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

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!

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?

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

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.

2/11/2022 – If you think of a massively creative chess player, who comes to mind? Tal? Larsen? Creativity in chess is fairly important, to find "impossible" moves in a chess game. Moves, which would never cross your mind. But regularly, these are the moves which can decide a game in a beautiful way. Svitlana was taught creativity in chess by one of her coaches, and passes her knowledge on to us.

2/11/2022 – As part of the Berlin Grand Prix, members of the Berlin Chess Association played a friendly "hybrid" four-board match against members of the ECU Board. The ECU team played from Thessaloniki, the Berlin team from Berlin, and after an exciting battle the match of the officials ended with a 2-2 tie.

2/11/2022 – Frequent evaluation swings in tense-filled encounters made for an exciting sixth round at the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. In the end, the one player who secured a spot in the semifinals on Thursday was Hikaru Nakamura. Naka and Levon Aronian, who qualified after round 5, will face the winners of Friday’s playoffs. In the rapid and blitz tiebreakers, Richard Rapport will face Radoslaw Wojtaszek, and Wesley So will play Leinier Dominguez. | Photos: World Chess

2/10/2022 – This week Robert Ris shows why the almost forgotten Schara von Hennig Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.cxd5 cxd4) has become popular again and attracts players like Grischuk and Jorden van Foreest. Ris also shows a clear game-plan for Black that will help you to try this exciting gambit with success! | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

2/10/2022 – In the 1970s Boris Gulko was one of the best players in the USSR and the world, and he is one of the few players who has a positive score against Kasparov. In 1976, after Kortschnoi had fled the USSR, Gulko refused to sign a critical statement against Kortschnoi, and as a result Gulko was targeted by the authorities. For seven years, Gulko fought to emigrate from the Soviet Union, and in 1986 he moved to the USA, where he continued his chess career. On 9 February 2022 Gulko celebrated his 75th birthday. | Photo: Les Glassman

2/10/2022 – Levon Aronian became the first player to secure a spot in the semifinals of the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. The US grandmaster qualified to the knockout stage with one round to spare after getting an unsurmountable 1½-point lead in pool C. Suspense remains in the other three pools, though, with seven players going into Thursday’s sixth round still with chances of getting one of the three remaining spots. | Photos: World Chess

2/9/2022 – In his "Game of the Week" show #502 Merijn van Delft takes a look at the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin, and shows how Levon Aronian defeated Vidit Gujrathi in the very first round of the tournament in a fine game that might prove crucial at the end. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.