Naiditsch tops Zurich Christmas Open

1/2/2015 – Chess never takes a break, and especially not during the holidays! If anything, tournaments are more prolific during this season. The traditional Zurich Christmas Open celebrated its 38th edition this year and it attracted many grandmasters from around the World. At the end, there was one dominating performance, and that was of German grandmaster Arkadij Naiditsch.

January 2015 ratings: a few extraordinary results

1/1/2015 – It would be easy to presume that with the last month of the year having just played through, with little in the way of Super GM tournaments to discuss, that the list ushering in the new year would have little to say, but as it is, not so. As you will see, this list contains not a few extraordinary results such as the boy who went from 1949 to 2517 in three months!

New Year 2015 Puzzle Contest

1/1/2015 – In the last week of 2014, as every year, we celebrated a week of chess puzzles, this year drawing from problems and studies we had published fifteen years ago. Today we give you four puzzles that are part of our New Year 2015 contest. You have three weeks to work on them, and there are valuable prizes to win. For today we wish all our readers a Happy New Year!

Review: Simon Williams' Most Amazing Moves

1/1/2015 – "In his greeting words at the start of this Fritztrainer Simon Williams says cheerfully: ‘It was a lot of fun for me doing this DVD’. I am sure it will be as much fun for the audience, who can look through the amazing chess moves presented in this video – five and a half hour of uninterrupted fun!" Reviewer Diana Mihajlova thinks this DVD definitely makes a perfect New Year's gift.

Happy New Year 2015 from Pal Benko

12/31/2014 – Our friend, famous chess composer GM Pal Benko, got into the New Year spirit by sending us seven little problems to solve. They are all miniatures, requiring mate in three moves. And together they spell out HNY-2015. The positions look deceptively easy, but some have very clever solutions that are not easy to find. All are cook free. With Pal we wish our readers a Happy New Year 2015!

Christmas Puzzles 2014 – Curious chess

12/31/2014 – New Year's Eve is a time for light-headed celebration, for Champagne and fireworks, for parties and laughter. In this spirit we bring you the seventh installment of our Christmas puzzle with a number of curious chess problems which are not hard to solve but require a keen sense of humour. They all come from an author who inspired our 2002 Christmas column. Enjoy.

Komodo 8: Deep Blue revisited (part two)

12/31/2014 – The first two games of the titanic match between the world's strongest player versus the world strongest chess computer showed significant changes. While the computer played moves that baffled humans, the number of moves a grandmaster would outright scoff at were dwindling and could only be judged as eccentric. Today's best engines are actually no different, just stronger.

Groningen Chess Festival

12/31/2014 – The traditional Groningen Chess Festival in the Netherlands has concluded its 52nd edition. The festival included lectures, trivia, several open sections and matches. The International Open was demolished by Donchenko with a brutal 8.0/9 and a 2803 performance rating. Oh, and he made a grandmaster norm! Despite his 2500+ rating the young winner of the event is not yet a GM!

Knight on rim is dim

12/30/2014 – 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!

Christmas Puzzles 2014 – My Favourite Studies (2)

12/30/2014 – As mentioned before, artistic endgame studies used to be great fun, providing human brains hours of solving pleasure. Until the day when this was replaced by the less challenging action of pressing Alt-F2 in a computer program. In part two of this article our senior editor Frederic Friedel helps the flesh-and-blood thought processes along with some useful solving hints.

Veterans win Nutcracker by slimmest of margins

12/29/2014 – The rapid games of Nutcracker generations match was worthy of the overall competition, though easy to foresee after the first leg. The classical section had seen Prince team, with Russia’s most promising teenage talent, hold their own against the veteran King team with players still very much a part of the world’s elite. In the end, experience prevailed in a thrilling finale.

Recommended: ChessBase Magazine #163

12/29/2014 – In his review of ChessBase Magazine 163 Prof. Nagesh Havanur draws attention to a critical Najdorf encounter between the 2800+ star Fabiano Caruana and Israeli GM Boris Gelfand, who was playing this opening before Fabiano was born. The review also provides and overview of the contents of CBM 163. You can check out if there are anything that you play or are interested to learn.

52nd Indian National Premier Championship

12/29/2014 – India’s 52nd National Premier Chess Championship was held from 4th December to 18th December, 2014 at Kottayam, Kerala. The tournament was organised by the CMS College and the Kottayam Chess Academy under the aegis of Chess Association of Kerala on behalf of the All India Chess Federation (AICF). It was won by GM Sethuraman, in a competition replete with fascinating games and positions.

Christmas Puzzles 2014 – My Favourite Studies

12/29/2014 – Chess endgame studies used to be great fun, especially the creative and artistic variety that brought hours of solving pleasure. These days you simply enter the position in a computer and hit "Go". The solution usually appears in milliseconds, giving you milliseconds of enjoyment. Why don't you try to work with a chessboard and pieces. Here are two studies with solving instructions.

European Blitz and Rapid Championships

12/29/2014 – The European Rapid and Blitz Championships were held in Wroclaw, Poland. A marathon of chess was contained in only three days, despite the players displaying their skills in 33 games (22 of them blitz and 11 rapids)! At the end of the day David Navara from the Czech Republic took gold in the blitz, while in the rapid it was local wunderkind Jan-Krzysztof Duda that took gold.

Nigalidze is Al Ain Classic champion!

12/28/2014 – It is not every day that you see the 28th seed of a tournament winning it. And even rarer when there are 17 players rated above 2600. For many it might seem like an impossible dream, but not for a player who is ambitious and dedicates eight hours of his day religiously to perfecting his art. GM Gaioz Nigalidze is the man of the moment. Final report from Al Ain by Sagar Shah.

Vishy Anand: a passionate portrait (2)

12/27/2014 – In the second part of his passionate portrait of the 15th World Champion, Priyadarshan Banjan describes how Vishy Anand made his first steps to the master title, how he stunned the Indian and soon after the international chess world - through his uncanny talent, his strong moves and the speed of his play. Illustrated by little known games and rare photos.

Fifteen years of ChessBase Christmas Puzzles

12/27/2014 – For the fifteenth time we end the year with our traditional Christmas puzzles. To celebrate we bring you a retrospective of some of the best puzzles from the early years. Remember some of our readers were not born when we started, for others it may bring back nostalgic memories. Looking back at 2001 today we have added two "retro" problems by Raymond Smullyan.

Komodo 8: Deep Blue revisited (part one)

12/26/2014 – When Garry Kasparov faced IBM's super computer Deep Blue, there was not a player alive who did not secretly dream of having their own private Deep Blue to consult on demand. That day has already come and passed as today's engines such as Komodo 8 can outperform the famous computer even on a smartphone. Here we take a look at the famous match and key moments.

The Chess Phoenix and New Year's books

12/26/2014 – Lubomir Kavalek calls former World Champion Viswanathan Anand the "Phoenix of Chess" – many times down, but never out. For New Year's gifts the Huffington Post columnist recommends a book that gives the impression the players played games while they were drunk. Two more books by Judit Polgar and about Bent Larsen caught his attention. Read his latest column.

Rook resources

12/26/2014 – 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.

26th Carlos Torre Repetto in Memoriam

12/25/2014 – Latin America has but a few strong tournaments that are held every year. One of the more important ones is the Carlos Torre in Memoriam, hosted every year in the city of Merida, Mexico. This year's edition was won by GM Lazaro Bruzon from Cuba with a fabulous performance. GM Alejandro Ramirez brings us his impressions of the tournament and the city of Merida.

'The Nutcracker': Kings and Princes trade punches

12/24/2014 – Although there has been no shortage of generations matches, whether one-on-one or a duel between teams, one thing that is certainly true, and behind their popularity: there is no shortage of hard fights. This particular flavor is no exception and the players and games have displayed great fighting spirit. Here is the report, and don’t miss Fedoseev’s spectacular queen sacrifice.

Al Ain: Nigalidze leads with 5.5/6

12/24/2014 – He is the 28th seed, rated 2536, but he is on a rampage, beating three 2600+ GMs and conceding a single draw in six rounds of the Al Ain Chess Festival. Gaoiz Nigalidze has an amazing rating performance of 2889 and is already gaining 25 Elo points. Behind him are Yuriy Kryvoruchko, Vladimir Onischuk and Sergei Zhigalko with 5.0/6. Big pictorial report with game analysis.