12/30/2020 – This week Merijn van Delft shows a game in which Levon Aronian (pictured) came up with an unusual and creative rook maneuver to create a masterpiece in his quarterfinal match against Hikaru Nakamura at the Airthings Masters. | 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: Lennart Ootes (Archive)

12/30/2020 – Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Poland) and Nils Grandelius (Sweden) will participate in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2021 in January. They will replace Ian Nepomniachtchi and Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who have recently cancelled. 33-year-old Wojtaszek is the world’s number 36, with a rating of 2705. 27-year-old Grandelius (number 76 on the world ranking list) will debut in the Tata Steel Masters. He is Sweden’s best player and known for his adventurous playing style. The Tata Steel Chess Tournament will take place in De Moriaan in Wijk aan Zee from 15 – 31 January 2021.

12/30/2020 – Levon Aronian and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won their first mini-matches in the quarterfinals of the Airthings Masters and only need a draw in tomorrow’s second ‘set’ to reach the semis. The remaining two matchups finished tied, with Magnus Carlsen and Daniil Dubov trading wins while Teimour Radjabov and Ian Nepomniachtchi drew all four of their 15-minute encounters. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

12/29/2020 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent takes a look at the preliminary stage of the Airthings Masters and in particular at the great game Nepomniatchi vs Dubov from Round 9. | 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. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

12/29/2020 – The main subject today is the selfmate – sometimes also called sui-mate. In this form of chess problem White must force Black to mate him, while his opponent will do everything he can to avoid that happening. And the self-stalemate requires White to stalemate himself against the will of Black. Does this all sound irrational and frivolous? Well, don't be put off, but accept the challenge of solving some uniquely imaginative problems.

12/29/2020 – ChessBase Magazine is the most comprehensive and most sophisticated chess magazine there is. World class players analyze their brilliancies and explain the ideas behind their moves, opening specialists present the latest trends in opening theory and offer exciting ideas for your repertoire. Experts of tactics, strategy, and the endgame show you the tricks and techniques a successful tournament player needs! DVD with several hours of video + booklet. Also available for download, including the booklet in pdf!

12/29/2020 – In rapid, blitz or bullet the players have between one minute and one hour to mate or flag their opponents. In Hyperbullet they have only 30 seconds. But why not speed this up a bit? How about Ultrabullet, where each player has only 15 seconds for the entire game? "That's silly and has nothing to do with chess anymore", some might say. Ruben Mantel, Germany's best Ultrabullet player, partly agrees with this statement, but not entirely. In a "Rapid Interview" he talks about the attraction of very fast chess, how he came to like Ultrabullet, and whether this form of blitz destroys the game of chess or might help to improve it.

12/29/2020 – Passed pawns can be dangerous, sometimes even extremely dangerous. In the diagram position Black really needs a good idea to stop the white pawns. What would you do? Black to play and draw!

12/28/2020 – The third and last day of the preliminary tournament of the Airthings Masters saw a lot of of exciting games and a close fight for the top eight places which secured the qualification for the knock-out stage. In the end and after a close tiebreak Carlsen, So, Nakamura, Nepomniachtchi, Radjabov, Aronian, Dubov and Vachier-Lagrave qualified. | Photo:

12/28/2020 – In the first eight rounds of the Airthings Masters Preliminary Tournament Magnus Carlsen (pictured) drew seven of his games and won only one. He defeated Daniil Dubov in a difficult technical endgame. The Airthings Masters is a rapid tournament, and the players often have only seconds to make their moves - not enough to think too much about endgame subtleties. However, analysts like to search for the truth, and Zoran Petronijevic and Karsten Müller decided to take a close look at the endgame in Carlsen vs Dubov and found an amazing ressource. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archive)

12/28/2020 – In this Power Play Show, GM Daniel King takes a look at Daniil Dubov's play at the Russian Championship in December. Dubov is known for his creative tactical style but he is also able to play strategic masterpieces.

12/27/2020 – The Airthings Masters starts with a 12-player round robin preliminary tournament, in which the eight best players qualify for the knock-out stage. This mode of play invites caution, and on day 2 of the prelimary tournament only three of the 24 games were decided. Now, after eight rounds no less than six players share the lead with 4.5/8, and though tailenders Anish Giri and David Anton will need a strong finish on day 3, theoretically all twelve players can still qualify for the knock-out stage. The most entertaining player on day 2 was Daniil Dubov (pictured). | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archive)