Shohreh Bayat receives International Women of Courage Award

3/11/2021 – The Iranian chess arbiter Shoreh Bayat is one of 21 recipients of the 2021 International Women of Courage Award, which has been awarded by the US State Department since 2007 to women who have worked for peace, justice, human rights, gender equality and women's empowerment. | Photo: US State Department

Throwback Thursday: Kasparov’s immortal

3/11/2021 – Right around the turn of the century, one of the most dominating players in history showed his strength by winning the traditional Wijk aan Zee tournament three years in a row. Not only that — in his first appearance in Wijk, in 1999, Garry Kasparov defeated Veselin Topalov in what is now known as his ‘immortal game’.

Meeting Don Miguel

3/10/2021 – Miguel Najdorf (April 15, 1910 – July, 4 1997) is one of the great chess players who never became World Champion. Born in Poland, Najdorf stayed in South America after the Chess Olympiad 1939 in Buenos Aires and became an Argentinean and a successful businessman. Vlastimil Hort had the pleasure of meeting "Don Miguel" in person and shares memories of these meetings.

Learn the King's Indian from the King

3/10/2021 – He is indeed more than just the metaphoric king – the "Raja" in Teimour Radjabov's name makes him the king of the King's Indian Defence. The world no. 10 is truly a leading expert in this opening, someone whose exploits have redefined the way it is handled in the uppermost echelons of contemporary chess. Here's he gives us an interactive lesson that will teach you how to handle this quintessentially extremist opening. Learn and enjoy!

Game of the Week: A new setup against the Caro-Kann

3/10/2021 – This week Merijn van Delft takes a look at a game in which Jorden van Foreest tried a new - and promising? - setup against the Caro-Kann. | Merijn's show is available at 16.00 UTC (17:00 CET, 12:00 EDT) and on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

ChessBase Magazine Jubilee: The best tactics videos

3/10/2021 – The ChessBase Magazine celebrates its anniversary! On the occasion of issue # 200, published at the beginning of March, we are presenting highlights from the many regular columns of the ChessBase Magazine. A good way to get better and to win more games is to solve tactical puzzles regularly. And in each issue of the CBM, Oliver Reeh leads you through a series of training puzzles - from simple to super-advanced tasks - and presents his personal favourites in interactive Fritztrainer videos. Take part, improve your tactics, and enjoy!

Pichot and Grandelius qualify to the Magnus Carlsen Invitational

3/10/2021 – Four players fought for two spots at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational in a double round robin online tournament played on Tuesday. Alan Pichot and Nils Grandelius were the ones qualifying to the fourth tournament of the Champions Chess Tour, which is scheduled to kick off on Saturday.

The Weekly Show: International Womens Day Show

3/9/2021 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent will honour the International Women’s Day - March 8 - and will take a look at a game from the greatest of all time – Judit Polgar. | Lawrence's show is available at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, 12:00 ET) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Outstanding: John Donaldson's "Bobby Fischer and His World"

3/9/2021 – Bobby Fischer was born 78 years ago today, on 9 March 1943. Countless articles and books have been written about the controversial American, and recently John Donaldson published another book about the 11th World Champion: "Bobby Fischer and His World". Well researched and well written, it shows the many facets of Fischer's personality, and is definitely one of the best books ever written about Fischer's life, if not the best.

Miguel Najdorf: a love story (II)

3/9/2021 – One of Argentina’s and the world’s greatest chess players, a man shaken by life, a victim of war and its inevitable pain, a passionate man who never lost faith. Najdorf reminisces on his life story. | Part 2 of an interview from 1988 by José Luis Barrio for “El Gráfico”.

Zugzwang - an unpleasant obligation

3/9/2021 – In endgames with opposite coloured bishops creating a fortress often saves the defender. But in the diagram position Black's fortress is not strong enough and zugzwang forces him to self-destruct. White to move and win.

Learn to love the game: An interview with Andrew Martin

3/8/2021 – Andrew Martin is an International Master and a professional chess trainer with a lot of experience. In an interview Martin talks about The Grünfeld Formula, his new ChessBase DVD, his own career, and gives advice to help players who are new to the game. Enjoy! | Photo: John Upham

ECU: What should the arbiter do?

3/8/2021 – This position occurred in a standard game in the presence of the arbiter. Black played 46...Rc1+, but failed to press his clock on time. White claimed a win. Does he get it? What do the FIDE rules decree? IA Prodromos Gerontopoulos tells us the answer. In addition the February issue of the ECU E-Magazine gives us four fun problems to solve.

Gukesh wins Vidit Chess Tour in Armageddon

3/8/2021 – Indian prodigy Gukesh D won the Vidit Chess Tour after beating Aronyak Ghosh in the Armageddon decider of the final match. The players drew all four rapid games and went to sudden death. The 14-year-old eventual winner played white and won the game to take home the US$ 1,000 first prize. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Officially a U.S. citizen: Wesley So’s success as an American player

3/8/2021 – Wesley So has represented the United States since the end of 2014 and has collected a number of major successes since his transfer. A couple of weeks ago, the Filipino-born star officially became a United States citizen. So declared, “From the moment I landed here I was encouraged and enabled to become better than I was”.

Feeding the flames

3/7/2021 – In this week’s column, Jon Speelman looks deeply into “a real fire fight” in which 18-year-old Arseniy Nesterov came out on top after a terrific battle. In the game, the aggression was mutual and included extended hand-to-hand fighting!

Understanding before Moving 17: The Panno knight

3/7/2021 – 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 17th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman shows a particular instance in which a knight on the rim is not dim — the ‘Panno knight’ in the King’s Indian Defence. | Photo: Hans Hoornstra

Vidit Chess Tour: Aronyak and Gukesh in the final

3/7/2021 – The Vidit Chess Tour comes to an end on Sunday, when Gukesh and Aronyak will play the four-game final match starting at 13:30 CET. Sixteen players qualified to the knockout event which kicked off on Thursday. Rating favourites Narayanan S. L. and Praggnanandhaa were eliminated in the semifinals and quarterfinals respectively. | Follow the final live, with computer analysis and commentaries!

FIDE approves hybrid format for World Cup 2021 qualifiers

3/6/2021 – FIDE has announced that, as the epidemical situation remains complicated all over the World, a significant number of qualifiers will be held in the hybrid format. This decision is considered inevitable and exceptional. | Pictured: Ding Liren at the Danzhou Tournament, an online event in which the Chinese participants played from the Country Garden Havana Holiday Hotel. | Photo: Liang Ziming

Rozum and Guseva winners in Moscow

3/6/2021 – The International Russian Cup, also known as the Moscow Open, took place from February 19 until March 1 partly at the Russian State Social University and partly online. The two main events, which serve as stages of the Russian Cup, were won by GM Ivan Rozum (open section) and IM Marina Guseva (women’s section). Diana Mihajlova tells us all about the traditional festival. | Pictured: Marina Guseva | Photo: Anna Shtourman

Rook on the rim

3/6/2021 – In the diagram position, Black's rook on h4 is cut off from the rest of the army, and after 21.Bg5 a rescue operation is needed. But what could that be?

NEW - Andrew Martin: The Grünfeld Formula

3/6/2021 – The story goes that a low-rated player once bravely asked Viktor Korchnoi his advice about what opening to play against a stronger opponent. “Play Grünfeld” was the grumpy reply. “Play Grünfeld against everything apart from 1 e4.” Andrew Martin has no way of verifying this story, but it certainly inspired him to think about whether this was possible, and the end result is this new ChessBase course. One of our most famous and beloved Fritztrainers finally strikes back, and presents great ideas to go for the Grünfeld.

Tarrasch’s 159th birthday

3/5/2021 – There is a long list of great German chess players, and one of the greatest was Siegbert Tarrasch. He was the world’s best player at times, but he was unable to win the World Championship title. Today is the 159th anniversary of Tarrasch’s birth. | In the painting by Antti Faven, which shows a scene from the Café der la Regence, Tarrasch is standing at the very back on the left.

Daniel King’s Power Play Show: Najdorf strategy and theory

3/5/2021 – In this Power Play Show, GM Daniel King looks at the last-round win of Hovhannes Gabuzyan in the Armenian Championship. Tigran Petrosian, playing white, tried a positional approach against the Najdorf, but was duly outplayed by the recently-crowned Armenian champion. | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, 13:00 ET). All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer.