A surprising attack

2/19/2022 – Opposite-coloured bishops favour the attacker - in the diagrammed position it is Black to move, and do you see how Black can exploit the superiority on "his squares"?

Full Tour Participants confirmed for the 2022 Grand Chess Tour

2/18/2022 – The total Prize Fund Increased to $1.4 million across all five tournaments. The nine players are Wesley So Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Alireza Firouzja, Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Levon Aronian, Richard Rapport, and Leinier Dominguez. | Photo: grandchesstour.org

Airthings Masters kicks off 2022 Champions Chess Tour

2/18/2022 – The Airthings Masters tournament kicks off this year’s Meltwater Champions Chess Tour with a glittering lineup featuring Magnus Carlsen and the new male and female world rapid champions. Sixteen players in total will battle it out in the round-robin stage of the online event before eight go forward to the knockout stage. The tournament will take place on February 19-26, with the action kicking off daily at 18.00 CET.

Daniel King’s Power Play Show: Carlsen messes up

2/18/2022 – In his Power Play Show, GM Daniel King looks at a couple of games with a similar strategic pattern. In the first game we see Magnus Carlsen in action in the Norwegian League - and then we see a second game with a related theme, which was played by Ulf Andersson some years ago. | 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.

CHESS Magazine quiz

2/18/2022 – Are you weary of feverishly watching for novelties in the Najdorf, or following tedious battles over the chessboard? Looking for something different? In the January issue of CHESS Magazine there was a small collection of delightful problems that caught our eye. They were selected and annotated by Graham Phythian. Today we show you the positions without any solutions, which will be supplied in a week. You can however figure them out on your own, with the help of the built-in engines in our replay app.

The search mask in ChessBase 16

2/18/2022 – The ChessBase MegaDatabase 2022 contains around 9.2 million games, many of them by top players. Thanks to the ChessBase reference function the immense opening knowledge from these games is easily accessible. Thanks to the ChessBase search mask the same applies to the middlegame and endgame. But how does the search for positions work, e.g. for positions with an isolated queen pawn? You will quickly learn how powerful this tool is and how easy it is to use the search mask! Let's go.

Nakamura beats Aronian in tiebreaks, wins Berlin Grand Prix

2/17/2022 – Hikaru Nakamura defeated Levon Aronian in tiebreaks to win the first leg of the FIDE Grand Prix in Berlin. The hard-fought final match had seen two draws in the classical games. In the two rapid encounters that broke the tie, Nakamura showed better nerves in the last stage of the games to take home the title, 13 Grand Prix points and 24,000 Euros. | Photos: World Chess

FIDE Grand Prix Final - Games and results

2/17/2022 – The last two spots in the upcoming Candidates Tournament will be decided in the FIDE Grand Prix Series, with the first leg of the series taking place in Berlin on February 4 to 17. The new format consists of four-player double round-robins and a knockout stage. Follow the games live with expert commentary starting at 15.00 CET (09.00 ET, 19.30 IST)!

ChessBase for Coaches: Showing a Plan

2/17/2022 – The Enter Null Move feature in ChessBase helps chess coaches demonstrate opening tabiyas, middlegame attacking ideas, and endgame plans. It’s also perfect for figuring out missing moves on students’ scoresheets or for Knight’s Tours. National Master Jeffrey Ashton explains.

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)