England vs. Sweden Challenge Match

2/17/2022 – It will be a ten-game encounter, with five games at slow time control, five fast. In March Swedish grandmaster Nils Grandelius will play English grandmaster David Howell in London. The event is part of the 30th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the London Chess Centre and the relaunching of CHESS Magazine. Press release.

Berlin GP: Tiebreaks it is

2/16/2022 – A 29-move draw in game 2 of the FIDE Grand Prix final means the winner of the event will be decided in Thursday’s tiebreaks. The short game was not without excitement, though, as the players entered a sharp line in which White had the more comfortable position but had to contend with Black grabbing material on the queenside. Hikaru Nakamura will have the white pieces in the first rapid game tomorrow. | Photos: World Chess

Game of the Week #503: L. Dominguez vs W. So, Berlin, Grand Prix 2022

2/16/2022 – In his "Game of the Week" show #503 Merijn van Delft takes at a theoretically interesting game in the Italian, which Leinier Dominguez and Wesley So played at the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Remembering Borislav Ivkov (12 November 1933 – 14 February 2022)

2/16/2022 – On 14 February the Yugoslav-Serbian grandmaster Borislav Ivkov died in Belgrade at the age of 88. In 1951 Ivkov was World Junior Champion and in the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the world's best players. He made it to the Candidates in 1965, and played in the Interzonal Tournaments in 1967, 1970, 1973, and 1979. | Photo: Durch National Archive

The Weekly Show: The final of the Grand Prix Berlin

2/16/2022 – In his "Weekly Show" Lawrence Trent analyses the first game of the final of the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin between Hikaru Nakamura and Levon Aronian, which was a hard-fought draw. | Lawrence’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here

Berlin GP Final: An exciting draw

2/16/2022 – Hikaru Nakamura had the white pieces in the first game of the final at the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. Nakamura was on the back foot after playing what his opponent Levon Aronian considered to be an “erroneous” plan. However, Aronian could not make the most of his advantage and ended up needing to show precision to hold a 54-move draw. | Photos: World Chess

Irina Bulmaga looks back on the "Battle of the Sexes" match in Gibraltar

2/15/2022 – The "Battle of the Sexes" was a ten-round Scheveningen match between ten male and ten female players that was played from 24 January to 3rd February in Gibraltar. The men won 53-47, and looking back on the match, Irina Bulmaga (pictured), who commentated the games live in Gibraltar, wonders if and why the men were better at team-building and what this match says about women's chess. | Photo: David Llada

Double knockout in Saint Louis

2/15/2022 – For the first time, the Saint Louis Chess Club will host The American Cup, highlighting an exciting and unique double elimination format. This new format and tournament will bring world class chess masters to America's chess capital to compete in a fierce do-or-die struggle for $300,000 total in prize money. With a double elimination format, fans can expect The American Cup to have a combination of exciting chess play, stunning upsets, and epic comebacks. Press release.

Russian Chess Federation honours Yury Averbakh

2/15/2022 – On 8 February Yury Averbakh celebrated his 100th birthday. GM Sergey Yanovsky visited the jubilarian and presented him with the Golden Plaque of the Russian Chess Federation. An exhibition was opened in his honour at the Central Chess Club. Averbakh received countless congratulations and was greeted per video by FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich and Garry Kasparov. | Photos: Sergey Yanovsky and Vladimir Barsky (Russian Chess Federation)

Black's knight's knightmare

2/15/2022 – Knights can fork kings, queen and rooks, but in endgames they are often surprisingly helpless against rooks. In the diagrammed position Black's passed pawn on the h-file looks dangerous but the white rooks have everything under control. What did White play to win the game?

Garry Kasparov talks about his life

2/15/2022 – The English newspaper "The Guardian" recently published an interview with Garry Kasparov in which the 13th World Champion openly talks about his chess career, his political activities, his loss against Deep Blue, and how it feels to be thrown into jail. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Center

Endgame Riddle Fischer vs Spassky, Game 10: Spassky could have drawn!

2/14/2022 – In 1972, the World Championship match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in Reykjavik made headlines all over the world, and during and after the match the games were analysed in detail. One of the highlights of the match was game 10, in which Fischer won a difficult endgame after getting the advantage in a complicated middlegame. 50 years after the match Karsten Müller invited the ChessBase readers to take another look at this classic. Here is what the readers found. | Photo: Skáksamband Íslands – Icelandic Chess Federation

Karsten Müller’s Endgame Magic Show #182 - with more endgame highlights from Wijk 2022

2/14/2022 – In the Endgame Magic Show #182 Karsten Müller continues to present endgame highlights from the Tata Steel Tournament 2022 in Wijk aan Zee. Among these highlights is a fascinating and instructive rook ending that allows you to test your rook endgame skills. | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.

India to host three GM Open tournaments at Guwahati, Delhi and Gujarat in March 2022

2/14/2022 – Over-the-board chess tournament is resuming in India, starting with National Senior Open and Women 2022 later this month. There will be three consecutive GM Open tournaments at Guwahati, Delhi and Ahmedabad. It starts from 13th March. You can make plans for the three strong events which has a very good prize fund too. Check out the excellent conditions which are being offered for foreign GMs, IMs, WGMs and WIMs at three GM Open events. Photo: Various tournament circulars

Chess returns to Vienna’s Café Museum

2/14/2022 – Café Museum was the meeting place for Viennese chess players in the eighties. Photographer Erich Reismann was a regular guest. Now his reportage from that time is on display at the café, where after a long time chess players are welcome again. Stefan Löffler tells us more. | Photos: Erich Reismann (unless stated otherwise)

Airthings Masters starts on 19 February

2/14/2022 – The Meltwater Champions Chess Tour will continue as a regular online event in the coming years. The Play Magnus Group has signed a five-year contract with the Norwegian broadcaster TV-2, which believes in the Tour and broadcasts the tournaments live on television. All in all, viewers followed the first season in 2020/21 for more than 30 million hours. The Airthings Masters, the first tournament of the new season, starts on 19 February with an exciting and young field of players.

Berlin GP: Nakamura and Aronian are the well-deserved finalists

2/13/2022 – The two players who have shown the strongest and most stable performances throughout the event reached the final of the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. Levon Aronian and Hikaru Nakamura drew with black on Sunday to knock out Leinier Dominguez and Richard Rapport, respectively. Since there was no need for tiebreaks in either match, the finalists will have a rest day on Monday. | Photos: World Chess

Understanding before Moving 66: Prophylaxis (2)

2/13/2022 – 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 66th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to talk about the concept of "prophylaxis". | Photo: Tommy Grooten

Player Types - The Pragmatic

2/13/2022 – The Grandmasters Dr. Karsten Mueller and Luis Engel have set a ball rolling in Germany with their latest Fritztrainer. GM Lars Bo Hansen designed the four-player model in 2005, and was perhaps ahead of his time. In the 5-part interview with Dr. Karsten Mueller, all four player types are discussed in detail. Today - The Pragmatic.

Berlin GP: Aronian and Nakamura score

2/13/2022 – Levon Aronian and Hikaru Nakamura won their first semifinal games at the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. Both players won with the white pieces and only need a draw on Sunday to reach the final of the GP series’ first leg. They are facing two players who already came from behind, though, as both Leinier Dominguez and Richard Rapport reached the semis after getting wins on demand in the group stage’s final round. | Photos: World Chess

Strong resource in the London System

2/12/2022 – The "Lucky bag" of ChessBase Magazine Extra has never been so extensively and diversely filled as in Extra #205! The new issue offers no less than 73 annotated games, including two tricky training exercises by GM Sasikiran. GM Kapnisis presents various opening ideas ("Scotch advance", "Benoni strikes", "Petroff rook shifts", "English castling"), plus analyses by Edouard, Krasenkow, Sumets and many more. However, Imre Hera's analysis of his game against his compatriot Zoltan Almasi from the Hungarian League - "The brilliancy" of this issue - is right at the top of the "Lucky bag". For his success against the higher-rated opponent, Hera employed a surprise in the popular London System: after 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.Bf4 b6 4.e3 Be7 5.h3 c5 he went for the unusual 6.Nc3, which immediately posed problems for the nine-time Hungarian Champion. Take a look!
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One false move!

2/12/2022 – While you are looking at this rich diagram position - would you be so kind to show why 22...Kxc8?? loses the game for Black?

Berlin GP: Dominguez and Rapport win tiebreakers, reach semis

2/11/2022 – The two players who won their round-6 games to force tiebreaks in their respective groups managed to also win their 2-game rapid matches on Friday to reach the semifinals of the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. Leinier Dominguez knocked out Wesley So and will face an in-form Levon Aronian, while Rapport eliminated Radoslaw Wojtaszek and thus gained the right to face Hikaru Nakamura in semis. | Photos: World Chess

Daniel King’s Power Play Show: The Archbishop and the Octopus Knight

2/11/2022 – In his Power Play Show, GM Daniel King looks at two of his favourite themes - the Octopus Knight and the Starfish Bishop - which occurred in games from the Berlin Grand Prix. Daniel will feature these masterful strategic performances from Levon Aronian and Daniil Dubov. | 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.