1/9/2023 – Viktor Kortschnoi was one of the greats in chess. He played twice for the World Championship and only narrowly failed to win the title. His fighting spirit and his passion for chess is legendary. On the new Masterclass Fritztrainer "Viktor Kortschnoi" you can follow his long career game by game and in the remastered Fritztrainer "Kortschnoi: My Life for Chess" you can watch how the master presents his best games himself. Christian Höthe has taken a look at the two Fritztrainers.

1/9/2023 – Mikhail Tal's meteoric rise shook the chess world in the late 1950s, taking him straight to the very top. His victory over Botvinnik in the 1960 match won him the world title. In the process, the 'Wizard from Riga' thrilled fans with his unprecedented combination style – “There are two kinds of sacrifices - correct ones and mine!” For CBM 211 we invited our authors to comment on their favourite Mikhail Tal games. The total of 21 encounters, the last played in 1991, show the eighth World Champion above all, in his element - as a brilliant tactician. A little-known game from the National Open in Chicago 1988 is presented by Yannick Pelletier in CBM 211 - you can watch his analysis in abridged form here. Enjoy!

1/9/2023 – From Friday, 6 January, to Sunday, 8 January, the 32nd Keres Memorial was held in the Estonian capital Tallinn and featured a blitz and a rapid tournament. GM Vitaliy Bernadskiy from Ukraine won the blitz, GM Yuriy Kuzubov (also from Ukraine) won the rapid event.

1/9/2023 – The Covid pandemic in the last two years have led to a chess boom online, and the young guns have benefited the most from having ‘extra time’ on hand due to being at home a lot throughout the years 2020 and 2021. They seem to have done well to widen their learnings of the game, making large gains on the rating scale. Edwin Lam Choong Wai, chess enthusiast and coach, has a suggestion how FIDE should handle this. We would be interested to hear you opinion on the subject.

1/8/2023 – The new generation of chess stars is here, with no fewer than nine players aged 19 or younger rated above 2650 at the time. In a 7-part series, we will look at the performances of the top juniors in 2022. Former world rapid champion Nodirbek Abdusattorov is fourth in the list. At 18, he has proven his mettle as a leader, playing top board for Uzbekistan in an astounding run to Olympic gold in Chennai. | Find here analysis of a remarkable victory by Abdusattorov, annotated by Ivan Sokolov.

1/8/2023 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. In the 107th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to explain why it is good to study and to play the Sicilian. | Photo: Pascal Simon

1/5/2023 – As a chess player, you probably know this problem: The openings for the next chess tournament are all perfectly prepared, but then shortly before the tournament starts you start to wonder: what should I wear? ChessBase presents the new spring fashion, with prints that will impress your opponent. Also for the children and the dear four-legged friends. Now in the New Year's Sale!

1/5/2023 – In his “Game of the Week” show #549 Merijn van Delft looks at a recent but historically important game: Magnus Carlsen's win against Parham Maghsoodloo in the last round of the Rapid World Championship 2022. Carlsen had to win and he outplayed Maghsoodloo in a fine mix of attack and defense. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

1/5/2023 – Can a unit of our army be a friend or foe depending on the circumstances? From experience, we know that the answer is a resounding yes! GM Sundararajan Kidambi explains the beautiful concept of using your opponent’s piece to your advantage instead of always being bent on automatically going for the recapture.

1/4/2023 – The 3rd World Chess Championship between Wilhelm Steinitz and Isidor Gunsberg that ran from December 9, 1890 to January 22, 1891 was a closely fought match. At the end of 19 games, Steinitz emerged victorious, 6-4, to retain his title. Gunsberg's good result in this match was no coincidence. Gunsberg was one of the strongest players of his time though today he is almost forgotten. Eugene Manlapao takes a look at the life and career of this relatively unknown World Championship challenger. | Photo source: Wikipedia

1/4/2023 – The theme of “decision-making” is an essential part of every chess game. At every moment of the game, you must make a decision that is not only tactical; as psychology, structural preferences, positional basics and good variation calculation are all part of the process of making the right decision.

1/4/2023 – October saw the start of the new Bundesliga season. In ChessBase Magazine #211 participants from various teams comment on their games from the first rounds, including the stars from the cover - Pavel Eljanov, Loek van Wely and Luke McShane - as well as Nils Grandelius, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Ivan Saric, Ivan Cheparinov, Gawain Jones, Nikita Vitiugov, Erwin L'Ami, Dennis Wagner, Daniil Yuffa, Georg Meier, Jan-Christian Schröder, Thai Dai Van Nguyen and Michael Prusikin. In addition, David Navara presents his game against Luke McShane in a detailed video analysis and Rustam Kasimdhzanov reviews his Black victory against Julian Kramer, also in the video. "The Analysis" of the issue comes from Erwin l'Ami – A Queen’s Gambit Accepted in which the Dutch GM actually had his opponent perfectly pegged out. Enjoy!