WR Masters: Aronian beats Giri to widen the gap

2/21/2023 – Levon Aronian scored a third win in five rounds to get a full-point lead at the WR Chess Masters in Düsseldorf. Aronian beat Anish Giri with white, breaking the Dutchman’s 28-game unbeaten streak. The other decisive game of the round saw former tail-ender Vincent Keymer defeating Nodirbek Abdusattorov with white, leaving five players in shared 6th-10th place in the standings. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
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Table Tennis and joy on the rest day of the WR Chess Masters 2023

2/21/2023 – Different tournaments have different kinds of rest days! At the WR Chess Masters 2023, the players and organizers had a great time with a well organized mini-table tennis event. 7 out of the 10 participants of the main tournament took part in this round robin tournament with Gelfand, Dana Reizneice and Wadim Rosenstein joining them. It was a keenly contested event with Andrey Esipenko edging everyone out and taking the top spot. Sagar Shah who travelled to Dusseldorf brings you a fun report.

Interview with Wadim Rosenstein, Organiser of the WR Chess Masters

2/21/2023 – When Wadim Rosenstein realised a childhood dream and put together a world-class field for his WR Chess Masters in his home town, he hadn't even thought about the political overtones. He simply wanted to bring top chess to the banks of the Rhine in Düsseldorf and for Rosenstein Ian Nepomniachtchi and Andrey Esipenko were world-class grandmasters. After all, Russian chess players are not sanctioned by the World Chess Federation. Nevertheless, there were critical questions. Wadim Rosenstein answers these and other questions in an interview. | Photo: Wadim Rosenstein follows the games in the lounge, Jan Gustafsson is in the back (Photos: André Schulz)

Passed pawns should be pushed

2/21/2023 – This endgame guideline is often useful to find the best move when pawn races occur. In the diagram position it is White to move and win. What should he do?

Endgame Magic #228 with Leon Luke Mendonca: Endgame highlights from the "Bundesliga"

2/20/2023 – In his Endgame Magic Show #228 Karsten has the 16-year old Indian Grandmaster Leon Luke Mendonca as his guest and they will look at highlights from the Bundesliga. | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

The Winning Academy 18: Magnus Carlsen's diagonals

2/20/2023 – In chess calculation, width is more important than depth. Virtually every decent player can calculate a forced line till the very end. However, only few can sense all the flavours of the position, find all the hidden ideas. To see the exceptions where everybody else only sees the rules. To find something unusual while all the others follow well-known patterns. In this article, Jan Markos shows you how Magnus Carlsen is able to come up with unexpected solutions in situations where an average club player would be totally confused. | Photo: Lennart Ootes, Archive
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Herman Grooten: Key Concepts of Chess - The Hedgehog

2/20/2023 – In order to understand openings properly, the middlegame should actually be studied first. Because all plans in the middlegame link directly to the ideas from the opening. Almost everything is hung up on pawn structures. Therefore, IM Herman Grooten takes the club chess player by the hand to take a closer look at common middlegame structures.

Ukrainian Sunday at the WR Chess Masters

2/20/2023 – On Sunday, it was Ukranian day at the WR Chess Masters in Düsseldorf. Six young Ukrainians, who attended the fourth round of the super tournament at the invitation of organizer Vadim Rosenstein, enjoyed the opportunity to meet the participants of the WR Chess Masters. All six come from refugee families who arrived in the Rhineland in the spring of 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. | Photo: Tournament host Wadim Rosenstein, Tournament Director Sebastian Siebrecht and Event Manager Anastasiya Karlovych with some of the participants, each of whom received a price. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Alexandr Fier wins Marcel Duchamp Cup in Montevideo

2/20/2023 – Uruguay has once again hosted a strong chess tournament, as the sixth edition of the Marcel Duchamp Cup 2023 took place on February 3-11 in Montevideo. After nine intense rounds of competition, GM Alexandr Fier emerged as the champion with an impressive 7½/9 score. The victory cements Fier’s place as one of the top players in the region. | Photos: Official site

WR Masters: Five draws, Aronian leads

2/19/2023 – Levon Aronian continues to lead the standings at the WR Chess Masters, as all five games ended drawn in Sunday’s fourth round. A few of the encounters featured double-edged openings, but accurate defensive responses prevented any of them from finishing decisively. Monday is a rest day in Düsseldorf. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
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Understanding before Moving 113: Play the Sicilian (14)

2/19/2023 – 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 113th 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
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Some fairly gentle pleasure and mild to medium irritation

2/19/2023 – It was in May 2016 that I launched this column, initially as an Agony Column in which readers could showcase their triumphs and disasters, and today I’m returning to the roots with a couple of my own games. Of course, I care very much when I’m playing, but ‘agony’ and ‘ecstasy’ are too strong for the emotions that chess normally engenders in me nowadays, and I’ve gone for ‘fairly gentle pleasure’ at victory and ‘mild to medium irritation’ at defeat. | Photo: David Llada
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WR Masters: Aronian beats Abdusattorov, leads

2/18/2023 – Levon Aronian is now the sole leader at the WR Chess Masters in Düsseldorf. The Armenian ace, representing the United States since 2021, defeated Nodirbek Abdusattorov from the white side of a Sicilian Dragon in a rather lopsided game. Meanwhile, in the one game of the day featuring two youngsters, Praggnanandhaa defeated Vincent Keymer, also with white. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
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Endgames from Munich

2/18/2023 – Last Monday, Alexandra Kosteniuk (pictured) won the second stage of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix, a 12-player single round-robin that took place in Munich, Germany. GM Karsten Müller followed the games closely, and sent us a selection of thought-provoking endgames. Find here six instructive positions, annotated by our in-house expert. | Photo: Mark Livshitz / FIDE

A clear(ing) case

2/18/2023 – In the diagram position, White has to act quickly in the face of Black's threat e5-e4 - and in the end it will be he who triumphs on the diagonal c2-h7. Happy uncovering!

WR Masters: Abdusattorov on the attack

2/18/2023 – Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Dommaraju Gukesh joined Wesley So and Levon Aronian in the lead of the WR Chess Masters after beating Andrey Esipenko and Praggnanandhaa in the super-tournament’s second round. Abdusattorov’s victory featured a demolishing attack, while Gukesh saw Pragg blundering the game away in a double-edged position. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
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Explained by the engineers! - The new beauty function guide for ChessBase 17

2/17/2023 – Today: Matthias Wuellenweber shows us how to use the new beauty function for ChessBase 17, so you can find the most remarkable games in chess history in no time. ChessBase 17 offers many new features. We help to use them optimally! In our new video series, our developers personally explain the new features they have developed themselves. From the new data format to the beauty index. In no time at all, you'll learn how it's done.
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Daniel King’s Power Play Show: How an opening develops

2/17/2023 – In his new Power Play Show, GM Daniel King tells the story of how an opening variation develops, taking as his starting point the spectacular game Giri-Gukesh, Tata Steel Masters 2023. It is interesting that since then, there have been two subsequent games that followed Giri's idea. How did Black fare? Were improvements found? Watch the show to find out! | Power Play is on air most Fridays. Watch it on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer.

FIDE joins the Sport Integrity Global Alliance

2/17/2023 – FIDE has joined the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA). SIGA is a non-profit, global, independent organisation with a mission to ensure that sporting organisations are run to the highest standards of integrity in order to protect the values of sport.
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Bela Khotenashvili wins 80th Georgian Women’s Championship

2/17/2023 – Bela Kotenashvili dominated the 80th Georgian Women's Championship, and won the tournament with 8.0/9. With 7.0/9 Lela Javakhishvili and Meri Arabidze shared second and third place, but thanks to her better tiebreak Lela Javakhishvili finished second. | Photos: Georgian Chess Federation
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WR Masters: So, Aronian and Esipenko score with white

2/17/2023 – Wesley So, Levon Aronian and Andrey Esipenko kicked off the WR Chess Masters with wins, as they defeated Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Praggnanandhaa and Vincent Keymer respectively. Out of the three, So was the first one to leave the playing hall with a full point to his name. Aronian and Esipenko needed to work harder to convert their superior endgame positions against resilient opponents. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
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Robert Ris’ Fast and Furious: The Semi-Slav Meran

2/16/2023 – In his 'Fast & Furious' show, Robert Ris has a look at the game Mamedyarov-Sevian from the Pro Chess League 2023. The game featured a sharp line from the Semi-Slav Meran variation which became popular after the World Championship match between Kramnik and Anand in Bonn 2008. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Opening ceremony of the WR Masters

2/16/2023 – Yesterday, the ceremonial and stylish opening of the WR Masters took place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Düsseldorf. After a press conference and a small show programme with a simul and "chess doubles", the lots were drawn. | Photos: Lennart Ootes
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Remembering Erich Eliskases (15 February 1913 – 2 February 1997)

2/16/2023 – The name Erich Eliskases is familiar to only a few chess enthusiasts today. However, the Austrian was one of the best players in the world in the late 1930s. In 1941 he was supposed to play for the World Championship with Alexander Alekhine. But things turned out differently. 15 February 2023 is the 110th birthday of Eliskases, who was born in Innsbruck, Austria, and died in Cordoba, Argentina.
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