Blindfold challenge with Vidit Gujrathi

12/18/2018 – Vidit Gujrathi, the youngest Indian to breach the 2700 Elo mark, is known for his thorough opening preparation and solid style of play. But while his bent is more towards positional niceties, his vivid imagination and almost impeccable calculation let him transcend styles on demand. The following video shows Vidit’s mind in action as he solves four studies and a real-game puzzle, while also explaining how he found his way through the woods of variations.

A not so solid bishop block

12/18/2018 – Usually two bishops win against pawns but usually in chess you also have to be careful till the opponent resigns or is mated.

Nakamura deservedly wins the 2018 Grand Chess Tour

12/17/2018 – After drawing the first seven games of the final match against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura pulled off a very nice win to secure first place at the London Classic — given this year's format, this meant Nakamura also won the overall Grand Chess Tour. Third place went to Fabiano Caruana, who obtained three victories on Monday to take down Levon Aronian. Meanwhile, Gawain Jones showed a more than convincing performance to beat Luke McShane and become the champion of the 2018 British Knockout Championship. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

Simon Says — Latest Developments in the Classical Sicilian

12/17/2018 – In this Simon Says we take a look at some recent ideas in this exciting opening. Simon is live this week at 18:00 CET (17:00 UTC). 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!

NEW: ChessBase Magazine #187

12/17/2018 – WCh London, Chess Olympiad, European Club Cup, Simon Williams on The Modern Reti, Mihail Marin on the Open Ruy Lopez, Yannick Pelletier tackles the French, new CBM contributor Daniel Naroditsky brings you "the London System revisited", Evgeny Postny looks at the Symmetrical English, plus our regular slew of columns and columnists. Check out the last ChessBase Magazine of 2018, today!

Memorable Robert Byrne games

12/17/2018 – Robert Byrne was born on April 20th, 1928. Although he only became a chess professional after the age of 40, Byrne was one of the best players in the United States in the 1950s to 1970s. He died in 2013 at the age of 84 years. (Photo: Robert Byrne, 1969 against Boris Ivkov, source: Dutch National Archives)

London Chess Classic: Nakamura wins his first Grand Chess Tour

12/17/2018 – Live games and commentary from the 10th London Chess Classic, the final leg of the 2018 Grand Chess Tour. All rounds start at 15:00 CET (14:00 UTC) with commentary by GM Yasser Seirawan, WGM Jennifer Shahade, GM Maurice Ashley, GM Cristian Chirila and GM Alejandro Ramirez.

London Classic: King's pawn openings

12/17/2018 – The final matches of the Grand Chess Tour and the British Knockout Championship continued in London's Olympia Conference Centre on Sunday. The second classical games of the GCT resulted in two more draws, which leave the scores tied before the decisive rapid and blitz rounds. In the British KO Championship, meanwhile, Gawain Jones took a six-point lead over Luke McShane in the match for first place. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

One that got away

12/16/2018 – In this week's Agony/Ecstasy column, GM JON SPEELMAN analyses a pair of online games from American tournament veteran Ted Jewell, one an English Opening and the other a King's Indian 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!

Asian Continental Championship: Two at the top

12/16/2018 – Recovering from their early upsets, Wang Hao, Vidit Gujrathi and Le Quang Liem made their way back to the top of the leaderboard at the 17th Asian Continental Championship in Manila, Philippines. Surya Ganguly and M. Amin Tabatabei are tied for first with 5½ after seven rounds. Six grandmasters including Vidit Gujrathi, Wei Yi and Le Quang Liem are a half point behind at 5/7. With two rounds to go, it's still wide open.

London Classic: Tense draws

12/16/2018 – The final match of the Grand Chess Tour kicked off on Saturday. Hikaru Nakamura held Maxime Vachier-Lagrave to a draw from the white side of a Grünfeld Defence, after the Frenchman won a pawn but could not convert it in the endgame. In the battle for third place, Levon Aronian achieved a slight edge against Fabiano Caruana but was not able to get the full point. The first classical round of the British Knockout Championship also ended with two draws. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

Big upset at the start of Sunway Sitges 2018

12/16/2018 – Fan favourite super-GM Vassily Ivanchuk lost to 12-year-old Sreeshwan Maralakshikari from India. The powerful youth are likely to remain one of the chief storylines in Sitges, a town just down the Mediterranean coast from Barcelona. In attendance are the top players in the world ages 11-14 — all from India — plus the European number one under-15 IM Vincent Keymer from Germany. | Pictured: The playing hall on the eve of battle | Photo: Sunway Sitges International Chess Festival

Must-have: ChessBase tools for your website

12/15/2018 – Usually, chess websites are better if the reader can play through games or use interactive diagrams or has the choice to follow tournaments live or practise some tactics, etc. ChessBase offers a number of attractive tools which you can embed on your website to let your readers enjoy chess even more. The tools are all free! And here's how to get them running yourself! | Drawing: ChessBase
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Guest star analysis from St. Louis

12/15/2018 – Here's a handy guide for future reference. We present one-click access to all the special guests that you may have missed from the great 'Today in Chess' shows, courtesy the Saint Louis Chess Club. Garry Kasparov was a regular, but they also received virtual visits from Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Peter Leko and more. Plus all the ChessBase contributors (video and text) annotations in once place.

The Power Play Show - AlphaZero Part 2

12/14/2018 – Friday at 18:00 CET (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 the AlphaZero games vs Stockfish. Puzzle and the live video...

Jones and McShane reach the final in British Knockout

12/14/2018 – And then there were two. The semi-finals of the British Knockout Championship saw Gawain Jones and Luke McShane (pictured) defeat rating favourites — according to FIDE's classical list — David Howell and Michael Adams. Only two games were drawn out of the twelve played in rapid and blitz formats on Thursday. The players will have a rest day before returning to the fray on Saturday for the three-day matches that will decide the final standings — Adams and Howell will fight for third place. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / London Chess Classic

Sudden dynamics

12/14/2018 – In the diagram position White seems to have everything under control — harmony is the keyword. However, Black's next move changes this drastically. Can you spot his idea?

London Classic: Nakamura and Vachier-Lagrave advance to Final

12/14/2018 – Hikaru Nakamura (pictured) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave are considered two of the best rapid chess and blitz chess players in the world. In rapid Nakamura is rated number two and Vachier-Lagrave number six, while in blitz, 'MVL' is now number one — surpassing Magnus Carlsen — and Nakamura is number three. They will meet in the London Chess Classic finals after defeating Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian respectively. Here's how day 3 unfolded. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

Review of ChessBase 15

12/13/2018 – "I usually review mainly books but I want to say a few words about CB 15", writes CARL PORTMAN, author of the book Chess Behind Bars, as he begins his collection of thoughts on our flagship database program. Importantly, he tackles the perennial question: Should I upgrade it and why? Portman thinks "you’ll be intellectually naked without it"!

Asian Continental Championship: An unfortunate start

12/13/2018 – The 17th edition of the Asian Continental Championship did not begin on the right note. A night before the start of the event, GM Vidit Gujrathi took to Facebook to express his dissatisfaction about the conditions provided. He further revealed that he and his colleagues MR Lalith Babu and Abhijit Kunte were attacked by a group of goons, just a few hundred metres away from their hotel! In our first report, we talk about the incident, FIDE's reaction and the happenings of the first three rounds. No photos or video are currently available in the "gallery" of the official site: philchesstournaments.com

Kasparov: Chess is the Drosophila of reasoning

12/13/2018 – The Kasparov Chess Foundation (KCF) and The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis (CCSCSL) have run the very successful Young Stars program for 'Team USA' for the past six years. Meet the latest crop of talented kids from the recent New York training session. Plus, In a new article, Garry Kasparov reminds us that the recent World Championship match did not represent "a contest between the two strongest chess players on the planet, only the strongest humans." Brute force programs have long exceeded human playing strength. But that does not end the historical role of chess as a laboratory of cognition. A new pure AI system has superseded even those programs. Kasparov evaluates AlphaZero's play in Science Magazine and gives a political interview in the prestigious magazine The New Yorker. | Photo DeepMind Technologies, Igor Khodzinskiy

London Classic: Aronian close, but classical games all drawn

12/12/2018 – Those who fear the "draw death" of classical chess gained a bit more ammunition today after both semifinal games ended drawn. In light of the 12 draws in the World Championship, four more in London so far is a bit disappointing. The game between Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana ended quickly and without even a hint of fireworks. Levon Aronian (pictured) surprised Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the opening and got an advantage, but could not exploit it. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

Game of the Week: An open file

12/12/2018 – 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: The open file. 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.

Chess in the midnight sun

12/12/2018 – Most chess players who have visited Iceland have stayed and played in Reykjavik. Northern Iceland is another story, quite different from the capital area. This spring there is a chance to visit an exotic part of the country to play in an international tournament – in beautiful surroundings and excellent conditions. The Icelandic Open 2019 will take place from May 25th to June 1st in Akureyri, just 60 km south of the Arctic Circle. Plan it in.