Queen of NY: Judit Polgar talks about analysing the match

11/6/2016 – After officially retiring from professional play, many fans might have worried the Hungarian star would drop out of the chess world, but these fears seem to have been put to rest. We first saw Judit Polgar embrace new roles such as coach of the Hungarian ‘Open’ team at the Olympiad, and now as another first, when Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin battle it out in New York City, she will be the official commentator. Judit Polgar talks about her expectations, her preferences and her plans.

A Sunday chess task for our readers

11/6/2016 – "I would like to pose you with a rook endgame, which was one of the best calculations I have done in my chess career till date," writes Avathanshu Bhat. He was faced with a rook and three pawns vs rook and three pawns ending and had to calculate quite deeply to win it. You are asked to do the same on our interactive PGN player. After you have excercised your chess skills you can listen to the video analysis of the player himself.

Finding inspiration in Haarlem (1/2)

11/5/2016 – "A Dutch legend, a Syrian refugee and a 64 year-old Israeli… and chess, of course. That's all it takes to rediscover the pleasure of the 64 squares, through the pleasure of the others. One doesn't necessarily need to be around Carlsen to feel the spark of the beauty of chess. The light in a chess player's eyes wired for this game is just as fascinating and, perhaps, the best mirror a chess lover could possibly find." Thus starts an illustrated report by Alina L'Ami.

Bill Gates denies attendance at World Championship

11/5/2016 – Readers will recall the recent announcement made by FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov that both Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, the foremost tech moguls of our age, would be visiting the World Chess Championship in New York City. In an interview to TASS, a Russian news agency, he stated that invitations had been tendered to both, and had been accepted. Wishing to follow-up on this in order to learn more, we reached out to them.

Blindfold World Record event in Las Vegas

11/4/2016 – François-André Danican Philidor played three opponents, Paul Morphy took on eight. In the 20th century Pilsbury played twenty, Koltanovsky 34 and Najdorf 45. Now a leading blindfold grandmaster, Timur Gareyev, is planning to set a new record by playing 47 games simultaneously while blindfolded. The event will take place at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. You can participate: the organisers are looking for funds and players.

Sam Collins: The Spanish Fianchetto

11/4/2016 – Are you frustrated by the regular games that come after 1.e4 e5? Are you, like Magnus Carlsen, looking for a way to generate playable but unbalanced postions? Well the moves 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 g6 lead to exactly that. A leading expert, Sam Collins, explains the key ideas of 3…g6 and provides a complete repertoire for Black, suitable for regular use. Over four hours of video, 800 key games, and interactive training with video feedback.

Special edition of Donald Duck with Carlsen coming

11/3/2016 – Readers may recall a couple of years ago when the local Norwegian edition of Donald Duck comics decided to pay homage to their star, Magnus Carlsen. It should therefore come as no surprise to find out that in tribute to the world championship match to be held next week, Magnus Carlsen will grace its pages once more in a special edition laced with humor and lessons in chess!

Corsica Masters: MVL beats Anand in final

11/2/2016 – The cover picture to the left best describes what happened in the Sunday clash between MVL and Anand. It was a fighting match to be fair. Anand sacrificed his queen in the first game with the black pieces but had to build a fortress in the end to secure a draw. He might have fancied his chances of pushing with white against MVL. But the Frenchman is popular all over the world for his expertise in Sicilian Najdorf. The audience were praying for the Najdorf to appear and the Frenchman obliged.

Jon Speelman's Agony Column #26

11/2/2016 – This week's games are by Samiha Sharmin Shimmi from Bangladesh. Samiha began to play chess at the age of 13. She graduated in Computer Science and Engineering, but also took part in important tournaments. Now she works as a Software Engineer and takes part in chess competitions occasionally – like playing in the national women's championship since 2002, finishing sixth this year. Jon Speelman comments on an Agony and an Ecstasy game by Samiha.

November 2016 ratings: Nepo closes in on the Top 10

11/1/2016 – It was a busy month for the players, though less so than after Baku. This month the results for the Russian Championship, the Isle of Man, and the Tal Memorial were all computed. This brought Caruana to the no.2 spot at 2823, while Nepomniachtchi is at no.12 after his surprising win at the Tal Memorial. In the Women's list, Hou Yifan drop a few more points and 'only' 55 Elo ahead of the rest. Among the surprising results is Vladislav Artemiev who had two great blitz results and is now no.3 with 2850. Report, stats, and more.

Riazantsev and Kosteniuk are 2016 Russian champions

11/1/2016 – The finale of the Russian Superfinal was easily the most exciting phase of the event, with a marked increase in decisive games in the Men’s final, and more action overall. After a six-way tie (out of 12 players) for first after seven rounds, it was Alexander Riazantsev who broke away to take clear first. Alexandra Kosteniuk all but left her rivals in the dust taking clear first in the Women’s a round in advance. Read the report and enjoy the excellent games.

Queen in the corners

11/1/2016 – Every week ChessBase magazine author and renowned endgame expert Karsten Müller presents a remarkable or particularly instructive endgame in his blog. A click on the diagram opens a larger board. Test your endgame skills, improve and have fun!

CHESS Magazine November 2016: Studies with Stephenson

11/1/2016 – The World Problem conference is not just about solving. The chess composers present at the event are not idle but take part in one or more of the wide range of composing tourneys that these events always include. This year, for the first time, the Azerbaijanis ran a study composing tourney. First prize was won by Danish composer Steffen Slumstrup Nielsen. Problem expert Brian Stephenson explains the study and gives you another study to solve.

ChessBase Opening Encyclopedia 2016

10/31/2016 – This DVD is a mix of the old and the new. Players like Magnus Carlsen have blurred the borderline between the two and keep experimenting with new systems. You never know what they will play next. The Opening Encyclopedia 2016 has 5,629,050 games, of which more than 84,000 are annotated. There are 5,900 opening surveys by the finest opening specialists, and 931 theory databases. Review by Nagesh Havanur

Mark Dvoretsky's final interview - Part II

10/31/2016 – In Part II of our interview with Dvoretsky we go into more specifics. We ask Mark how can we improve at tactics and endgames. We ask for his opinion on famous authors like Jacob Aagaard and Karsten Müller, and also great trainers like Tukamkov and Chuchelov. He also narrates a funny incident about working with ChessBase software and reads out a passage written by Lev Psakhis that had him in splits. It's an interview from which you can learn a lot, and even though you might not agree with everything that Mark says, it's definitely food for thought.

Corsica Masters: Anand vs MVL in final

10/29/2016 – The surprising thing about Corsica is the inherent diversity of the small Mediterranean island, one of the regions under France. It is a bit like a game between two fighting chessplayers — glittering bays, relaxed beaches, dense forests, mountain peaks. The geography is never constant. Corsica is hosting a notable chess festival with the chief attraction being a rapid tournament featuring MVL and Anand. Illustrated report with analyses.

Zuckerberg and Gates to attend World Championship

10/29/2016 – FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov announced Wednesday that tech guru Bill Gates and social media mogul Mark Zuckerberg will attend the World Chess Championship in New York next month. “Gates and Zuckerberg have agreed to attend the match. I don’t know whether it will be at the opening or one of the later games,” he told TASS in an interview. This announcement emphasizes once more the widespread interest in the World Championship in New York.

Chess960: Instructive or just fun?

10/29/2016 – Bobby Fischer came up with the idea of Chess960 or Fischer Random Chess, where the pieces are placed in a random order on the last rank. Top grandmasters have dipped their feet in the ocean of Chess960, but the format hasn't really caught on. In this article Ganesh Dorairaj asks a very pertinent question (and seeks your feedback): is the study of Fischer Random games played by top grandmasters useful to improve our chess?

Carlsen beats Nakamura in 3-hour blitz battle

10/28/2016 – World Champion Magnus Carlsen and elite player, as well as renowned blitz specialist Hikaru Nakamura, played a three-hour blitz match online as the final of an online invitational tournament hosted by Chess.com. It was broadcast live at the online service Twitch where the two players could be seen via Skype connections as they played. Magnus Carlsen won the encounter 14.5 – 10.5. Report and games.

Hoogeveen controversy on final ratings

10/28/2016 – The Hoogeveen match between Nigel Short and Hou Yifan ended in a victory for the former World Championship challenger, who decided it after five of six games when he led 3.5-1.5. The sixth game was a contractual obligation, which Short played and lost. The organizers submitted all six games for rating, although the FIDE rules say that the last game should not count. That has led to a furious controversy, very aptly described in MalayMail by Peter Long.

Rank prank

10/28/2016 – Tactics can seem deceptively simple, particularly when seeing an engine analysing grandmaster games. Strange, however, how difficult it is to find the right move and to calculate variations properly when playing yourself. It is easier if you solve tactical puzzles regularly. In the ChessBase Magazine and his tactics column Oliver Reeh helps you to do so.

Bob Dylan: star, chess player, Nobel Prize laureate

10/27/2016 – To say that 2016 has been an unusual year, would be an understatement, and that would be true even without making any mention of US politics. The most recent and startling announcement was without a doubt when just two weeks ago, the famous Folk Rock singer, Bob Dylan, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Dylan’s work has spanned decades and was the voice of a generation, and he was also a well-known chess fan. Here is a look at the icon with some tales you may not know.

Jon Speelman's Agony Column #25

10/26/2016 – This week's pair of games are by Davide Nastasio, who is 50 and lives in Atlanta, Georgia. A nurse who has worked in various roles including medical-surgical oncology and emergency nursing, Davide got interested in chess in 2011 when he was looking after his then one-year-old son, who used to fall asleep on him. Immobilised lest he wake him, he one day saw an advertisement for a chess site. Thus began his chess career. Oh yes, and he grows orchids.

Chigorin Memorial: Alekseenko wins; Abdusattorov shines

10/26/2016 – While the Chigorin Memorial may no longer have the luster of other top international events, its long tradition and list of world class players who participated and won mean it can never lose its shine. For the second consecutive year, Kirill Alekseenko came ahead of the field of 372 strong, taking clear first with 8.0/9 and beating out 26 players higher rated. Nevertheless, this superb result was almost overshadowed by the GM norm with 2673 performance by 11-year-old Nodirbek Abdusattorov.