US Championship starts with an Evans Gambit by Nakamura

5/10/2012 – The 2012 US Championship started once more in the incredibly luxurious St. Louis Chess Club, and this time includes Hikaru Nakamura in the line up, as well as Gata Kamsky and the usual suspects. The first round was one of surprises with Nakamura unleashing an Evans Gambit on Hess. On the other side, Stripunsky also surprised Onischuk by dropping a piece on move eleven. Illustrated report.

Endgame Magic with GM Karsten Müller

5/10/2012 – Endgame knowledge is not easy to acquire and is thus a valuable weapon. In his Endgame Magic Show on Playchess, the well-known endgame expert GM Karsten Müller will assist you with a bunch of practical endgames. He shows how to handle the positions, which will help improve your results. An example and more information.

Sigeman: Caruana beats Giri in clash of the young stars

5/10/2012 – This is the 20-year jubilee of the annual Sigeman Chess Tournament, one that pits top international chess stars against local Swedish players. This year it is taking place in the classical Hipp Theater in central Malmo, and with eight players. The stars and favourites are former World Champion challenger Peter Leko and the young GMs Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri. Round one report.

World Championship Moscow – Interview with Andrey Filatov

5/10/2012 – It starts tomorrow, at 15:00h local time, between the Indian World Champion Viswanathan Anand and his Israeli challenger Boris Gelfand, in the famous Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. But why in the Russian capital, we hear some of you ask. Because a powerful sponsor was found, an industrialist who loves chess (and history). Interview by Europe Echecs.

Fahim the Conqueror

5/10/2012 – A young Bangladeshi chess prodigy became the French Under 12 chess champion, but there is a snag - the boy, or more correctly, his father, is an 'irregular', without papers, and as such, after three and a half years living illegally in France they risk being deported to their native country at any moment. Read on about this incredible struggle against adversity in this touching story by Diana Mihajlova.

Tacticsson

5/9/2012 – White has just given up his mighty bishop for the the enemy knight with 37.Bb2xf6 (diagram) - and certainly not without an ulterior motive. How should Black recapture?
A) 37...gxf6
B) 37...Rxf6
C) both moves lose by force

ChessBase Magazine, larger diagram and solution.

World Championship Moscow – inspecting the venue

5/9/2012 – Two days before the start of a World Championship match the players, their seconds and the organisers visit the venue to see if everything is satisfactory. Unsurprisingly the inspection in the theatre of the Engineering Building in the State Tretyakov Gallery met with the approval of Vishy Anand and Boris Gelfand. In 48 hours they will commence hostilities here. Big pictorial report.

47th Capablanca Memorial led by Ivanchuk

5/9/2012 – The Capablanca Memorial has finally found a leader, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it is Ukraine’s Vassily Ivanchuk. After the first round win, Cuba’s top-rated player, Leinier Domínguez, faced Ivanchuk, and was completely outplayed by the Ukrainian in the endgame. The Cuban bounced back, but Ivanchuk's win in round five has given him the midway lead in this tournament rich in Sicilians.

ChessBase 25 Composing Tourney Awards – Part three

5/9/2012 – We continue our tour of chess studies, guided by GM John Nunn, who explains the finer points with great care. The studies were all submitted as part of a composing tourney to celebrate the 25th anniversary of ChessBase last June and came from all over the world. In today's installment we encounter studies from Ukraine, Germany, Austria, Russia and Holland.

World Championship – pre-match information

5/8/2012 – Just three days to go: on Friday, at 15:00h local time – 13:00h CEST, 7 a.m. New York – the first move will be made in the World Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and his challenger Boris Gelfand in Moscow. To get you in the mood here is all the latest information, newspaper reports, interviews and a special video warm-up session with commentator Andrew Martin.

11th Asian Continental Chess Championships

5/8/2012 – They are being held from May 4th to 14th 2012 at the First Hotel, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Lots of interesting players – China, India and Vietnam are fast becoming super-powers in chess. However, top seed Le Quang Liem lost his first round game, and 20-year-old Indonesian WGM Irene Kharisma Sukandar is leading the women's section. Lots of pictures and some really great video reports.

Chess and Shogi – Chernin in Japan (Part 2)

5/7/2012 – When Jacques-Marie Pineau, chess enthusiast and trainer in the emerging western-chess nation of Japan, invited grandmaster Alexander Chernin to take part in a good-will tour, which involved lectures and simultaneous exhibitions in a country mainly fascinated with Shogi. Jacques-Marie starts his final report with a description of how a young Shogi talent can take to chess. Impressive.

Kavalek in Huffington: Women in chess – a few tales (Part 1)

5/7/2012 – Lurking in the background, hiding their identity, they seem mysterious, magical, beautiful. At first they observed the game from a distance, but as centuries went by, women were drawn closer to the chessboard. Still, for ages they could not play chess in public and it took courage and determination to break into the male dominated game. GM Lubomir Kavalek takes a look at some who paved the way.

CBM training: Caruana's King – Endgames from Italy

5/6/2012 – Distant opposition; via the queenside to the kingside; the blockade; Caruana's king – these are the themes that crop up in the positions that our endgame specialist Dr Karsten Müller – of ChessBase Magazin fame – has extracted from the recent Italian Team Championships. His analysis and annotations will give your practical tournament rating a boost. Don't miss it.

Norwegian Chess Festival – great fun in beautiful Fagernes

5/6/2012 – The second "Norsk Sjakkfestival" took place from 28th of April to 5th of May at Norway’s new “Chess Hotel” Quality Hotel & Resort Fagernes, with a central placement in Southern Norway, 2½ hours from Oslo airport. There were several events for players of different categories, from beginner to grandmaster. We received an informative report and some wonderful pictures by WFM Maria Bolshakova.

Georgian Women Championship 2012

5/5/2012 – This strong event is being staged in the beautiful Black Sea costal town of Anaklia – a name that translates to "Ana is crying" (explained in our report). The press officer of the championship, WIM Sopho Nikoladze, has sent us some lovely pictures and, thankfully, full captions that acquaint us to the players. We can only share half of them in our current report – the rest will follow soon.

ChessBase Magazine 147 review

5/5/2012 – Explaining he has had a love affair with ChessBase Magazine ever since its historic inclusion of multimedia material, Albert Silver takes a look at the latest edition, noting its evolution and growth. With fifteen openings articles, endgame articles, move-by-move testing, game comments by the world's best, and over three hours of video material on openings, endgames and more, what is not to like?

47th Capablanca Memorial starts

5/4/2012 – The 47th Capablanca Memorial started and as is customary includes both top Cuban players with elite foreign GMs. There are two tournaments, the Elite group as well as the Premier. The Elite brings top Latin American player Leinier Domínguez, his compatriot Quesada, followed by Ivanchuk, Nepomniachtchi, Laznicka, and Potkin. In the first round, Domínguez drew first blood.

Chess and Shogi – GM Alexander Chernin in Japan

5/4/2012 – It is astonishing that Japan, the third largest economy on the planet, with a population of 127 million, ranks at a paltry 92th on FIDE's chess world rankings, just behind Monaco. On the other hand the national version of chess, Shogi, is played by millions. Jacques-Marie Pineau has tried to rectify the situation by inviting a strong GM and trainer to motivated students – with resounding success.

Bologan takes Taça Cuca by storm

5/3/2012 – One of Africa’s major oil producers, Angola, is also becoming one of the world’s most interesting places to…play chess. There are enough beautiful and exotic locations to make it deserving of a detour to enjoy a once in a lifetime chess experience. With an absolutely 'insane' 8.0/9, Victor Bologan convincingly won the men's section. Illustrated report by WGM Alina L'Ami.

The 2012 Russian Youth Championships

5/3/2012 – The Russian Youth Championships (under 10/12/14/16/18) were recently held in classical, rapid and blitz time controls. Aside from the obvious honor of being crowned national champion, at stake was also the right to represent Russian in the next World and European Youth Championships. Vladimir Barsky was on scene and took a number of lovely photographs.

ChessBase 25 Composing Tourney Awards – Part two

5/3/2012 – This tourney attracted wide participation – 73 entries, from which the tourney judge GM John Nunn selected 22 prize winners and commendations. In a second instalment of new studies, selected by the tourney judge, Dr Nunn, in his wonderful explanatory style, presents some dramatic themes, and also looks at two predecessors to one of the prize winning entries.

Extreme X Chess Championships Finale

5/2/2012 – In the dramatic finals of these Championships 13-year-old Justus Williams played Stanford student Elliott Liu, 22. Justus' school was featured on the Rachel Maddow show ("Best new thing in the world for a long time!"), Elliott is a fun-loving college senior who attends music festivals on weekends while maintaining a strong international chess ranking. Great videos on the final and by Maddow.

Vaibhav Suri, grandmaster at fifteen

5/2/2012 – The student of Modern School in New Delhi won the 3rd Luc Open at salle Debeyre in Lille, France, on Sunday, defeating four GMs and drawing four. That brought Vaibhav Suri his third and final norm, making him India's 27th grandmaster, and at 15 years, 2 months and 21 days the 27th youngest in history. Vaibhav is being trained by Ukrainian GM Alexander Goloschapov. Portrait and statistics.