Belgrade, Round 2: Fischer beats Petrosian, Spassky crushes Larsen

4/1/2020 – The second round of the "Match of the Century" in Belgrade brought amazing games. Robert "Bobby" Fischer won with Black again former World Champion Tigran Petrosian but the game of the day was World Champion Boris Spassky's spectacular win against Bent Larsen. After 17(!) moves Larsen resigned. But in these 17 moves Spassky had managed to sacrifice a rook and to queen his h-pawn. After two rounds the Soviet Union now leads 11.5-8.5.

Inspiring: the Match of the Century in Belgrade

4/1/2020 – Currently, the world's best players meet in Belgrade to play the "Match of the Century" and chess makes headlines again. The game also inspires some of the most famous artists and musicians of our time. But not all developments are positive. | Photo source: Booklet of an album by Ringo Starr

ChessBase April 1st entertainment

4/1/2020 – The April Fool prank has become progressively more difficult over the years. Of course it is easy to fool people with some unverifiable made up report ("Chess banned in North Korea"), but it misses an essential ingredient: the joke should be funny. And if you construct a genuinely funny story, our friends at Google usually make it possible to detect the hoax within minutes. So we are, once again, restricting ourselves to past pranks – and to some humour to help strengthen our immune systems.

Sagar Shah teaches chess

3/31/2020 – The coronavirus forces the whole world to stay at home. Despite all the disadvantages this has, it is a good time to play chess online and to improve your chess online. International Master Sagar Shah helps you to do so. The lockdown in India is expected to last at least three weeks and every day of these three weeks Sagar Shah offers 60 to 90 minutes chess knowledge online. Enjoy!

"Black is OK!": Andras Adorjan turns 70!

3/31/2020 – In the 1980s the Hungarian Grandmaster Andras Adorjan was one of the world's best players. He was a renowned opening expert and worked as an author and trainer, assisting Garry Kasparov, Peter Leko and others. However, Adorjan's most famous legacy is the slogan "Black is OK"! Today the Hungarian celebrates his 70th birthday. | Photo: Dutch National Archive

The Weekly Show: Fischer vs Petrosian revived

3/31/2020 – IM Lawrence Trent had been enjoying the Candidates, but today he tackles a game from the past. | Puzzle time: In the diagram, find the winning move for White. | Lawrence is live this week from 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST, 12 Noon EDT) and free for a limited time, or forever on-demand with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can always register a free 90-day account to watch.

Arianne Bo Caoili, 1986–2020

3/31/2020 – Yesterday the saddest possible news hit us. "I have no words to express my grief over my wife Arianne's death," wrote Levon Aronian. "She was an intelligent, hard working and joyous person that lived a beautiful life. I love you, honeybun, sleep tight..." An unspeakable tragedy. Arianne was a strong WIM, but also a visionary, social worker, political advisor, MD, dancer, boxer, mountain climber, biker and excelled at just about everything she did. Her death at the age of 33 comes as a huge shock.

A kingdom for my horse

3/31/2020 – With only a few pawns remaining it is often surprisingly difficult to win an endgame with a knight up.

Chess adventures in the time of Corona

3/31/2020 – Chessmates is an organisation for junior players that uses chess to encourage young people to visit other countries to see the world and to broaden their horizon. However, when visiting Murmansk in Russia to play in a junior tournament the French team had more adventures than they really wanted. Stefan Löffler talked to Jurriaan Kien, president and founder of Chessmates. | Photo: Mvestnik.ru

The Match of the Century: Vlastimil Hort with impressions from Belgrade

3/31/2020 – The first round of the match between the USSR and the "Rest of the World" is over and the USSR leads with 5.5:4.5. A detailed report with analyses of key games will follow shortly but Vlastimil Hort was ready to share first impressions about the mood in his team, the atmosphere in Belgrade, and the difficulties to find the best line-up. | Picture: Hort's telegram to the German editors

Knowing Chess Greats Part I

3/30/2020 – There are very few individuals in the chess world who have met and known the many legends of the royal game as closely as the ChessBase co-founder Frederic Friedel. As editor of the ChessBase newspage he rubbed shoulders with greats like Kasparov, Karpov, Korchnoi, became friend and mentor to talents like Anand and Short, who often stayed in his home. Knowing also that Frederic is an unmatched raconteur, IM Sagar Shah always pesters him to tell a story or two every time they meet. The Knowing the Chess Greats series is an effort to bring some of these priceless conversations with Frederic to the general chess audience!

Simon Says: Great games of ancients years

3/30/2020 – In these strange times with no live tournaments going on, GM Simon Williams looks to the past. | Watch for free live and on-demand (for a limited time, or forever with a ChessBase Premium account) starting as soon as Round 6 of the Candidates concludes. (Normally 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET / 12 Noon EST).

Fischer will play!

3/30/2020 – Up to the last minute Max Euwe has tried to convince Bobby Fischer to play in the "Match of the Century" that starts today in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. With success! Ten of the best players from the Soviet Union will play four rounds against ten of the best players from the "Rest of the World" and Fischer has agreed to play on board two behind Bent Larsen. The match is one of the biggest chess events this year and will certainly lead to a number of classical games. It will also be remembered for a long time. ChessBase will follow the games "live". Start of the transmission: 16.00 pm CEST (10.00 EDT, 14.00 UTC).

How to start a training broadcast on Playchess.com

3/30/2020 – In our third tutorial, focusing on our playchess.com virtual rooms, we see how to have an online training session with you as a chess coach. In our tutorial series, we already took a look at how to create a virtual room for your chess club. Furthermore, we had another tutorial about online tournaments in your virtual room. These offers are an excellent option to keep up with your chess activities.

The postponed Candidates: an interview with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

3/30/2020 – French Grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who jointly leads the now suspended 2020 Candidates is back in Paris. After an eventful fortnight, that included a surprise call to the event, the consequent last-minute scramble for a visa, an impressive performance at the tournament and returning home after passing through an empty airport. In an exclusive interview with Dhananjay Khadilkar, MVL, as he is popularly known, speaks about his surreal experience. | Photos: Lennart Ootes/FIDE

Scachs d'amor: Describing the rules of chess

3/30/2020 – A poem written in Valencian by Francesc de Castellví, Bernat Fenollar and Narcís de Vinyoles was the first literary work to describe a game with the modern rules — the queen could move multiple squares in all directions and the scope of the bishops widened importantly. SERGIO NEGRI tells us the story. | Image: A chessboard illustrated in Jacobus de Cessolis' "De ludo scachorum".

Training with the ChessBase Magazine

3/29/2020 – Each issue of the ChessBase Magazine offers a wealth of training material: lines to sharpen and o enlarge your opening repertoire, games from current top tournaments, analysis by top players, and training courses to improve your positional and tactical skills. Filiz Osmanodja, one of Germany's best women players, explains why she enjoys the ChessBase Magazine and why it is helpful for her.

Dorsa Derakhshani: From Iran to the USA (Part 2)

3/29/2020 – IM Dorsa Derakhshani is a third year undergraduate at Saint Louis University on a chess scholarship. Being in St. Louis she's a 'regular' at the Saint Louis Chess Club, and has recorded several lectures for their extensive YouTube channel. Continuing from part 1, after arriving in the USA, Derakhshani has been finding her footing academically, and continuing to feed her chess passion, as she looks forward for building a future in the States.

The boards that mean the world

3/28/2020 – Abram Gurvich was not only an expert chess composer but also a theatre and literary critic. As such, he rejected “all that is mechanical, systematized or unnatural”, favouring beauty as the driving force for chess players. Study of the Month columnist SIEGFRIED HORNECKER examines the work of the Russian composer, paying special attention to his article “The poetry of chess”.

Sally and Misha: Epilogue

3/28/2020 – Sally Landau marries Misha Tal for love. Then she separates from him on account of his affairs with other women. While both marry again, they remain friends. For some time Sally brings up her son, Gera, alone. After a spell of estrangement a rare bonding develops between father and son. Gera becomes a doctor and saves his father in one emergency after another. He settles down in Israel and begs dad to come there and stay with him for good. Misha adores his son, but he does not want to be a burden to him. Importantly, he loves his freedom and wants to live as he pleases. Gera feels helpless as he cannot change his decision. So Misha plays hide-and-seek with Death as ever before, and Death mocks, “How long?” In this concluding part of the series on Sally Landau’s story, our columnist unveils the last secret of Misha’s life.

Tutorial for ChessBase online tournaments in a virtual playing room

3/28/2020 – With playchess.com you can create a virtual room for your chess club. We recently featured how to do so! The logical follow up is to organize an online tournament in your own club room. It is quite simple: All club members receive a special link, with one click the virtual tournament hall is accessed, the tournament director starts the round and the chessboard game windows open automatically for the participants. Just like in real life, this is a bit more demanding for the tournament director. This tutorial explains how it all works.

Cancelled: When the war put a stop to top chess events

3/27/2020 – As many predicted, the Coronavirus outbreak has interrupted the one strong sporting event that was taking place amid the worldwide crisis, the FIDE Candidates Tournament. This is not a first, however. During the twentieth century, strong chess tournaments were taking place when war declarations — that would eventually turn global — put a stop or gravely affected chess competitions. | Image: World War I cartoon by Sava Zlachkin

Three Steps to Morphy

3/27/2020 – How close are you to Paul Morphy? Probably not that close. After all, Morphy was by far the best player of his time but he had a short life (June 22, 1837 – July 10, 1884) and a short career. Still, Bob Jones in CHESS Magazine wanted to know how close he is to Morphy, and his search for an answer to this question brought back a lot of remarkable memories. You can make a similar connection to chess superstars with our utility WinChain!

The Power Play Show: Wrapping up the Candidates first half

3/27/2020 – Grandmaster Daniel King originally planned to be in Yekaterinburg, but instead reflects on Vachier-Lagrave's lead-tying win, and a famous line from Bobby Fischer. Power Play is live most Fridays at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, Noon EST) on playchess.com. You can watch the episode live for free! All the usual puzzles, games and instruction will be on offer. Puzzle and the live video...