Fairy-tale mate

7/5/2016 – 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!

Grigoriy Oparin wins Russian "Higher League"

7/4/2016 – The Russian "Higher League", which finished 1st July and was played in Kolomna, is a strong tournament and a qualifier for the "Superfinal", the Russian Championship. Grandmaster Grigoriy Oparin, who turned 19 during the tournament, won with 6.5/9, half-a-point ahead of the field. He and four more players qualified for the "Superfinal".

Daniel King – new DVDs on QGD and Catalan

7/4/2016 – The Queen's Gambit Declined is one of the most reliable openings against 1 d4. With a rock of a pawn in the middle of the board, Black refuses to be pushed over in the centre. The Catalan is a reliable opening for White, but there are ways for Black to shake White out of his com-placency while still maintaining a sound and solid position himself. We have two brand new DVD on these openings by one of our most popular authors, Daniel King. Check them out.

Looking back: Xiong in the Capablanca

7/3/2016 – "Fast and furious" is the headline of an article published in the Cuban newspapers: but they were not referring to Ivanchuk, who won the Elite group in the Capablanca, or any of the players in that section for that matter. It was a teenage boy that was ripping apart the Premier section that caught everyone's attention. Jeffery Xiong continues to make headlines, and for good reason.

The new ratings: July 2016

7/2/2016 – FIDE published the rating list from July 2016. Carlsen remains number one, Kramnik follows on two, very narrowly ahead of Caruana. Two Chinese - Hou Yifan and Ju Wenjun - lead the women's ranking list, best junior is Richard Rapport who is 56 points ahead of Wei Yi. Aleksandra Goryachkina and Lei Tingjie, who both have 2482, lead the girls' ranking. Tables...

Panamerican Junior Championships in Guatepe

7/1/2016 – This year the Chess Federation of Colombia was host to the Panamerican Junior Championships and they invited the players to Guatepe, a small picturesque village not far from Medellin. The tournament schedule was tough but Guatepe with its cheerfully painted houses and its breathtaking landscape still left a deep impression. Dejan Boikov reports.

World Team Championship Seniors

7/1/2016 – After five of nine rounds Armenia and Germany I lead the World Team Championship 50+ that takes place from 26th June to 4th July in Radebeul, Germany. In the Championship 65+ the Russian team dominates. Radebeul is the place where Karl May, one of Germany's most successful and popular authors, died. But the heroes of his popular novels are still very much alive.

Kortschnoj Classic III

7/1/2016 – 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.

55 and Fabulous: An interview with Keith Arkell

6/30/2016 – Over a 10-week period, English Grandmaster Keith Arkell played in and won seven weekend tournaments. The seven first-place-finishes in a row is a personal best for Arkell. In this interview, he tells how he prepares for his games, how his approach to chess changed over the years, why he works harder at the board and reveals why he thinks chess and life are fabulous at age 55.

Shanghai leads in Chinese Chess League

6/30/2016 – Twelve teams start in division A of the Chinese Chess League and from April to December they play a double-round-robin tournament, 22 rounds altogether. The teams play on five boards with at least two female players. The rating differences between the various players are often huge but this does not mean that the favorites do have an easy life.

The Blindfold King vs The Machine

6/30/2016 – Later this year GM Timur Gareyev will try play 47 opponents simultaneously, blindfold, breaking the current world record of 46 games. Neuroscientists found this interesting enough try to find out how his brain works – they put the GM into a MRI scanner while he played four blindfold games. In CHESS Magazine Timur provides a look into how he is preparing to take on arguably the game’s most impressive record of all time.

Czech Republic wins Mitropa Cup

6/29/2016 – This year's Mitropa Cup was played in Prague, from 19th to 27th June. The Mitropa Cup is a round-robin team event, in which ten Middle European nations take part, each nation ideally starting with a team in the open event and a team in the women's event. This year the Czechs won in the open section while Germany succeeded in the women's event.

Jon Speelman's Agony Column #8

6/29/2016 – Which openings to play, going quickly all-out for an attack or patiently steering the game into quieter waters, which pieces to exchange and which to keep, where to put one's pawns, when to offer a draw and how to win a winning position against a higher-rated player. Questions that all come up - and are answered - in Jon Speelman's Agony Column #8.

How to learn from chess studies

6/29/2016 – Regular players are often suspicious about chess studies and problems. The positions are considered artificial, the solutions extravagant and of little use to practical play. But that is not always the case. We showed you a prize-winning study that requires strategic ideas and manoeuvres that are genuinely useful in over-the-board play, and asked you to solve it. Now we provide the solution with didactic explanations.

Leuven!

6/29/2016 – In June the Grand Chess Tour came to Paris and Leuven. Hikaru Nakamura won in Paris, Magnus Carlsen won in Leuven, and the top players are already on their way to other top events in Dortmund or in Bilbao. Paris is a justly famous city but the lesser known Leuven is also worth a closer look. Which André Schulz took while he was visiting the Grand Chess tour.

The tricky rook

6/28/2016 – 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!

Edmonton: Shankland wins with 8.0/9

6/27/2016 – In the ninth and final round of the Edmonton International tournament that was part of the 11th Edmonton Chess Festival, US Grandmaster Samuel Shankland needed only a draw against Canadian Richard Wang to win the tournament on tie-break. With seven wins and two draws Shankland finished with 8.0/9 as did Indian Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly.

Erwin l´Ami is Dutch online Blitz Champion

6/27/2016 – The Dutch online Blitz Championship was played on 23rd June on the ChessBase playchess server as a 16-player knock-out tournament with a time-limit of 3+3 - three minutes for the whole game plus three seconds increment per move. Reigning champion Erwin l´Ami dominated the tournament from the start and in the final defeated Loek van Wely 5-2 to defend his title.

l‘Ami: A gambit guide through the Open Game

6/27/2016 – Erwin l’Ami is a member of the Dutch national team, and was the second of former World Champion Veselin Topalov. In two remarkable new DVDs – almost seven hours of recordings on each – he takes you on a journey through time and shows gambit lines in Open Games (after 1.e4 e5). You will encounter the infamous Frankenstein-Dracula Gambit, the Cochrane, the Belgrade and, of course, the King’s Gambit. Don't miss it!

Farrukh Amonatov wins Eurasian Blitz Chess Cup

6/27/2016 – Having to rush, having to run, being under time-pressure, having only minutes or seconds for an important decision is a feeling more and more people of today share - and do not like. But chessplayers sometimes seem to enjoy the lack of time and many top players came to play in the Eurasian Blitz Chess Cup in Almaty. Alina l'Ami sends a big illustrated report.

When the warlord was young

6/27/2016 – Seventy years ago a young boy made his debut in competitive chess. Our thumbnail shows him a few years later, at the start of a great career. For decades tournament halls resonated with his astonishing victories and disasters no less. Time and again he fell and rose like a Phoenix. Here Nagesh Havanur remembers those early steps in a legendary career, which recently sadly came to an end.

Edmonton: Shankland beats Ganguly

6/26/2016 – Indian Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly started the Edmonton tournament with 7.0/7, American Grandmaster Samuel Shankland began a bit less furiously but still scored 6.5/7. Their crucial encounter came in round eight and brought Shankland a smooth victory. With one round to go Shankland now leads with 7.5/8 and has good chances to win the tournament.

Edmonton: Ganguly leads with 7.0/7

6/25/2016 – Part of the 11th Edmonton Chess Festival in Canada is an international round-robin tournament with ten players, in which Canadian talents have the chance to play against strong grandmasters such as Alexei Shirov, Shekhar Ganguky, S.P. Sethuraman or Samuel Shankland. Shirov started as favorite but Ganguly decided to win all his games and leads with 7.0/7.

Kortschnoj Classic II

6/24/2016 – 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.