Speelman's Agony #81

8/5/2018 – A young Indian junior sends one troublesome experience and one triumph from his recent tournament praxis, while Jon provides his usual sage advice. Want to join in the fun? 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!

British Championship LIVE - Tiebreak

8/5/2018 – Live commentary of the 105th British Championship being held in Hull, England from July 28th to August 5th. IM Michael Rahal, GM Karsten Mueller, and IM Oliver Reeh break down the live action from the ChessBase studio. | Photo: BritishChessChampionships.co.uk

Light-weight wins Wine Open

8/5/2018 – The fourth edition of the Wine Open took place in Hourtin, near Bordeaux. The traditional prices in this unique event are bottle of wines delivered according to the winners' weight. 15-year-old Antoine Bournel took first place and took home 51 bottles after the weigh-in was made. | Photos: Eva Maria Zickelbein, Jean-Luc Feit, Paula Nenciu Lazar

Banikas basks in Paleochora glory

8/4/2018 – The small peninsula Paleochora in Crete has two coasts with a beach. Sea breezes are urgently in the face of high temperatures, where the games of Paleochora Open began logically in the late afternoon. Hristos Banikas won the tournament and the handsome first prize, while our author GM JAN WERLE, finished in 11th price. | Photo: Jan Werle

Jack of all trades Nick Murphy

8/4/2018 – Our DVD and tutorial author Nick Murphy is actually a Shakespearean actor, but not everything is Shakespeare in the life of a performer. Thus, the versatile chess lover has already been active in many commercials, the latest of which is an advertising clip for German home improvement retailer Obi. | Photo: Obi promotional video

Danzhou Masters: Yu Yangyi comes out on top

8/4/2018 – Scoring 4½/7, tournament's top seed, GM Yu Yangyi bagged the title prize of the 9th Hainan Danzhou Super Grandmaster tournament. In the final round, the race for the title was between Yu Yangyi and his countryman Bu Xiangzhi. Going for a comfortable draw in the Petroff, Yu put the onus of catching up on his rival who was half-a-point behind. Bu was never really in a position to win his game but Fedoseev, Bu's opponent, surprisingly pulled out a win at the last moment to score his first win of the event. Le Quang Liem and Wei Yi also scored impressive wins in the finale.

Hammer Xtra good at Xtracon Open

8/3/2018 – Norway's Jon Ludwig Hammer (pictured middle) won the tournament victory at the Xtracon Open in Helsingör, followed by Russian GM Dmitry Andreikin (left) while the German "prince" Rasmus Svane (right) finished third and Vincent Keymer was the eleventh but also enjoys his second GM norm. | Photo: Jacob Carstensen

NEW: ChessBase Magazine 185

8/3/2018 – The ChessBase Magazine is the most comprehensive and most sophisticated chess magazine there is. World class players analyze their brilliancies and explain the ideas behind the moves to you, opening specialists present the latest trends in opening theory and offer exciting ideas for your repertoire. Master trainers in the fields of tactics, strategy, and the endgame show you the tricks and techniques a successful tournament player needs! DVD with several hours of video plus booklet.

Danzhou Masters: Storm after the calm

8/3/2018 – Big changes occurred on the leaderboard at the conclusion of the penultimate round at the 9th Hainan Danzhou Masters. Tournament leader, Bu Xiangzhi lost his first game of the event to Jan-Krzysztof Duda. This allowed Yu Yangyi, Bu's closest rival to take over the lead after he won a fine attacking game against Vladimir Fedoseev. Le Quang Liem also scored his first win of the tournament in round six against Sam Shankland.

Royal curiosity

8/3/2018 – What's the most natural way for Black in the diagram to parry the threat 27.Rd8+? Other than that, this time you won't be requested to do complicated calculations for a change — the rest of the game will be a cakewalk!

The Albin: "One of the most underrated openings, gambits-wise"

8/2/2018 – 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 d4 — have you ever used this defence, which acts as a very big nuisance in the white position? In his latest Fritztrainer Lawrence Trent calls this “one of the most underrated openings, gambits-wise” and considers it perfectly sound, since he has not been able to refute it with some of the strongest computers in the world. He promises dynamic play, with the “most in-depth analysis I’ve ever done.” Review by SEAN MARSH, with live Fritz-board for you to train on.

Danzhou Masters: All games finish peacefully

8/2/2018 – After two exciting rounds at the 9th Hainan Danzhou Masters, draws were agreed on all boards in the antepenultimate round Wednesday. Wei Yi was the only player with any chance of pushing for a win while players battled in fairly balanced positions on all other boards. This is a welcome development for the tournament leader, Bu Xiangzhi, who now has to stay ahead of his rivals for only two more rounds in order to clinch the title.

Biel: Carlsen and Vachier-Lagrave score

8/2/2018 – Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, who secured tournament victory in the penultimate round, finished the Accentus Biel GM Tournament with a draw. Meanwhile, Nico Georgiadis blundered in one move to lose against Magnus Carlsen and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave obtained a nice attacking win over David Navara. Analysis by GM MIKHAIL GOLUBEV | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Biel International Chess Festival

August 2018 FIDE Ratings

8/1/2018 – July was relatively quiet, with the annual super tournament in Dortmund exerting the most influence on FIDE's classical ratings. It was a good month for Ian Nepomniachtchi who is now number 11 in the world in both classical and rapid chess. | Photo: Ritvo Photography

The venue of the 2018 World Chess Championship has been announced

8/1/2018 – Shortly after the last round of the Biel Tournament was over, World Chess announced the venue for this year's most important chess event. The Carlsen-Caruana match will take place at The College in Holborn, Central London. The organizers also provided some information regarding the live broadcast of the games and the Premium packages that will be available. | Photos: Location House

India to host twin Grandmaster Opens this October

8/1/2018 – Today, India hosts at least six grandmaster events annually. This October, two more GM tournaments are slated to add up to that list: one in the heritage city of Ahmedabad and another in the party capital of the country, Goa. The events will be held from October 5th to 12th in Ahmedabad and October 13th to 20th in Goa. Both the places have their own specialities and these being the first editions of both events, the organizers are extremely motivated to provide the best possible service to the players. Here's all you need to know.

Aloyzas Kveinys 1962-2018

8/1/2018 – The Lithuanian grandmaster Aloyzas Kveinys died suddenly at the age of 56. He was a multiple Lithuanian national champion and represented his country at eight chess Olympiads. From 1992 to 2007 he played for the Godesberger SK in the second Bundesliga West and in the Bundesliga. | Photo: Waldemar Rydzewski

Biel LIVE - Round 10

8/1/2018 – Get set for one of the summer's biggest events and one with a long tradition. The Biel Chess Festival is LIVE with World Champion Magnus Carlsen and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov leading the GM tournament. ChessBase brings you live commentary from Biel with GM Daniel King and IM Anna Rudolf.

Biel: Mamedyarov defeats Carlsen and wins it all

8/1/2018 – Magnus Carlsen needed a win over Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in the ninth round to have a realistic chance of finishing first at the Accentus Biel GM Tournament. He played ambitiously and the game eventually escaped his control completely. Mamedyarov kept a cool head and took advantage of the World Champion's mistakes to win the game and secure tournament victory with a round to spare. MIKHAIL GOLUBEV analysed the key match-up and the two draws from round nine. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Simon Bohnenblust / Biel International Chess Festival

The Weekly Show with Lawrence Trent

7/31/2018 – Tuesdays at 18:00 CEST (5:00 pm UK time, Noon EDT) Lawrence Trent goes on air on Playchess.com. In his show, Lawrence will be dealing with the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments. This week features games from the British Championships!

The sharpest endgame weapons

7/31/2018 – Dominating the enemy and zugzwang are often the sharpest weapons of the attacker in the endgame.

Endgame Magic with guest IM Michael Rahal

7/31/2018 – Joining Karsten for a look some recent endgames from tournament practice today is IM Michael Rahal, who is in Hamburg again to commentate live on the British Championship. Watch live at 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EDT) or later on-demand!

Help! My databases disappeared!

7/31/2018 – You look in ChessBase 14 in the folder "My Databases", but there are no databases that you have definitely created! They're just gone! What now? Don't panic Here are some tips on where to find them. File this away for that rare occasion you may need it. Of course you'll find tons more help in our FAQ, Wiki and Support pages.
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Biel: Georgiadis lets Navara off the hook

7/31/2018 – The fighting chess continues in Biel. Despite all games finishing in draws, we enjoyed three very interesting clashes on the eighth round. Svidler used an advanced passed pawn to draw Carlsen, Vachier-Lagrave and Mamedyarov explored an old variation in the Open Defence, while Georgiadis missed sharp tactics that could have given him the win against Navara. MIKHAIL GOLUBEV provided a thorough analysis of each game. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Simon Bohnenblust / Biel International Chess Festival