10/17/2021 – Star columnist Jon Speelman looks at the next generation of chess stars, presenting games from Aleksandra Goryachkina, Andrey Esipenko and Nihal Sarin. Speelman notes that “the interesting thing with young players is not only how well they can play at their peak, but also, and no less important, howe well they can play at their ambient level”. | Pictured: Andrey Esipenko and Zhansaya Abdmualik at this year’s World Cup in Sochi. | Photo: Anastassia Korolkova / FIDE

10/17/2021 – The knockout Finals of the Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour are taking place on October 14-17. The 8 top qualifiers from the previous “Challenge” events are participating. Each match consists of four rapid games, with 10 minutes per player for each game plus a 5-second increment. | The action kicks off daily at 16.00 CEST (10.00 ET / 19.30 IST)

10/17/2021 – 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 49th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman shows how White conducts a typical attack in the Sicilian. | Photo: Tommy Grooten

10/17/2021 – It was a rather short day at the office for the semifinalists of the Julius Baer Challengers Tour Finals, as Praggnanandhaa and Christopher Yoo only needed three games to knock out Vincent Keymer and Awonder Liang respectively. After an astounding win by Pragg, Vladimir Kramnik was full of praise for his play, even comparing him with Magnus Carlsen. “He’s playing almost like a real world champion, not a future one”, said Kramnik.

10/16/2021 – Once you worked out why Black should refrain from opening the diagonal of White's bishop on a2 with 20....cxd3??, you should also know how to refute the move played in the game: 20...Qd7??. Enjoy!

10/15/2021 – Iniyan Panneerselvam scored an unbeaten 7/8 to win the La Nucia International Open 2021. He had to miss the eighth round game due to his commitments towards the CoinDCX Chess Super League, and still managed to win the tournament in just eight games. He won a trophy and €2.500 as a prize. Iniyan annotated his favourite game from the tournament. | Photo: Valencian Chess Federation

10/15/2021 – Vincent Keymer and Awonder Liang made it into the semifinals of the Julius Baer Challengers Tour Finals after beating Leon Mendonca and Nodirbek Abdusattorov respectively. Keymer, who finished the preliminary stage — consisting of four tournaments — atop the overall standings table, had to work hard to take down Mendonca.

10/15/2021 – Our beloved IM from London returns, but not with the "News Review" show. Lawrence's "Trent's Tactics" is teaching us about the world of tactics. In this episode, Lawrence will show us different tactics about the back-rank mate. And even though we know the motif now, some of the examples which Lawrence picked are still very challenging! In the last ten minutes, we start from basically "zero" and raise the rating to over 2000, in the ChessBase training section.

10/15/2021 – In this week’s show, GM Daniel King, following Magnus Carlsen’s brilliant win in a bishop endgame, looks at more of the same. Even at one of his own games... | 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.

10/15/2021 – In the Bundesliga everything seems to be headed for a showdown in round 14 when the two leaders Hockenheim and Baden-Baden will meet. At any rate, in round 11 both teams won their matches smoothly: Hockenheim defeated Dresden 6-2 and Baden-Baden won 6-2 against Augsburg. Round 12 starts at 17:00 CEST (9:00 ET, 15:00 UTC). Follow the games live.

10/15/2021 – For the first time in this year’s US Championship, a round finished with all six games drawn, which means Wesley So, Sam Sevian and Aleksandr Lenderman are still sharing the lead going into the second rest day of the event. Meanwhile, in the women’s tournament, Carissa Yip kept the sole lead by scoring her third consecutive victory. Katerina Nemcova is in second place, a half point back, as she also won her round-8 encounter. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

10/15/2021 – Praggnanandhaa and Christopher Yoo advanced to the semifinals of the Julius Baer Challengers Tour Finals after knocking out Volodar Murzin and Lei Tingjie respectively. While Pragg obtained a commanding 3-0 victory, Yoo was inches away from losing more than once in a match that was decided in blitz tiebreaks. The other two quarterfinal matches will be played on Friday.