5/18/2021 – One year ago the ChessBase Magazine introduced a new column, the "Special". It offers room for a wide range of topics, e.g. Dorian Rogozenco's video presentation of rediscovered Kasparov games in ChessBase Magazine #195, "My favourite Fischer game" (CBM #196), "Kasparov as challenger" (CBM #198), "My favourite game of Paul Keres" (CBM 199) or how people remember the young Magnus Carlsen (CBM #200). The current issue #201 focuses on a player who has been among the world's best for more than three decades: Vassily Ivanchuk. The "Ivanchuk Special" in CBM #201 includes 22 games from 1987 to 2019. As a sample we show two of these games, annotated by Renato Quintilliano and David Navara. Enjoy!

5/18/2021 – The German word "Zugzwang" describes the phenomenom that the rules of chess force you to make a move when it's your turn even if it would be better to do nothing. In chess, you simply cannot pass. "Zugzwang" is a typical endgame phenomenon that often decides the game. In the diagram position White can use "zugzwang" to force the opponent to self-destruct. How?

5/17/2021 – The Meltwater Champions Chess Tour delivers a world first for its next event: an elite-level bitcoin chess tournament. The star-studded FTX Crypto Cup starts on May 23 and offers a record $320,000 prize pot for an online event — $100,000 of that is a bonus paid in crypto by new sponsor FTX, the leading cryptocurrency exchange. Fans will be able to track the prize pot's value in real-time throughout the broadcast to see how it fluctuates.

5/17/2021 – The second edition of the MrDodgy Invitational was played on May 12-16 in the chess24 PlayZone. The event was a 16-player knockout, with each match consisting of 12 blitz games (5 minutes for the game, without increments). Top seed Anish Giri, who had won the first edition of the event, defeated Baadur Jobava in the final to get the first prize of $2,500 plus a picture of Dodgy on a horse.

5/17/2021 – The Fritztrainer thematic tournament starts today at 19:00 CEST (13:00 ET, 17:00 UTC) and will be hosted live on Twitch.tv by Daniel King and Arne Kaehler. The discount day, which starts Monday, 17 May, 18:00 CEST (12:00 ET, 16:00 UTC) offers a great opportunity to support your favourite Fritztrainer. But first and foremost, this tournament should be fun and it should offer us fine games with interesting openings to watch. We are looking forward to seeing the players in action: Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Mihail Marin, Merijn van Delft and Robert Ris.

5/17/2021 – For many chess players, chess problems just look bizarre: the pieces on the board often seem to be randomly placed and the positions appear to to be utterly removed from anything that can happen in a practical game. However, solving chess problems can be fun - if you know how to approach them. Vlaicu Crisan has some advice.

5/12/2021 – This week Merijn van Delft takes a look at the Russian Team Championships, in which the 19-year Russian talent Andrey Esipenko showed a fine performance and played a number of impressive games. The focus will be on his win against M. Kobalia. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

5/12/2021 – 60 years ago today, on 12 May 1961, the return World Championship match between Mihail Tal and Mikhail Botvinnik, which had started in Moscow on 15 March, came to an end. Tal had won the first match in 1960 with 12.5-8.5, but in the return match Botvinnik regained the world championship title and defeated Tal 13-8 (+10, -5, =6). But despite the clear result Botvinnik's victory still failed to convince.

5/12/2021 – Mihail Tal played many mind-boggling and beautiful games full of stunning tactics and surprising sacrifices. Modern engines may find out that Tal's sacrifices might not always have been correct but it is still fun to play through and analyse his games. Now, Karsten Müller invites the ChessBase readers to take a close look at one of Tal's classics.

5/12/2021 – The Chinese Chess Championships are being played on May 7-15 in Xinghua Jiangsu, a county-level city in eastern China. After seven rounds, three players are sharing the lead in the open event while rating favourite Tan Zhongyi has grabbed the sole lead in the women’s tournament. | Pictured: Tan Zhongyi during the 2018 Women’s World Championship | Photo: Gu Xiaobang

5/12/2021 – Svitlana Demchenko is a 17-year-old, Canadian WIM, and chess coach. Here and now, she will teach us plenty of smart moves on the board, ranging from tactics, strategies, openings, and anything else chess related. In the process, I'm happy to be available as a student at club player level, and pester the female international master with questions. Anyone who wants to strengthen their chess skills is welcome to watch, and actively replay the positions from the video, on our chessboard.

5/11/2021 – Arjun Erigaisi pulled a massive upset in the finals of the Indian Qualifier to the Champions Chess Tour by handing Adhiban his first defeat of the event. Nonetheless, by reaching the finals, Adhiban had already qualified to the elite online tour. Aravindh beat Gukesh in the match for third place. Gukesh should be happy with his performance, as he was the only player to beat eventual champion Arjun Erigaisi in the very first game of the semifinals.