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.

Khanty Rd2: Missed Opportunities

5/15/2015 – The second round of the Grand Prix could have been much bloodier. Dominguez was the only one to win today, against Jakovenko, but many missed chances cost important half points. Most importantly Tomashevsky let Grischuk go from a position where the engines even announced forced mate (!). In several other games, one side had an extra pawn but was unable to convert.

Talents in Norway

5/15/2015 – Thanks to Carlsen chess is big in Norway. And Carlsen's teacher, GM Simen Agdestein, still supports young talents. Together with Olga Dolzhykova he founded the Stormester & Stormester Chess School in Oslo and they really teach. In a blitz-simul at a recent training camp the Grandmaster lost against his student Lykke-Merlot Helliesen - she is just six years old.

Automatism

5/15/2015 – 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.

Lessons from a 2600+ grandmaster

5/15/2015 – Recently one of India’s top players scored remarkable successes in strong back to back tournaments. Surya Shekhar Ganguly meticulously annotated some of the games for ChessBase readers. He reveals many interesting points not just related to calculations and analysis but also to human psychology, preparation and playing under pressure in crucial games. With interesting test positions.

Khanty Rd1: Jakovenko, Tomashevsky win

5/14/2015 – A good day for the Russian players, and specially for Evgeny Tomashevsky. The leader of the GP won his first game in Khanty-Mansiysk against Baadur Jobava, despite having a very shaky position from the opening. Dmitry Jakovenko defeated Anish Giri in the most classical of styles: with the pair of bishops into a double rook endgame. The rest of the games in Russia were all drawn.

FIDE threatens exclusion of Bulgaria

5/14/2015 – At the end of last year Bulgarian player Ivan Tetimov, rated 2047, won the Benidorm Open with a score of 8.0/9, gaining 78 rating points. Suspicions arose, the player did not permit a full check and was disqualified. FIDE appointed an Committee to investigate the matter, but the Bulgarian Chess Federation refused to cooperate. After the FIDE threat (update!) the BCF has now replied.

Final GP Begins Tomorrow

5/13/2015 – The final leg of the Grand Prix series is upon us. With two direct qualifying spots to the Candidates Tournament later this year, the Khanty-Mansiysk Grand Prix tournament promises to be an exciting one. Three players are clearly favorites for the spots, Tomashevsky, Caruana and Nakamura, however nothing is set in stone and realistically many players can earn their qualification.

Mihail Marin: Power Strategy 1

5/13/2015 – Did you ever wonder why Magnus Carlsen, Garry Kasparov or Vishy Anand need only seconds to find the right plans? Maybe because they studied chess strategy and classical games. With his DVDs on "Power Strategy" Mihail Marin helps you to do the same "with the expertise of a university professor who patiently explains difficult material in an easily understandable manner".

Tkachiev: How I became a cheater in chess

5/13/2015 – Grandmaster Vladislav Tkachiev is a flamboyant character. His most recent escapade: to test how easy it is to cheat in chess. He spent an hour and a half researching the subject, $30 to rent some equipment and a hidden conspirator to wirelessly send him key moves. That was enough to thoroughly trash a colleague of similar strength. Tkachiev had it all recorded on video.

X American Continental Ch in Montevideo

5/13/2015 – The Continental Championship of the Americas will start in a couple of days, qualifying four players to the World Cup and thus to the World Championship cycle. This year, the competition is to be held in the beautiful city of Montevideo in Uruguay, and if that was not enough to attract players, there is also the two norms for one policy.

Caruana switching back to U.S.A.

5/12/2015 – It was a dance that lasted a couple of years. The U.S. Federation had been set on getting back the strongest American citizen for a while now, and they have finally achieved it. A press release issued only moments ago confirms that Fabiano Caruana will be rejoining the U.S. Chess Federation and will be playing under American flag as soon as September of this year.

Russian Rapid- and Blitz-Team Championships

5/12/2015 – After the Russian Team Championship in Sochi Russia's top players were not tired of chess but in the mood for some more fun and played the Russian team championships in rapid and blitz. SHSM Moscow won the rapid event, while "University" had the best blitz players. In the women's tournament Ugra won the rapid event and Moscow the blitz tournament.

Longest dual-free direct mate problem

5/12/2015 – Some days ago we gave you a five-piece endgame puzzle in which you had to find the only square for the white king that forced a win. In addition there was a direct mate in 203 moves to solve – one in which every single move was forced. Today John Nunn, in his inimitable style, explains the solution to this mind-boggling record chess problem. Take a deep breath.