Mikhalchishin: Bishop against Knight

3/16/2012 – Which of these pieces is stronger in the endgame? Nowadays players usually prefer the bishop, but that wasn't always the case. Chigorin and his followers preferred to play with the knight. The famous chess trainer GM Adrian Mikhalchishin shares this preference and tells you exactly why on this 60 Minutes Trainer, which you can download in our shop. Review by GM Hedinn Steingrimsson

Lady Levity

3/16/2012 – In this position White played 35.Bh5, planning after 35...Rxh6 36.Bxf7 to activate her bishop and open lines against the enemy king. How should Black continue now?
A) 36...Rxh1
B) 36...g4
C) 36...Rf6
Two losers, one winning move!
ChessBase Magazine, larger diagram and solution.

Endless Tactics Positions with Fritz 13

3/16/2012 – Tactics are the building blocks of chess, without which strategy will fall flat on its face, and for this reason regularly working on tactical test suites is always of interest. While you can buy any number, whether from the ChessBase Shop, books, or other, Fritz 13 also provides the means to easily construct endless new ones for you to test yourself. Learn how in this tutorial.

Gaziantep: Tatiana Kosintseva wins European Rapid

3/16/2012 – The two-day European Women's Rapid Chess Championship saw two Russians on the winners' rostrum: GM Tatiana Kosintseva won with 9.0/11 points, followed by GM Alexandra Kosteniuk and German IM Elisabeth Pähtz, both with 8.5/11 points, but Kosteniuk taking Silver on tiebreak points. We bring you pictures and highlights. This weekend is the Blitz Championship.

Judith Polgar: Queen among the Kings

3/15/2012 – Angie's Diary is an online writing magazine and resource to allow published authors and aspiring writers to be read, published and sell more books. The site is interesting because there are a number of original articles on chess. Yesterday there was one on Judit Polgar, written by the English Professor Andrew J. Sacks, who kindly gave us permission to reproduce it on our site.

Edward Winter's Chess Explorations (80)

3/15/2012 – Chessplayers love a challenge, and earlier this month the Editor of Chess Notes set what seemed an almost impossible one: to decipher Bobby Fischer’s score-sheet of his hitherto unknown victory over Svetozar Gligorić in a 1992 training game. Luc Winants of Belgium rose magnificently to the challenge, but are any improvements still possible to his reconstruction? Over to our readers...

Master Moves #23 - Cappelle-La-Grande

3/15/2012 – All the deepest plans or endgame technique are useless if you fall victim to a shot that leaves you in a lost position. Likewise, sometimes that superior play will only offer a single window of opportunity to deliver that final blow, so it is vital to be ready for it when it does. All the shots are from Cappelle-La-Grande. Will you be crowned in this contest?

Young Idani wins 10th Khazar Cup

3/14/2012 – The Guilan Province, which is located in the north of Iran, has a lot of natural attractions, such as the great Caspian Sea and the Hyrcanian Forests, but is also home to most of the famous Iranian chess players. They recently held the 10th Kahazar Cup, with nearly 50 titled players, and ended in a fantastic victory for 16-year-old IM Pouya Idani from Iran. An illustrated report by Shohreh Bayat.

Battle for “Migingo” in Nairobi

3/14/2012 – Nairobi Chess Club continues to make waves in African chess. In 2009 it organized the first Internet match against the famous Wageningen Chess Club, which had Jan Timman on board one. This year the long awaited match against the Uganda National the match affectionately called “The Battle for Migingo”. Big and sometimes startling report by Kim Bhari.

Gaziantep: Muzychuk falters, Gunina wins EIWCC title

3/14/2012 – It was a thrilling final round. The Slovenian GM Anna Muzychuk was in the lead by a full point, but suffered a defeat at the hands of the Russian IM Valentina Gunina. At the same time a super-aggressive game by Tatiana Kosentseva allowed her to join the top group with 8.5/11 points each. Gunina won the title on tiebreak. The event continues with Rapid and Blitz, so stay tuned.

Endgame Magic with GM Karsten Müller and GM Daniel King

3/14/2012 – Endgame knowledge is not easy to acquire and is thus a valuable weapon. In his Endgame Magic Show on Playchess, the renowned endgame expert GM Karsten Müller assists you with a bunch of practical endgames. He shows how to handle the positions, which will help improve your practical results. The special guest will be GM Daniel King. An example and more information.

Historical material on Euwe and Capablanca

3/13/2012 – The Dutch channel Geschiedenis 24 specializes in historic archive footage, which is provided on cable and satellite – but also on the Internet. G24 has happily dug into its chess holdings and put some remarkable material online. We start with a portrait of the former World Champion Max Euwe, which includes a segment with José Raúl Capablanca talking. A treasure trove.

ChessBase 11: finding top theoretical novelty

3/13/2012 – Do you know the option "Theoretical weight" in our database program? Steven Dowd shows theory fans how to use just a few clicks to scour games from recent tournaments for TNs. "Based on games I knew had important TNs, I found that the database handled it with great accuracy for the most part," he writes, giving the program 6/6 stars in his latest Chess Cafe review.

Chess and cleavage – dress code story in the media

3/13/2012 – Periodically one of our reports will be picked up by the general media – we never know which one. This week it was the story of the ECU dress code, which specified how many buttons of a female player's shirt may be open and how many inches above the knee her dress may be. The international media had a field day with this. Meanwhile Anastasiya Karlovich asked the players for their opinion.

Caruana wins Reykjavik 2012, Hou misses big chance

3/13/2012 – We came this close to a major sensation. 18-year-old Hou Yifan, the reigning women's world champion, had a winning position against the tournament leader Fabiano Caruana, and would have finished the tournament in first place if she had steered the game to victory. But Fabiano has some special guardian angels and escaped with a draw and finished in sole first place himself. Final report.

Paulson: 'World cities will glorify chess'

3/12/2012 – FIDE recently transferred the rights to its World Championship cycle to a company called Agon, an action that sent shock waves through the chess world. The man behind Agon is Andrew Paulson, an American born media entrepreneur working in Russia, who is not well known in the chess world. That changes radically now, since GM Raymond Keene sent us this very outspoken interview.

Caruana leads in Reykjavik Open with 6.5/7 points

3/12/2012 – Fabiano Caruana has conceded just one draw so far in the Reykjavik Open 2012 (March 6 to 13). The nineteen-year-old Italian GM is in the sole lead, and his 2885 performance has raised him to number six in the world on the live ratings list. In our round seven report we include a big pictorial by WGM Alina L'Ami of one of the geologically most exciting places on earth.

Harikrishna tops 74 GMs in Cappelle-La-Grande

3/12/2012 – The 28th edition of the International Open of Cappelle-La-Grande, France was as successful as ever. The event boasted 169 titled players, of whom 74 were Grandmasters, and it attracted players from as far away as Japan and Peru. In the end, the Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna topped the field. Find out why so many players consider this event unmissable in this report by GM Alejandro Ramirez.

Fridman wins 83rd German Individual Championship

3/11/2012 – In a fine win in the final round of the 2012 German Championship the top seed Daniel Fridman secured sole first place and the title, finishing half a point ahead of his closest rival, the second seed Igor Khenkin. The Latvian born Fridman has won the title for a second time. Our ChessBase Magazin expert Dr Karsten Müller has picked out some interesting endgames from the event.

Gaziantep: Foisor, Gunina, Muzychuk lead

3/11/2012 – The free day on Thursday was filled with cultural activities in the historic Turkish city where the European Women's Championship is being held. The players came back in full fighting spirit, maintaining an incredibly low drawing quota (25.2%) in this event. The leaders share 6.5/8 points going into the two final rounds. We bring you a big illustrated report after round eight.

2011/12 Junior Four Nations Chess League (J4NCL)

3/11/2012 – Just like the adult 4NCL, the junior edition brought teams of all ages competing over three weekends in two separate divisions. The J4NCL differentiates itself by offering free structured coaching between rounds for all the children, going through games on a one-to-one basis. This season’s coaches were GM Nick Pert, IM Andrew Martin and WFM Sabrina Chevannes. Report by Mike Truran.

Gilberto Milos wins Festa da Uva Open

3/11/2012 – The final phase of the Festa da Uva chess activities was the much awaited Rapid Open, which took place over two days, and was a thoroughly grueling event. The open included the four players from the invitational event and followed a very unorthodox time-control scheme. The top place was won by Gilberto Milos. Updated with reader feedback and the complete Polgar-Mecking games.

Alexei Shirov: Beating the Berlin

3/10/2012 – The Berlin Defence – characterised by the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 – was used by Vladimir Kramnik as a drawing weapon against Garry Kasparov in their 2000 World Championship match. In recent years the Berlin has gained popularity. Now one of it's consummate experts, Latvian GM Alexei Shirov, has produced a training DVD that shows us how to crack this dreary defence.

Double sortie

3/9/2012 – After the invasion of his one knight on d7 White here had also sent out its colleague with 22.Ng5 (diagram), planning after 22...Nxg5 23.Qxg5 to take the diagonal b2-g7 under fire. This leads to what?

A) victory for White
B) equality
C) advantage for Black
ChessBase Magazine, larger diagram and solution.