Wijk aan Zee turns 80 — and other stats

1/12/2018 – Today, Friday, January 12, is the official start of the Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee. Tomorrow, Saturday, January 13th at 13:30 CET, the first round begins. The tournament in Wijk aan Zee is the first elite tournament of the year and always a great celebration of chess. It is also a tournament with a long tradition – this year it celebrates its 80th birthday. The tournament has written chess history and continues to do so today, which makes it tempting to look at some numbers. | Photo: TataSteelChess.com

Tune your tactics - Qd2 vs Qa5

1/12/2018 – A solid tactical understanding is sure to help any chess player in critical situations. Whether it is a simple exchange or a mating attack, tactics are ubiquitous. Take advantage of the opportunity to develop your tactical understanding in this series with IM Oliver Reeh and Pascal Simon! Friday at 15:30 CET (9:30 AM EDT) it's all about Qd2 vs Qa5!

Transformer

1/12/2018 – In the diagrammed position, White has two ways to make his static advantage (protected passed pawn e5) dynamic. The piece sacrifice 32.Nxc6!? is the first one. Can you see the alternative — and what would have been your choice?

Delhi 2018: India's biggest event

1/11/2018 – There are a lot of firsts happening at the 16th edition of the Delhi International Grandmaster Open 2018. This year, for the first time, the tournament (all categories combined) has a total prize fund of 7,777,777 Indian Rupees (great number, which is equivalent at current rates to USD $122111!) It is also for the first time that a 2700+ player is competing in an Indian grandmaster event — Arkadij Naiditsch (2701). Also a record: nearly 2300 players from all over the world are competing at the Indira Gandhi Stadium. After four rounds, 43-year-old Bangladeshi GM Ziaur Rahman was the only player with a perfect 4 / 4 score, but he was caught in the double-round action on Friday and is now tied with Naiditsch and Murali Karthikeyan with 5½ / 6.

On the bucket list: Wijk aan Zee

1/11/2018 – Starting tomorrow, Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and their colleagues will be making a return trip to the Dutch hamlet of Wijk aan Zee. ChessBase will have daily round-up live shows, following each round starting with GM Yannick Pelletier for Round 1 which kicks off on Saturday. But earlier this week Anish Giri, visited the city of Hilversum to promote the "chess on tour" initiative, which will see the fifth round of the Masters group, held on Wednesday, January 17th, at the museum "Beeld en Geluid" ("Image and sound") | Photo: Tata Steel Chess

Banter Blitz with Kingscrusher on blitz.chessbase.com

1/11/2018 – Tryfon Gavriel — a.k.a. Kingscrusher — will start a weekly banter series on blitz.chessbase.com. He will commentate while playing against ChessBase Account members in his live stream on YouTube, Wednesdays at 20:00 CET (2 pm EST). "I will try and give you greater enthusiasm for the game and in particular the dynamic aggressive aspects of playing chess", writes Kingscrusher. "If you want to be a dynamic aggressive player, I may be able to encourage you..."

Exercises in Style: (4/4) Solutions

1/11/2018 – In the fourth and final part of the "Exercises in Style" readers were asked to identify games by Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Vishy Anand, and Magnus Carlsen. Not an easy task because three of these World Champions are still active and develop stylistically - only Kasparov withdrew from tournament chess. But though modern chess is becoming more and more universal each of these four World Champions has a unique style.

Best of 2017 poll results

1/10/2018 – The results are in! Find out how ChessBase readers rated our nominations for Player of the Year, Female Player of the Year, Game of the Year, Endgame of the Year and Move of the Year. From Anand to Zhongyi, we look back at the highlights of 2017, as selected by ChessBase editors and voted on by members!

50 Moves: GM Ian Rogers' 17 in 17

1/10/2018 – Three highlights from 2017 selected by 50 Moves Magazine editor GM Moulthun Ly and analysed by Australian GM Ian Rogers. Among them are "the most remarkable piece of opening preparation for 2017" (spoiler alert: it's Nepomniachtchi) and "the missed opportunity of the year" from Wei Yi, plus a look at some of the top young talents from Down Under.

Charlie Storey's story

1/10/2018 – FIDE Master Charlie Storey from Morpeth, Northumberland, shares his backstory and how he got into professional "sniping". In his pet opening, Black plays 1…g6 2…Bg7 and 3…c5 against most of White’s set-ups. "The Sniper fires up the imagination, just like The Dragon — but chess is a game of mediaeval war and I just updated it to modern warfare — rooks, tanks, queens, drones — you can figure the rest out."

The Weekly Show with Lawrence Trent

1/9/2018 – Tuesdays at 5pm UK time Lawrence Trent goes on air on Playchess.com. In his show Lawrence Trent will be dealing with the latest trends, games and combinations from the elite chess tournaments. This week features games from players who have recently earned the coveted Grandmaster title.

60 years ago: 14-year old Bobby Fischer wins US Championship

1/9/2018 – 60 years ago this week, on January 7, 1958, to be precise, the tenth U.S. Championship came to an end with a sensation: the 14-year old Bobby Fischer won with 10½ / 13 ahead of a strong field. With this win Fischer qualified for the Interzonal tournament in Portoroz 1958, and won the first of his eight U.S. titles. | Pictured: Bobby Fischer in 1959 | Source: unknown (via D. Griffin)

Gareyev's garage

1/9/2018 – It is nice if you can dominate and paralyse the enemy pieces. However, this alone often is not sufficient for a win. Particularly, if only a few pieces are left on the board. A nice example from a game of Timur Gareyev.

Hastings: the incredible rally of Deep Sengupta

1/9/2018 – At the 93rd Congress in Hastings, England, Grandmaster Deep Sengupta from India and Chinese IM Yiping Lou shared the Masters tournament with 7.0 / 9 each. Sengupta had a wild an unlikely ride, losing in both round 1 and 4 to players rated about 300 Elo points lower, due to tactical oversights. The fact that he managed nevertheless to battle back to the very top after such a start in an open tournament, is rare! | Photo: Brendan O'Gorman

The Power Play Show

1/8/2018 – Monday at 6pm UK time Daniel King will go on air on playchess.com. You can watch the episode live for free. Daniel King will be discussing games from the World Blitz and Rapid Championships 2017. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...

Simon says - Sensing the Moment

1/8/2018 – In a series of articles we'll present the different shows we produce throughout the chess year. We'll begin with "Simon says" (mondays at 6pm CET). The english GM Simon Williams is one of the most popular commentators in chess. He's a regular to do live commentary in Gibraltar and Reykjavik as well as on playchess.com. | Photo: Alina L'Ami

If chess is physics, a blindfold simul is rocket science!

1/8/2018 – The seventh round of Eka by IIFLIM International Chess tournament 2017-18 saw a very interesting event: an exciting blindfold simul starring GM Timur Gareyev! The Blindfold King was challenged by 12 young chess players, some of whom gave a very tough fight. Avathanshu Bhat, who was also in the simul, reported on the event. Timur not only played the simul scoring 10½ / 12 (with 3 draws), he also won his classical game against a 2300+ opponent and then came to the commentary studio to explain his win in a 25 minute masterclass! At the end of the day all we can think is, where does the man get all this energy from?! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Young Russian triumphs in Stockholm

1/8/2018 – The Rilton Cup in Stockholm is over and in the end it came down to the many young players taking the top prizes. Six of the top seven places went to players under the age of 21. Kirill Alekseenko, Maksim Chigaev and Mikhail Antipov from Russia all won their games in rounds eight and nine and thus secured the podium places | Pictured: The decisive game of the tournament: Johan Salomon against Kirill Alekseenko | Photo: Lars OA Hedlund

Hort stories — part 3

1/7/2018 – More Vlastimil Hort stories from his time as a top grandmaster traveling the world to countless tournaments and matches. The living legend saw chess history in the making and share some of his memories. | Photo: André Schulz

Who was the player of the year?

1/7/2018 – At the end of our survey of 2017, we will be voting for the "Player of the Year 2017". We picked ten players who stood out over the past 12 months, excelling in one way or another. Choose your player of the year in our poll.

Who was the female player of the year?

1/6/2018 – After the "Move of the Year", the "Endgame of the Year", and the "Game of the Year" we now ask you to vote for your chess personalities of the year. To start: Who was your "Female Player of the Year"? Vote here.

20 years ago: Anand and Karpov fight for the World Championship

1/6/2018 – Twenty years ago this week, on January 2, 1998, Viswanathan Anand and Anatoly Karpov began their match for the FIDE World Championship in Lausanne, Switzerland — under peculiar circumstances. Anand had qualified for the match by winning the knock-out tournament in Groningen but then had to go immediately to Lausanne to play for the title — without a break or time for preparation.

To exchange or not to exchange: that is the question!

1/6/2018 – The road to becoming a better player passes through many stages. One of these is predicting the future endgame in which one will enter. This is the true mastery, not memorising 25 moves of the Najdorf, but knowing which pieces will be advantageous to keep on the board, and which are better to let go. Through many painful losses, one can discover how difficult the game becomes when, for instance, the dust settles on the board and we find ourselves facing a good bishop with a bad knight. Now thanks to this DVD one can develop into a better player through many practical examples which guide the player through the maze of decisions we need to make when choosing what to exchange, or not, in a tournament game.

Tune your tactics - The Sicilian Exchange Sacrifice

1/5/2018 – A solid tactical understanding is sure to help any chess player in critical situations. Whether it is a simple exchange or a mating attack, tactics are ubiquitous. Take advantage of the opportunity to develop your tactical understanding in this series with IM Oliver Reeh and Pascal Simon! Thursday at 15:30 CET (9:30 AM EDT) it's all about the Sicilian Exchange Sacrifice!