Attacking with a calm mind

11/27/2020 – In the diagram position, White had just played 32.Qd4+, after which Black decided to take the pawn on g6 and played 32...Kxg6??. However, that was a mistake which allowed White to unleash a powerful mating attack. How did White continue after 32...Kxg6?? - and can you calculate the lines in your head?

Skilling Open: Comebacks

11/27/2020 – Three out of the four players that qualified to the semifinals of the Skilling Open did it by coming back from behind in their quarterfinal matchups. The only player to move on without needing tiebreaks was Magnus Carlsen, while Ian Nepomniachtchi, Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura reached the semis despite having lost on Wednesday. Carlsen v Nepomniachtchi and So v Nakamura are the semifinal pairings. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Anton Korobov wins Ukrainian Championship

11/27/2020 – With an Elo-rating of 2683 Anton Korobov was top seed and favourite at the Open Ukrainian Championship 2020. Korobov lived up to this role and with a score of 7.0/9 he finished clear first to become Ukrainian Champion 2020. It was his fourth title. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archive)

Robert Ris' Fast and Furious: Queen's Indian Defence: Petrosian Variation

11/26/2020 – In this week's show, well-known Dutch trainer Robert Ris takes a look at an old favourit of Garry Kasparov: the Petrosian Variation of the Queen's Indian Defense. | "Fast and Furious" is available from 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET / 16:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Frederic Friedel

Skilling Open: “Ugly” wins

11/26/2020 – The quarterfinals of the Skilling Open kicked off on Wednesday. Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Teimour Radjabov won their first mini-matches to go into day two of the confrontations only needing a draw in order to move on to the semis. Carlsen was not all that satisfied with his performance, as his opponent, Anish Giri, missed opportunities from better positions more than once. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

Solution of the endgame riddle: Was Fischer's 22.Nxd7 winning?

11/26/2020 – In 1971 Bobby Fischer played against Tigran Petrosian in the Candidates Final, and in the crucial 7th game of this match Fischer made one of the most famous and surprising moves of his career: 22.Nxd7+, exchanging a "good" knight against a "bad" bishop, and this stunning exchange led to a seemingly smooth win, which practically decided the match. Since then 22.Nxd7+ has been praised in countless books and articles as a stroke of genius. But new analyses of Karsten Müller, Charles Sullivan, Zoran Petronijevic, and the ChessBase readers indicate that this famous move might actually have been a mistake!

Meet the Fritztrainer - Chris Ward

11/26/2020 – We have hundreds of different Fritztrainers in our shop. A lot of them are made by top grandmasters, and perhaps you sometimes wonder what the authors of these Fritztrainers do besides teaching us to play better chess. "Meet the Fritztrainer" is the very first part of a new series that tells us more about the private life of your favourite chess coach. We start with joyful GM Chris Ward, who shares anecdotes about Kasparov, talks about the time when he played in the Bundesliga, and reveals how he thinks chess should be taught. | Photos: Chris Ward

Game of the Week: Nepomniachtchi vs Anton

11/25/2020 – In his "Game of the Week" show, Merijn van Delft takes a look at a game from the Skilling Open: David Anton's fine win with Black against Ian Nepomniachtchi, a model game against 1.b3. | 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.

Jonathan Rowson on "The Queen’s Gambit"

11/25/2020 – In November 2019, three-time British champion Jonathan Rowson published The Moves that Matter: A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life (Bloomsbury Publishing), a wonderful book, abounding with thoughtful reflections about the game and its place in our world. A year later, after watching the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, Rowson posted a 35-minute YouTube video in which he highlighted how some of the major themes in his book connect with this successful Netflix series. In an interview with Olimpiu G. Urcan, he elaborates further. | Photo: Netflix

Autumn Series on Playchess - play and win attractive prizes

11/25/2020 – 90 minutes online training with Grandmaster Nicholas Pert, ChessBase author and renowned coach. This is the first prize in the 5th tournament of the Autumn Series on Playchess, a nine round Swiss blitz tournament that will start on Wednesday, November 25, 20.00 CET (19:00 UTC, 14:00 ET). As in all tournaments of the Autumn Series, the games will be played under real names.

John D. Rockefeller V Donates $3 Million to US Chess Federation

11/25/2020 – The US Chess Federation can look forward to a real windfall. The Rockefeller Foundation donates the sum of 3 million US dollars to the Federation and to US chess. This is the largest single donation the US Federation has ever received.

Skilling Open: A thrilling qualifier

11/25/2020 – The knockout stage of the Skilling Open is about to begin after eight participants qualified from a 16-player single round robin preliminary stage. Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura topped the standings on 9 out of 15; Wesley So, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Levon Aronian finished a half point behind; while five players tied on 8 points, with Teimour Radjabov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Anish Giri advancing to the quarterfinals. | Photo: Levon Aronian

"Glory to the Queen": A Tribute to the Georgian Queens of Chess

11/25/2020 – The movie "Glory to the Queen" is a tribute to the four Georgian Grandmasters who once dominated womens' chess. At the Slobodna Zone movie festival in Belgrade, the Austrian-Georgian-Serbian co-production has now been awarded the audience prize. Over the course of the project, Stefan Löffler remained in touch with documentary filmmaker Tatia Shkirtladze. | Images: Berghammer Film

The Weekly Show: Highlights from the Skilling Open

11/24/2020 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent presents highlights from the Skilling Open and takes a close look how Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won against Le Quang Liem in round 7. | Lawrence's show is available at 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET, 14:00 ET) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Ray Morris-Hill

Let's talk about chess ... with Allan Scott

11/24/2020 – In the latest episode of his "Let's talk about chess" podcast Eric Reem talked with Allan Scott, one of the creators of the Netflix series "The Queen's Gambit". Allan Scott is co-producer of the show and wrote the script together with Scott Frank. In the podcast he talks about the series and gives a lot of interesting insights. | Photo: Netflix

Outdoor Chess: Uruguay

11/24/2020 – In Montevideo, Uruguay, chess is part of the city’s cultural heritage. 18 de Julio Avenue, the city’s most significant street, was the site of its most famous outdoor chess game. Gonzalo Muniz, a FIDE-rated chess player from Uruguay, and WIM Alexey Root tell about chess in Uruguay’s capital. | Photo: Gonzalo Taborda

When a retreat is the best way to advance

11/24/2020 – Some endings are simple: you have a passed pawn that wants to push ahead and therefore your king also pushes ahead to support the pawn or enter the enemy's camp. But things are rarely that easy. In the diagram position White's pawn wants to push ahead and White's king can also push ahead to support his own pawn or to attack the black pawns on the queenside. But is that really the way to save the draw?

Skilling Open: Giri still on top

11/24/2020 – Day 2 of the preliminaries at the Skilling Open saw Anish Giri keeping the sole lead by scoring five draws in a row. Three players stand close behind, while the race to reach the knockout is fierce, with some big names — e.g. Levon Aronian and Sergey Karjakin — currently not in the top half of the standings table. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Kasparov and the start of ChessBase

11/23/2020 – How did ChessBase begin? It's been nearly 35 years now! When co-founder of ChessBase Frederic Friedel was in India, IM Sagar Shah decided to record the story of how it all began. In this article Frederic speaks about the humble beginnings of the big chess technology company and how the 13th World Champion Garry Kasparov played a big role in its success!

Skilling Open: Mouse slips

11/23/2020 – For Magnus Carlsen, the Skilling Open began with a setback. In a winning position, his queen was placed on the wrong square due to a mouse slip and was captured by his opponent. The world champion had a good first day nonetheless. However, it was Anish Giri who finished as the sole leader after five rounds. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Carlsen on The Queen’s Gambit: “A little too unrealistic”

11/22/2020 – The $1.5 million Champions Chess Tour kicks off today with the Skilling Open. World champion Magnus Carlsen is the top seed. Shortly before the start of the much anticipated tournament, the Norwegian talked about Netflix’s hit series ‘The Queen’s Gambit’. Carlsen found it extremely enjoyably, but also a little too unrealistic. | Photo: Play Magnus Group

Vahap Sanal is the 2020 Turkish chess champion

11/22/2020 – Vahap Sanal obtained his second consecutive Turkish Chess Championship on Saturday in Kemer, a seaside resort and district of Antalya Province. The 22-year-old was the rating favourite and duly dominated the field by scoring five wins and four draws in the 10-player single round robin. IM Melih Yurtseven finished the tournament in style, winning three in a row to get sole second place. | Pictured: Cem Kaan Gokerkan (3rd), Vahap Sanal (1st) and Melih Yurtseven (2nd) | Photos: Official site

Understanding before Moving 2: How to improve the activity of my pieces

11/22/2020 – 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 second part of his new ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving" Herman explains how to find ways to improve the activity of your pieces. | Photo: Hans Hoornstra

FIDE launches the first Online Olympiad for People with Disabilities

11/21/2020 – The first Online Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities, organized by the International Chess Federation, kicks off today (November 21) and will run until December 3, a day recognized by the United Nations as the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The competition brings together 400 players from all over the world, including two grandmasters. | Photo: David Llada