alexander Donchenko and lost 2.9 rating points, but his team Valerenga Sjakklubb grabbed a clear win to stay one point behind the leaders. | Photo: Niki Riga / eurochess2018.com

Judit Polgar's Global Chess Festival

10/15/2018 – Last weekend, Judit Polgar's big, colourful annual Global Chess Festival took place. A full 24 hours revolved around chess — and not only in Budapest; about 100 places around the world were involved in one way or another. | Photos: Global Chess Festival

Miguel Illescas previews Carlsen vs. Caruana

10/15/2018 – We are only weeks away from the start of the World Championship in London, where Magnus Carlsen meets his latest challenger, the American Fabiano Caruana, and the fans wait impatiently for this impending train collision. It's a match which a priori promises great emotions and high-quality games because we will witness the indisputable numbers 1 and 2 of the world ranking. Grandmaster Miguel Illescas reflects on AlphaZero and wonders if secret preparation tools could make the difference. | Photo: Peón de Rey

Martyn Kravtsiv wins the 1st Gujarat GM Open

10/15/2018 – Ahmedabad, the fifth largest city in India, concluded its first International Grandmaster Open on October 12th. The ten round Swiss league attracted about 250 participants from more than 15 different countries. Although the field included some strong grandmasters, the event was dominated by Indian youngsters for the most part. At the end of ten rounds, the tournament's top seed, GM Martyn Kravtsiv won the event by defeating the overnight leader IM Vignesh NR in the final round. | Photo: Niklesh Jain

European Club Cup: Valerenga hold Novy Bor to a draw

10/15/2018 – Three rounds have taken place in Porto Carras and six teams still have a perfect record at the European Club Cup. The big match of Sunday was AVE Novy Bor vs. Valerenga — for quite a while it seemed like the Czech team was about to prevail, but Carlsen's colleagues saved the day with two longwinded wins. Meanwhile, Alkaloid and Odlar Yurdu continued with their commanding performances and got big scores yet again. Only four rounds are left in the short team event. | Photo: Niki Riga / eurochess2018.com

Speelman's Agony #85

10/14/2018 – This week's games are from Polish IM Jan Przewoznik who is rekindling his chess passion and reflecting on his youth, including these games from 1979! 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!

European Club Cup: Magnus does not falter

10/14/2018 – In the second day of play in Porto Carras, the big teams once again took down their opponents with little collateral damage. While the real fight between clubs is only about to start, some individual encounters were in the spotlight on Saturday — Magnus Carlsen defeated Vladimir Potkin from an apparently innocuous position and Peter Svidler opened his tournament with a loss against Aleksandar Indjic. Calrsen's Valerenga will play second seeded AVE Novy Bor in Sunday's round. | Photo: Niki Riga / eurochess2018.com

A joyful time in Paris

10/13/2018 – Have you ever been in the right place at the right time? That is precisely what happened to DIANA MIHAJLOVA, who reported from the Paris Championship in the midst of a citywide bash: France had just won the FIFA World Cup! The longstanding tournament organised in the ‘City of Light’ was won by the talented youngster Jules Moussard. Let’s dive into the pictorial report filled with anecdotes, places and faces. | All photos: Diana Mihajlova

European Club Cup: Favourites crash through

10/13/2018 – Less than a month before the World Championship match begins in London, Magnus Carlsen flew to Porto Carras to represent Valerenga Sjakklubb at the European Chess Club Cup. The Norwegian expectedly rested on day one, when all the favourite teams comfortably swept their lower-rated opponents by wide margins. Only in the women's section we saw a surprise, as Caissa Italia Pentole Agnolli had to settle for a draw against the Russian SSHOR. | Photo: Niki Riga / eurochess2018.com

Looking back to Batumi: Wandering Kings

10/12/2018 – Kings that go walkabout on a full board are rare but charming. At the Chess Olympiad 2018 in Batumi such wandering kings could be admired in two interesting games. In Mamedov vs Shankland (pictured) the voyage of the king was defensive, in the game Hillarp Persson vs Laurusas, which won the brilliancy prize in Batumi, the white king joined a mating attack against the black king. Both games have historical predecessors. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Review: Trompowsky for the attacking player

10/12/2018 – Recently we've seen Chess960 being actively discussed as a way to play chess while avoiding opening theory, testing our opponent's mind from the start. However, for the amateur, playing tournaments on the weekend, there are so many possibilities in the opening theory that it is nearly impossible to cover all of them decently. Many already have adopted setups like the London system, or the King's Indian Attack (KIA) so they don't have to study opening theory. Gareyev proposes an attacking alternative in the Trompowsky, a lesser known opening which can oblige Black to think from the first moves while creating plenty of tactical problems. DAVIDE NASTASIO takes a look in this interactive review that encourages the reader to try out key middlegame and endgame positions against an engine. Get your daily training here and now! | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Boys will beat boys

10/12/2018 – Having traded the enemy fianchetto bishop, White has managed to land the queen on h6 ("a beast on h6"). His first move in the diagram position might be obvious, but can you also guess which piece will become the true hero of his attack? Enjoy!

Euro Club Cup kicks off in Greece Friday

10/11/2018 – Tomorrow an impressive team tournament gets underway — this year's European Cup — and among those in action will be World Champion Magnus Carlsen who plays for the "Valerenga Sjakklubb" from Oslo. The Elo favourite is the team of "Alkaloid" with an average rating of 2741 and Ding Liren among the players. Another 2800 player, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov leads the Azerbaijani team Odlar Yurdu. | Photo: European Chess Union

Norway Chess Armageddon gambit

10/11/2018 – The organisers of the 2019 Altibox Norway Chess tournament have unveiled a new format aimed at reducing the rate of draws. It's either "innovative" or "bizarre" depending on who you ask but is sure to be an interesting subject of debate in the months leading up to the June, 2019, tournament. We explain the new idea and check in on the Twitter reaction. Plus, have your say in our reader survey! | Photo: Lennart Ootes / NorwayChess.no

Hort Stories: "My David Ionovich"

10/11/2018 – David Bronstein was certainly one of the most creative players in the history of chess. In 1951 he drew a World Championship match against Mikhail Botvinnik who thus narrowly defended the title. Vlastimil Hort remembers encounters with "my David Ionovich", including how a promise to play the King's Gambit in 1970 came back to haunt him 24 years later!