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.

Miguel Najdorf: a love story (I)

3/5/2021 – 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. | An interview from 1988 by José Luis Barrio for “El Gráfico”.

Two puzzles by Vlastimil Hort

3/5/2021 – Grandmaster Vlastimil Hort, who loves to travel, is severely restricted in his activities by the coronavirus crisis. What can he do? He is writing his second book of chess stories, and he keeps his friends busy solving chess puzzles. He sent us two.

Throwback Thursday: Hou Yifan becomes world champion at 16

3/4/2021 – A bit over ten years ago, Hou Yifan became the youngest-ever women’s world champion by winning a 64-player knockout tournament in Hatay, Turkey. The Chinese prodigy defeated her compatriot Ruan Lifei on tiebreaks in the final match of the competition. Hou eliminated Zhu Chen, Kateryna Lagno and Humpy Koneru on her way to the final.

ChessBase Magazine Jubilee: the best opening traps

3/4/2021 – In the anniversary edition CBM #200, Grandmaster Rainer Knaak, who regularly writes about "Opening Traps" in the Magazine presents his Top Ten opening traps. Traps that again and again lead to success - not only in blitz, but also in high-level tournament! Some of the traps Knaak presents are well-known but his Top Ten list also include lesser known examples that might catch you or your opponent unaware.

Alekhine rocks the Philidor Defence (2)

3/4/2021 – The Philidor Defence 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6!? was often underestimated in the past. But World Champion Alexander Alekhine, who used the Philidor Defence several times with good success, showed the dynamic possibilities of the opening. Stephan-Oliver Platz takes a closer look.

The IBM 305 Ramac: The secret grandfather of Deep Blue?

3/4/2021 – Every chess fan knows about the "Man vs Machine" matches between the IBM computer Deep Blue and World Champion Garry Kasparov in 1996 and 1997. But in the 1960s IBM had already developed a computer that could play chess reasonably well: the IBM 305 Ramac. At an industrial fair in Milan, Ramac even defeated the Italian champion Mario Monticelli - with a little trash-talk to spice things up. A find by Adolivio Capece.

Game of the Week: A. Giri vs A. Shirov, Hoogeveen 2014

3/3/2021 – This week Merijn van Delft takes a look at a game in which Anish Giri enriched opening theory and showed his attacking skills against Alexei Shirov. | 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. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

Cindy Zhan: "Chess Mom and Lego Fan"

3/3/2021 – Recently, Peter Heine Nielsen, Danish Grandmaster, coach and second of Magnus Carlsen, and father of four children, enthusiastically retweeted a tweet by Cindy Zhan, which shows a scene from game six of the World Championship match Fischer vs Spassky in Reykjavik 1972. However, the photo does not show the real match but a Lego model of it. It is one of many creations by Cindy Zhan, self-declared "Chess Mom and Lego Fan". | Photos: Cindy Zhan

Back in the game: Karpov to play classical tournament in Malmö

3/3/2021 – The traditional TePe Sigeman & Co tournament will take place at the Malmö Live Concert Hall on April 24-30. A highly attractive 8-player lineup will battle it out in a single round robin with a classical time control. Most notably, 69-year-old former world champion Anatoly Karpov will be participating. Alexei Shirov, Jorden van Foreest and Nihal Sarin will be among the Russian legend’s rivals! | Photo: Andrei Nikerichev / Moskva news Agency

Ahmed Adly wins Arab-African Online Individual Chess Championship 2021

3/3/2021 – More than 1600 players started in the Arab-African Online Invidiual Chess Championship 2021, a big online blitz (3+2) tournament that took place from 25th to 27th February, 2021, and that was organised by the Arab Chess Federation and the African Chess Confederation. The Egyptian Grandmaster Ahmed Adly won the tournament, WFM Ghayda Alattar from Jordan won the women's event. | All photos unless otherwise indicated: Arab Chess Federation

FIDE Ratings March 2021

3/2/2021 – So far, the Tata Steel Tournament in Wijk aan Zee was the only over-the-board top tournament this year. It was played in the second half of January, but its results did not affect the rating list of February 2021. But Wijk changed the rating list from March 2021: Magnus Carlsen and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave lost points, other players gained rating.

The Weekly Show: San Sebastian 1911

3/2/2021 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent looks back to the great tournament San Sebastian 1911 that was played 110 years ago, from February 20 to March 17, 1911. Capablanca won the tournament and on his way to victory he showed some impressive chess. | 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.

ChessBase Magazine Jubilee: The best from "Move by Move"

3/2/2021 – The ChessBase Magazine celebrates its anniversary! On the occasion of the recently published issue #200, today and in the weeks to come, we present highlights from various sections of the ChessBase Magazine! We start with Simon William's "Move by Move" series and present seven selected articles by the popular English Grandmaster. Celebrate with us! Enjoy the interactive training and seven brilliant games!

Soundarya Pradhan’s website for blind chess players

3/2/2021 – The main problem that blind players face when preparing for chess games is the lack of tools and technical resources. They struggle with technology because they cannot access all the available content. For big organizations who produce chess tools, tweaking the features for visually-impaired players is often financially unviable. This is the reason why Soundarya Pradhan, who is 100% visually impaired, decided to take things in his own hands. He has built up his own website, which solves a very specific problem for blind chess players. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

The Queen’s Gambit, Anya Taylor-Joy win Golden Globes

3/2/2021 – Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit” was a major success in 2020, with the streaming service announcing in November that 62 million viewers had watched the limited series since its debut on October 23. The series’ success has now also been recognized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, as Anya Taylor-Joy won the Golden Globe for ‘best actress in a miniseries or television film’ and the series won the ‘best miniseries or television film’ award.

The king escape

3/2/2021 – Rook endings contain many theoretically important positions and methods. The following position is one example. White to move and win.

Victorija Cmilyte: Grandmaster and Politician

3/1/2021 – Victorija Cmilyte is a top chess player and a successful politicain. She is a Grandmaster, Lithuania's number one women player and number seven on the World's Women Ranking List, and since 2015 she has been a Member of the Lithuanian Parliament. She was leader of the Opposition and in 2020 the elected Speaker of Parliament. Cmilyte is married to GM Peter Heine Nielsen and has four children. A portrait. | Photo: Clément Bucco-Lechat