Metamorphosis: The promotion of passed pawns

6/21/2020 – Jonathan Speelman explores an overriding aim in most endgames — the promotion of passed pawns. He explains: “One could see this as a form of parthenogenesis, as the piece (like Athena from Zeus's head) springs fully formed onto the board, sadly and inevitably killing the pawn in the process”.

Chessable Masters: Artemiev leads Group A

6/21/2020 – Vladislav Artemiev kicked off the first day of the preliminaries with two whites and two wins at the Chessable Masters. He drew the remaining three games of the day to finish in the sole lead with 3½ points. The winner of the previous event of the ‘Magnus Carlsen Tour’, Daniil Dubov, is in sole second place a half point behind — the Russian defeated Magnus Carlsen in round 4. | Photo: Patricia Claros Aguilar

"Online chess is the way to go" - The Times of India interviews Anish Giri

6/20/2020 – As the Chessable Masters is about to begin, Anish Giri talked to the Times of India about the future of online chess. The Dutch star thinks that "all the positive things that happened to chess online (like the tournament and twitch and youtube streamers) are there to stay". | Photo: FIDE

Kramnik for The Mind Behind: “I’m not a sportsman by nature”

6/20/2020 – Earlier this week, former world champion Vladimir Kramnik was interviewed by Tania Sachdev for Red Bull's series ‘The Mind Behind’. Among other subjects, the Russian talked about how he is coping with the lockdown, his biggest chess influence as a kid, his main strength as a competitor and his favourite world championship match to date. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Daniel King's Power Play Show: Can Hikaru Nakamura win the Chessable Masters?

6/19/2020 – In this Power Play Show Grandmaster Daniel King will present an interesting endgame and a problem by Sam Loyd. But he will also look at the current form of Hikaru Nakamura who hopes to win the Chessable Masters, the next Magnus Carlsen Tour event will start tomorrow, Saturday, June 20. | Power Play is on air most Fridays at 17:00 UK (18:00 CEST, 11:00 EST) on playchess.com. All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

What to do against 1.d4

6/19/2020 – Some players have difficulties to find a solid repertoire against 1.d4. IM Sagar Shah, founder and CEO of ChessBase India, has some advice. In his series "Improve your chess openings" on the YouTube channel of ChessBase India, he takes a look at a number of different openings. Here's an example you can replay in full: A repertoire for Black against 1.d4, based on the Nimzo-Indian. The session is an hour and a half long, and completely free. Try it and get better!

Do you have an eye for tactics? (3)

6/19/2020 – In the diagram position, pinning Black's knight on c6 with 29.Rc1 must be a good move for White. Really? Really - but White has to calculate precisely!

Face to face: The Croatian Championship 2020

6/19/2020 – The Croatian Chess Federation is the first to organise a "real" chess tournament after the worldwide Corona Lockdown. From June 19 to 29, twelve players will meet face to face in the Croatian Championship. Host of the event is the town of Vinkovci where Bobby Fischer won a strong international tournament in 1968.

Throwback Thursday: Judit Polgar’s best results

6/19/2020 – “There has long been a lively debate about who is the strongest player of all. [...] But there is no argument about the greatest female player: she is 21-year-old Judit Polgar of Hungary”, wrote Robert Byrne in his New York Times column of August 26, 1997. Polgar was recently awarded a Honorary Doctorate in Budapest, so we want to use this opportunity to recall a few of her remarkable achievements as a chess player.

Fritztrainer App for Mac

6/18/2020 – Did you know that you can use our Fritztrainers apps on a Mac without ChessBase software? The apps also offer many interesting functions, e.g. repertoire training, positions for training, various engine options, and much more. Take a look at our short video, which introduces all important functions.

The smallest chess set in the world?

6/18/2020 – The Turkish artist Necati Korkmaz made something tiny with incredible effort. The perhaps smallest Chess set in the world is measuring less than a single centimetre. Soon he will apply for this set to become a new Guinness World record. But will it be accepted? | Photo: Facebook

The Clutch Chess Champions Showdown: Endgame Highlights

6/18/2020 – The many games that are played in the online top tournaments lead to a wealth of exciting endgames. However, as these games are played with short time-controls even the best in the world do not always find the best way to play these endgames. Karsten Müller selected instructive and interesting endgames from the Clutch Chess Champions Showdown to show where and how the best could have done better.

Bestsellers: The most popular ChessBase DVDs of the '10s

6/18/2020 – The first version of ChessBase (the database) was launched in 1986. Much has happened since then! The company has developed a wide array of products for chess fans and professionals. For those looking to improve their game, training with DVDs has become a useful and comfortable way to learn. In this article, we give you a glimpse of what's available by listing the bestsellers from the past decade — the 2010s.

Game of the Week: Carlsen vs Aronian

6/17/2020 – In this show Merijn van Delft takes a look at a game between Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian from the Clutch Chess International. | Merijn's show is available at 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Exciting: Carlsen vs Caruana

6/17/2020 – The final of the Clutch Chess Champions Showdown was thrilling: the world's two best players, Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana, showed excellent chess and fought until the very end. It was the last of 12 games that decided the match. In his Power Play Show Daniel King took a close look at this game.

125 years Swiss System

6/17/2020 – It is not difficult to guess who invented the Swiss system. Yes, indeed, you guessed right: the Swiss did. To be more precise: the inventor is Dr. Julius Müller, a teacher by profession. The official birth date of the still popular and successful system is June 15, 1895, its birthplace is Zurich.

The ultimate ChessBase and Mega Database guide

6/17/2020 – International Master Sagar Shah decided to make a huge tutorial about our flagships - the ChessBase 15 software and the Mega Database. Both software applications are full of content. Once you know what they are capable of, you can't get enough of them and if you use them thoroughly, your chess skills will improve without a doubt.

FIDE announces Online Women's Speed Chess Championship

6/17/2020 – Players like Ju Wenjun, Kateryna Lagno, Irina Krush and Anna Muzychuk will take part in the Online Women's Speed Chess Championship which will be held from June 18th to July 20th. The event will be played in four stages: Swiss Tournaments, Play-Off Qualifiers, a Grand Prix and the Super Final. | Photos: Anna Muzychuk (left, photo by Eteri Kublashvili) Ju Wenjun, and Kateryna Lagno (photos by Ugra2018)

On the origins of chess (4/7)

6/17/2020 – In the fourth instalment of his treatise on the origins of chess, researcher Sergio Negri explores a hypothesis that did not quite cement an alternative paradigm, that of an Egyptian origin. While presenting this theory, he introduces a couple of ancient games, the Greek ‘petteia’ and the Egyptian ‘senet’.

Giants of Modern Studies - Steffen Nielsen Part I

6/16/2020 – In this article (the first part of what hopefully will turn into a series) we will delve into the life and work of the prominent study composer Steffen Slumstrup Nielsen. It is especially interesting to read how this first-rate creative mind may spot a motif in a top GM game, and then use that in a prize-winning endgame study | Foto: Niels Jørgen Jacobsen, Silkeborg

The Weekly Show: Clutch Chess Champions Showdown Final

6/16/2020 – In his weekly show IM Lawrence Trent takes a look at the final day of the Clutch Chess International between Caruana and Carlsen. | Lawrence' show is available at 17:00 UTC (19:00 CEST, 13:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Keres wins AVRO Tournament!

6/16/2020 – Before the 14th and final round of the AVRO tournament, Paul Keres and Reuben Fine shared first place with 8.0/13 each. And as chance would have it, they had to play against each other in the final round. However, their game was not particularly exciting but ended in a draw after only 19 moves – which was good for Keres who won the tournament on tiebreak. After this outstanding success, the 22-year-old Estonian can hope for a World Championship match against Alexander Alekhine. | Photo: Valter Heuer (Archive)

Once upon a time on wooden boards (1)

6/16/2020 – While the abrupt and dramatic changes in the world’s lifestyle caused by the omnipresent "you know what" naturally make people rethink important existential questions, like "What is the meaning of life" or "How did this virus shrink my jeans so fast – they fitted loosely just a week ago?!", today I have a chess-specific question, less complex and painful than those other two: why can’t women, in general, play chess as well as men?

Dancing with a knight

6/16/2020 – Mate ends the game but most games are won because one side is material up and the opponent prefers not to drag things out till the bitter end. However, being a whole knight up in the endgame is not always an automatic win.