Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".
3/9/2024 – Jaroslav Svoboda, the owner of Czech Inn Hotels and operator of the Hotel Don Giovanni, the venue of the Prague Chess Festival, is a passionate chess fan. In a short interview he reveals that he learnt to play chess rather late in life, talks about his friendship to Vlastimil Hort and explains why Bobby Fischer is not an ideal role model. | Photo: The Hotel Don Giovanni
3/7/2024 – Greek grandmaster Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis is on the verge of victory at the Karel Janecek Open, which is being held as part of the Prague Chess Festival. With one round to go, he has 7.5 out of 8, and is one point ahead of six players with 6.5 out of 8. In round 8, Kourkoulos-Arditis scored an important win with Black in a theoretically interesting and tactically rich game. | Photo: Johannes Fischer
3/4/2024 – The Karel Janecek Open, which takes place as part of the Prague Chess Festival, features a number of grandmasters, but after five of nine rounds an IM is in the lead with 5 out of 5: Xiang Zeyu from China. Eight players follow half a point behind with 4.5 out of 5 each. Four of these eight players are Grandmasters, four are International Masters. | Foto: Petr Vrabec
3/1/2024 – The Masters and Challengers are the focus of the Prague Chess Festival, but the Open also has a strong line-up and an attractive field. GM Eltaj Safarli from Azerbaijan (Elo 2614) tops the seeding list, followed by Indian GM S.P. Sethuraman in second place, 11 Elo points behind. A total of 263 players are competing in Prague, including well-known streamers Andrea and Alexandra Botez and Dina Belenkaya, who are broadcasting their games live with commentary. | Photo: Petr Vrabec
1/30/2024 – Boris Spassky, world champion from 1969 to 1972, celebrates his 87th birthday on 30 January. Spassky is regarded as a universal player and played numerous fantastic attacking games during his career. One of his favourite openings with White was the King's Gambit, which he used to beat players such as David Bronstein, Bobby Fischer, Yasser Seirawan and Anatoly Karpov. | Photo: Boris Spassky, Chess Olympiad Saloniki 1984 | Photo: Gerhard Hund
1/15/2024 – On 15 January 1930 one of the strongest chess tournaments of the time began in the Italian resort of San Remo. 16 players took part, including the reigning world champion Alexander Alekhine and chess legends such as Aron Nimzowitsch, Akiba Rubinstein and Efim Bogoljubow. Alekhine won comfortably with 14 points from 15 games, achieving one of the greatest successes of his career. His third wife, Nadasha Vasilyev, probably played a major role in this and other Alekhine successes. | Photo: Alekhine and Nadascha in San Remo 1930 | Photo: https://audiovis.nac.gov.pl/
1/7/2024 – During his long career Viktor Kortschnoi (23 March 1931 - 6 June 2016) won against Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov and Carlsen. He never became World Champion himself, but you might think that "he could beat anyone". But this is just a cliché. For although Kortschnoi played a total of 17 games with classical time control against Anand and Kramnik in the course of his life, he never scored a full point against either of them. | Photo: Kortschnoi at the 1960 Leipzig Chess Olympiad | Photo: Tournament book
12/25/2023 – "The Queens Gambit" has been one of the most successful series in recent years, and now chess has also made it onto the bestseller book lists. Thanks to author Ali Hazelwood and her book "Check & Mate", a modern romantic fairytale set in the world of chess.
12/20/2023 – The name "Hastings" has a very special ring to it in the chess world. In 1895 one of the most important tournaments in chess history took place in the seaside resort on the south-east coast of England, and chess tournaments are still regularly held there today - no tournament in chess history has a longer tradition. The Berlin FM Jürgen Brustkern is a great expert on Hastings and has written a book on the history of this tradition together with Norbert Wallet. In an interview with ChessBase he reveals what fascinates him so much about Hastings.
12/8/2023 – The strong line-up of the Masters and the Challengers tournaments, a large Open, an interesting supporting programme and, last but not least, the city itself make the Prague Chess Festival 2024 an attractive event. The 6th edition of the festival will take place from 26 February to 7 March 2024 and will continue Prague's long chess tradition. A tradition whose traces can be found even when you only take a short sightseeing walk through the city. As Johannes Fischer discovered during a visit to the 5th Prague Chess Festival. | Photo: View of Hradcany with the castle, Prague | Photo: Stefan Bauer, Wikipedia
11/21/2023 – The renowned chess magazine "New in Chess" is published eight times a year and issue no. 7/2023 has just been delivered. With detailed tournament coverage, analyses by top players and interesting news from the world of chess. One of the highlights of the magazine is an interview by Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam with businessman and chess patron Ilya Levitov about "24 Hours with Kasparov", a series of interviews Levitov conducted with Garry Kasparov and published on YouTube. Kasparov talks about his life with amazing openness, charm and even more energy, and comments on important games in his career. | Screenshot from "24 Hours with Kasparov"
11/16/2023 – Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, author, organiser, commentator, chess book collector and editor-in-chief of the renowned chess magazine "New in Chess", has conducted numerous interviews with top players over the last four decades. When Sagar Shah, founder and director of ChessBase India, recently visited Holland, he changed roles and interviewed the experienced interviewer. This led to an entertaining conversation about chess books and memories of meeting players such as Kasparov, Karpov, Tal, Anand and many others.
11/10/2023 – Albin's Counter Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5) has been, and still is, a rare guest at top level tournaments, and is hardly ever seen in the practice of the world champions. The variation is considered theoretically dubious and as an overly aggressive attempt to gain counterplay in the rather solid Queen's Gambit. However, the opening has found its way into literature - in the novel "Gambit" by American crime writer Rex Stout.
11/7/2023 – How do you train, what do you train, why do you train and how useful is it to train or play chess at all? These and a whole series of other questions were answered by the Slovakian grandmaster, successful author and renowned coach Jan Markos in a ChessBase interview with Johannes Fischer.
6/30/2023 – The Prague Chess Festival is drawing to a close, but after eight of nine rounds the battle for tournament victory is still wide open. In the Masters, Bogdan-Daniel Deac (pictured) and Ray Robson lead with 5 out of 8 each, but theoretically five more players have a chance of sharing first place. In the Challengers, Mateusz Bartel is sole leader with 5.5 out of 8, but there are no less than three players within half a point of him. | Photos: Petr Vrabec
6/29/2023 – In the top match of the seventh round of the Masters at the Prague Chess Festival Ray Robson (pictured) beat Vincent Keymer and with this victory the American took the sole lead with 4.5 out of 7. The other four games ended in draws. In the Challengers, a draw against Jergus Pechac was enough for Benjamin Gledura to defend his sole lead. | Photo: Anezka Kruzikova
6/28/2023 – There was only one decisive game in round 6 of the Prague Chess Festival Masters Tournament: Wang Hao won with White against Boris Gelfand. Vincent Keymer missed good chances against Haik Martirosyan, but is still tied for first place with Ray Robson and Bogdan-Daniel Deac with 3.5 out of 6. Behind them are five (!) players with 3 out of 6 each - so with three rounds to go, eight players have a good chance of winning the tournament. In the Challengers, Benjamin Gledura is still the sole leader with 4.5 out of 6.| Photos: Petr Vrabec
6/19/2023 – In the ninth and final round of the Teplice Open, all the encounters on the top five boards ended in draws and that secured clear first place for German GM Frederik Svane (pictured), who had a half-point lead going into Sunday’s round. He scored 7½ points and obtained an Elo gain of 15.8 points, thanks to his 2743 tournament rating performance. Rasmus Svane, the champion’s brother, finished in fourth place with 7 points to his name. | Photo: Official website
This Fritztrainer offers you the perfect addition to any Sicilian or Najdorf repertoire, and covers all the minor variations that White has tried to avoid the open Sicilian.
The Powerbook Philidor Defence 2024 is based on 33,000 computer games from the engine room of Schach.de as well as 21,000 games from Mega and correspondence chess.
Philidor Defence Powerbase 2024 is a database and contains a total of 4561 games from the Mega 2024 and the Correspondence Database 2024, 269 of which are annotated.
This Fritztrainer offers you the perfect addition to any Sicilian or Najdorf repertoire, and covers all the minor variations that White has tried to avoid the open Sicilian.
The Powerbook Philidor Defence 2024 is based on 33,000 computer games from the engine room of Schach.de as well as 21,000 games from Mega and correspondence chess.
Philidor Defence Powerbase 2024 is a database and contains a total of 4561 games from the Mega 2024 and the Correspondence Database 2024, 269 of which are annotated.
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