Karsten Mueller: Chess Endgames 14

8/6/2014 – "There is both good and bad news about GM Karsten Mueller's Fritztrainer series "Chess Endgames". The good news is that a new volume has just been released but the bad news is that it will be the final volume." It is subtitled The Golden Guidelines of Endgame Play and rounds off the whole series with general advice, backed up by well-chosen illustrative examples. Review by Sean Marsh

Marin on Tromso R4 – battle of the kings

8/6/2014 – In team events often the top games end in rapid draws, while it is left to the lower-ranked players to decide the ultimate outcome of the matches. Our commentator GM Mihail Marin knows the feeling from his early youth. He prefers it when, just like medieval hero kings, the players on the top boards decide the matches – which happened in some of the top encounters of round four.

Tromso 04: Azerbaijan!

8/5/2014 – The Azerbaijani teams has triumphed over France with a key victory by Shakhriyar Mamedyarov over Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. With draws on the other boards the Azeris have good reason to celebrate. Some surprises occurred in the Women's section; Indonesia annihilated Armenia while Iran did the same with Slovakia, and they now move to 15.5/16 board points. Indepth analysis.

Black Magic

8/5/2014 – Richard Rapport is one of the best juniors in the world and officially ranks as the 45th best player on the planet. Thus, his loss with white against against the much lower rated Juan Armando Rohls Montes from Venezuela in the second round of the Olympiad came as a big surprise. And before black won the game he had to work some magic with his knight.

Tromso: R4 preview and interviews

8/5/2014 – The battles rage on in Norway with some incredible matches. France faces Azerbaijan, but right next to them the duel between Carlsen and Wojtaszek is taking place. Even on the "lower" boards the games are intense; in board 14 Latvia plays England, which means Adams-Shirov! We bring you a pictorial report, the game that ended in five minutes and an interview with Chuchelov.

Marin on Tromso R3 – Breaking Black

8/5/2014 – Sounds like a smash hit TV series but it has nothing to do with drugs: we are talking about the problem White faces these day, when up against fashionable hyper-solid lines. But at the very top of the Elo scale in Tromsø Black's walls – Berlin, Petroff and Dutch – did not always stand up to White's pressure, as GM Mihail Marin shows in these three wonderfully annotated games.

Tromso 03: Champions Fall

8/4/2014 – The defending Olympic Champions, Armenia, have suffered their first defeat of the tournament... and it is only round three! Movsesian, who has had close calls already, lost his game against Fressinet while Aronian missed an important chance to win his game against MVL. France took it 2.5-1.5 In the women's section, there were quite a few surprises. Round three report.

Chess on the mythical hill of Erice

8/4/2014 – We are spoiled with choice of beautiful venues where chess tournaments are staged: from seaside resorts, to alpine villages, exotic islands – and now the Arctic Circle where the Chess Olympiad has just started. But a small town, tucked up on a misty hill on the Italian island of Sicily, is yet to be discovered by chess adventurers looking for a wonderful chess holiday. Diana Mihajlova reports.

Interviews from Tromso

8/4/2014 – With many players having days off and some of the teams finishing their rounds earlier then others, the ChessBase Studio in Tromso has kept itself busy interviewing people from all over the globe and in every rating range! We bring you a collection of interviews so far, from Ulf Andersson to Peter Leko, and from Vladimir Kramnik to the Jamaican Olympic team!

ChessBase Magazine 161 – 'highly recommended'

8/4/2014 – Sergey Karjakin is the cover star of the latest CBM, due to his extremely impressive victory at the Norway Chess tournament, which receives comprehensive coverage: in addition to most of the games featuring annotations, there is an opening survey based on the tournament from Mihail Marin and a series of video presentations by Danny King. CBM 161 review at Marsh Towers.

Marin on Tromso R2 – round two selection

8/3/2014 – For many participants, one of the main attractions of the Olympiads is the presence of World Champions (the reigning one, former ones and, who knows, maybe the next one). And the champions themselves do not mind rubbing shoulders with mere mortals, even though this may look risky for their ratings. GM Mihail Marin looks at three interesting and exciting games.

Tromso 02: Surprises!

8/3/2014 – Fire on the board, and it is only round two! Ukraine did not win their match against Norway Two - but it was far from the only upset of the day. World's number one and two - Carlsen and Aronian - was unable to win their games as they both drew against Nyback and Smerdon respectively. Tomorrow's round promises very exciting matches. Round two report!

Round Two Impressions

8/3/2014 – The second round is under way in Tromso. Danny King finishes the recap of round one with a review of Baramidze's positional crush from yesterday. In the playing hall Carlsen is playing his first Olympics game as World Champion, though he faces a strong opponent in Nyback. The Zero tolerance rule is in strict effect, and it even made an eleven-year-old cry.

Olympiad Tromsø – where and how to watch

8/3/2014 – ChessBase is covering the Olympiad with a big daily report, and with special GM analysis of selected games. We also bring you live coverage during the games, and ChessBase TV broadcasts from Tromsø, where we have set up a studio. Our main anchor is GM Daniel King, who interviews players, analyses games and provides a unique two-minute midnight wrap-up.

Marin on Tromso – round one selection

8/2/2014 – More than six hundred games are played per day at the Chess Olympiad in Tromsø – which should you watch and which replay after the round is over. The most important games are covered in our report, which appears soon after the round is over. As a special service we have asked one of our star commentators, GM Mihail Marin, to shine the spotlight on other interesting and exciting games.

Tromso: Round One

8/2/2014 – Things went completely as expected in round one of the Olympiad, most top teams taking home a 4-0 first round win without many difficulties. We bring you an interview with our player of the day, Parimarjan Negi from India, and an overview of a relatively easy round. Perhaps with the exception of Armenia-Japan which was almost a big surprise.

Olympiad First Impressions

8/2/2014 – Despite some minor hiccups with security and punctuality the Chess Olympiad is now under way. Many of the games finished very early as the difference in strength between the teams can be quite excessive. With the first round underway we bring you the first impressions of the playing venue, the ambiance and overall first impressions from chess in Tromso.

Stalemate: the long and the Short of it

8/2/2014 – English GM Nigel Short is known for his strong views and his controversial, often very provocative articles. He recently expressed the view that the "stupid rule" of stalemate, where the attacking side has completely immobilized the enemy but does not win the game, should be abandoned. Our expert Paul Lillebo, an admitted Short fan, begs to differ – and gives sound reasons for this.

Opening Ceremony in Tromso

8/2/2014 – It's official! The Tromso festivities have begun. With over 180 countries in attendance, the opening ceremony has inaugurated what is sure to be a fabulous event. Most players have arrived and the pairings of the first round are set. We bring you a report of the opening ceremony as well as a preview of what will take place in the first round of Tromso 2014.

Day Zero in Tromso

8/1/2014 – The 2014 Chess Olympiad is about to start! Today will host the Opening Ceremony and most of the delegations are arriving. Some of the players are running on tight schedules to make it here while others are freely enjoying the beautiful views of Tromso. We bring you a small pictorial preview of the location and a list of the top players in the most awaited tournament of the year.

2014 Politiken Cup

8/1/2014 – There are many tournaments that are competitive, stressful, difficult. Where players make sacrifices just to play and compete for the reward of winning. Politiken Cup is not that type of tournament. It is a pleasure to play, in a beautiful location full of fun and daily side events. The small town of Helsingor was once more host to undeniably a successful pre-Olympiad tournament!

Tactics please: Cool chaos control

8/1/2014 – "The threat is stronger than it's execution" is a famous saying by Nimzowitsch. So don't panic if the opponent has one, two or even three apparently strong threats. Maybe they are not that strong after all? Or you are the one to strike first? To find out, it's best to keep cool and calculate the variations. Oliver Reeh shows how it's done.

Powerful queen sacrifices in Chess Olympiads

8/1/2014 – On the eve of the Chess Olympiad in Tromsø, Norway, starting tomorrow, a few queen sacrifices from the past Olympiads lead us to an intriguing question: when might have the queen been sacrificed for the first time? Huffington Post chess columnist GM Lubomir Kavalek was involved in a scarce double-queen sacrifice in 1966. He also digs up one one from the 15th century.

August 2014 ratings: History in the making

7/31/2014 – The month of August saw a few historic moments. The first and most visible is Fabiano Caruana finally breaking into the 2800 club once and for all with 2801. Still, this was overshadowed by Hou Yifan breaking into the Top 100 players at 87th, only the second female in history. However, see the summaries to find out who scored 200 Elo or 300 Elo in a year and even 134 Elo in one month!