Khanty Rd8: More mistakes!

5/22/2015 – Big mistakes today changed the standings significantly. Caruana lost to Jakovenko: the Italian player was pushing for a significant amount of time and then out of nowhere he blundered heavily! Jakovenko took advantage of his chances and won. Grischuk beat Karjakin in a very complex game marked by a last-minute Karjakin blunder. Finally Nakamura's game was unpredictable!

The Shogi-Festival 2015

5/22/2015 – Let’s assume two super-grandmasters visit an amateur chess tournament, play an exhibition game against each other and simultaneous games against the participants of the tournament. Or two top-football players train an amateur club. Incredible! But something similar happened at the Shogi-Festival in Ludwigshafen/Germany when two top professionals visited.

The fine difference

5/22/2015 – 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.

Am. Continental Rd7: American Dream

5/22/2015 – In spite of fielding only six players in all, of which four are grandmasters, the US delegation had every reason to be preening after round seven. On the very top boards, Aleksander Lenderman and Alexander Shabalov both won their respective games, taking over a shared piece of the top spot. Alexander Yermolinsky also scored a strong win over Granda Zuñiga. Illustrated report with analysis.

Khanty Rd7: Three White Wins

5/21/2015 – Three important white victories in today's round change the standings of not only the tournament, but of the Grand Prix series. Nakamura grabs second, just behind Caruana, in the GP as he beat MVL (his fourth straight loss!) and Tomashevsky drops to fourth place after losing to Giri. Dominguez overtook Svidler to leapfrog him in the standings, and the Cuban is now tied for second.

"Chess During War" - an exhibition in Moscow

5/21/2015 – Historians estimate that the Soviet Union lost about 27 million people during World War II. To celebrate the 70th anniversary of Soviet victory in World War II the Russian Chess Federation organised an exhibition in Moscow that displays documents and materials showing how chess was played during the hard times of the war. Press Release.

Honorary doctorate for Garry Kasparov

5/21/2015 – On May 16, 2015 nearly 2,700 students graduated at the Saint Louis University in Missouri, USA. The speaker at this Spring Commencement ceremony was the thirteenth World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov, who also received an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University. It is well worth the 17 minutes it takes to watch this well-crafted and inspiring speech.

Khanty Rd6: Mistakes in Marathon Round

5/20/2015 – Today was a long day over the board in Khanty-Mansiysk. Three games last more than six hours, and at the end of an exhausting day many mistakes were made. Grischuk was losing, managed to find a draw against Caruana but blundered in the end and lost. Giri did basically the same against Svidler. Meanwhile, Dominguez let go of Gelfand, and falls back to fourth place.

Am. Continental Rd6: Savage chess and football

5/20/2015 – "The fight between the leaders in the sixth round was a savage opening fight with pieces hanging all over the board." This is how IM Rodi describes the very exciting battle between the two leaders who held nothing back. This was preceded by the traditional football game between the players held late at night. Dozens of players came for the fun. Report, analysis, and plenty of pics.

Loiseau wins the 6th Lucopen in Lille

5/20/2015 – There were players from 15 countries in this event in Lille, France, but it was national players who had the last laugh! IM Quentin Loiseau, GM Tigran Gharamian and IM Adrien Demuth took gold, silver and bronze. And in an extraordinary report we have beautifully annotated games by all three. Consider this big pictorial report a very pleasant way to improve your chess understanding.

Mihail Marin: Power Strategy 2

5/20/2015 – In the first part of his "Power Strategy" series Mihail Marin had a look at the transition from opening to middlegame, focusing on the necessity, the art and the pitfalls of development. In his second "Power Strategy" DVD the Romanian Grandmaster, who is renowned for his historical knowledge and his passion for chess, explains how to handle static positions.

FIDE World School Championships 2015

5/20/2015 – The FIDE World Schools Chess Championships were hosted by the ASEAN Chess Academy and took place in Pattaya, Thailand. About 500 children from 34 countries fought in their various age groups for medals, titles, and prestige. China was the most successful nation, winning five gold, five silver, and four bronze medals. Big illustrated report.

Komodo Chess 9 – Faster, smarter, stronger

5/20/2015 – Those three words summarize Komodo‘s evolution, as it uses multiple cores – eight and more – to run even faster than previous version. It uses the software speeds gained to add more knowledge into ist calculation, and as a result defeats previous number one engines by unheard of scores. Delivery will start on May 29, but you can pre-order the program now.

Khanty R5: MVL, Tomashevsky fall again

5/19/2015 – Another tough loss for Evgeny Tomashevsky. After a marathon game against Sergey Karjakin, the GP leader committed a mistake... on move 70! This allowed Karjakin to finally get a small positional advantage that he converted into a win. MVL is clearly out of shape in this tournament, and blundered a pawn to a nice but simple tactic. Jakovenko took advantage of this and won the game.

American Continental Rd5: Bachmann and Cori lead

5/19/2015 – Five rounds, and the American Continental is finally beginning to take shape. After his mishap, Granda Zuñiga seems to be intent on recovering, while his younger compatriot GM Jorge Cori took over the shared lead with Paraguayan GM Axel Bachmann with 4.5/5. The tournament heats up as the leaders try to distance themselves from the pack. Illustrated report, annotated games.

Knight on the rim is dim

5/19/2015 – 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!

Improve your chess

5/19/2015 – Carl Portman wants to improve his chess. Out of principle. To work on his openings, his middlegame, and his endgame he decided to look at three ChessBase DVDs: Rustam Kasimdzhanov's "Trends in Modern Openings", Tania Sachdev's "Improve your chess", and Karsten Müller's "Golden Guidelines of endgame play". After studying the DVDs, he "felt compelled to go out and play chess".

American Continental Rd3-4: A leader at last

5/18/2015 – It took four rounds to reach this point, but at long last a leader has stepped up. Brazilian IM Yago Santiago is the last player with a perfect score, coming through after a grueling double-rounder on Sunday. His was not the only surprise of the day, as GM Julio Granda Zuñiga went down to IM Alan Pichot in an astonishing 16 moves, and it was not the first time. Report, pictures and games.

Khanty Rd4: Caruana marches on

5/17/2015 – Caruana won his second game in a row in Khanty-Mansiysk by defeating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with the black pieces. A complicated Ragozin took place and Caruana seemed to handle the position better than the Frenchman. Tomashevsky had an advantage against Jakovenko, but was unable to do much with it, while none of the other games seemed to really favor any of the remaining players.

American Continental Rd2: Beauty and longevity

5/17/2015 – As the second round tightened the Elo differences, the number of upsets began to increase, though most of the favorites still kept a perfect score. Once more, high resolution photographic impressions and anecdotes will be found throughout as the beauty of a city stands out. A final tribute is made also to Lourenço Cordioli, who passed away a few days ago, the Methuselah of Brazilian Chess.

European Senior Championships in Eretria

5/17/2015 – The place is almost too beautiful to allow for fighting chess. "You go for nice walks, enjoy the sunny, warm weather, the scenery, the sea, and then you tend to allow a tame draw in the afternoon," said John Nunn, who finished second behind Georgian GM Zurab Sturua. John, who recently turned sixty and was playing in the Over 50 section, has kindly annotated a game for us.

Khanty Rd3: Caruana beats Tomashevsky

5/16/2015 – A huge result for the Grand Prix standings. Evgeny Tomashevsky, who was leading the tournament and the GP series, lost to Fabiano Caruana who is now in the lead with Leinier Dominguez and Peter Svidler - the latter beat Dmitry Jakovenko today in an exchange Spanish. With this series of results Tomashevsky will have to step up his game to qualify for the Candidates Tournament.

American Continental Rd1: Welcome to Montevideo

5/16/2015 – The X American Continental Championship has just started in Montevideo, Uruguay with a solid turnout and dozens of grandmasters and masters. Over eleven rounds they will fight for one of four qualifying spots to the next FIDE World Cup, as well as the privileged norm opportunities. Read on to see first impressions with many high-resolution photographs.

Lessons from a 2600+ grandmaster (2)

5/16/2015 – After his successes in three strong back to back tournaments, India GM (and Anand second) Surya Shekhar Gangul provided us with many interesting insights into key games – not just related to calculations and analysis but also to human psychology, preparation and playing under pressure in crucial games. Here's the final game, annotated with quiz questions and very instructive analysis.