Classical online team competitions on PlayChess

9/3/2020 – It is not clear when we will get to play over-the-board team tournaments again. Online competitions are the only alternative. But where can you play serious team matches using a classical formats? On PlayChess! For example at the DSOL (German Online Chess League), in which 246 teams are participating. You do not need to play at the DSOL to play with your team though — anyone can do it! You can set up a round-robin event with a fixed board order or use the Scheveningen system. As in over-the-board tournaments, the players can concentrate exclusively on their games and do not have to worry about the pairings or how to challenge others. Only the team captains have to put in some more work, just like in “normal” team matches.

“Head of the Sicilian clan” - Remembering Lev Polugaevsky

9/3/2020 – Lev Polugaevsky was one of the best players in the world and a leading expert on the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian in the 1970s and 1980s. A sub-variation is named after him. Last week was the 25th anniversary of his death. Dagobert Kohlmeyer pays tribute to the Soviet grandmaster.

Your Top Grandmaster analyses

9/3/2020 – The new ChessBase Magazine # 197 comes with two exciting "Specials". The first is the exclusive contribution by Anish Giri: the current number 10 in the world shows you his nine best games with the Italian. Top games with a cutting-edge opening, commented in detail by one of the strongest grandmasters in the world! Today, we offer you one of these nine analyses as a reading sample. Enjoy!
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Call for interest: Chess Olympiad 2022

9/3/2020 – The 2022 World Chess Olympiad in Minsk (Belarus), as well as a number of side events, are at risk after the current organizers failed to comply with their obligations. Unless the Minsk organizers meet their obligations in the upcoming days, FIDE will be forced to change the hosting country for the 2022 World Chess Olympiad and related events.

Donchenko and Saric share first place in Skalica

9/3/2020 – At the grandmaster tournament in Skalica, Slovakia, Alexander Donchenko and Ivan Saric shared first place on 7½ out of 9 points. While Saric finished undefeated with six wins and three draws, Donchenko, who incidentally was defeated by Saric in round 4, obtained seven wins, drew once and lost once. | Photos: Amruta Mokal / Sophie Nikoladze

Winning with the King’s Indian and our summer special!

9/2/2020 – The second-to-last week of our Summer Special has arrived, and we are offering yet another great DVD bundle, this time with Fritztrainers by Victor Bologan. The Moldovan grandmaster teaches us how to win with the King’s Indian attack, an opening which is very popular amongst several titled players. We have also added his DVD “King’s Indian: A modern approach”, where Bologan presents a full repertoire in over seven hours of instruction. To sum the bundle up, you will also get the opening’s 2019 Powerbook and Powerbase DVDs, with over 100,000 games. And finally, we add another signed-DVD raffle to all buyers!

Game of the Week: Dvirnyy vs. Shirov

9/2/2020 – In his “Game of the Week” show, Merijn van Delft looks at yet another impressive attacking effort by “Fire on Board” author Alexei Shirov! | Merijn's show is freely available at 15.00 UTC (17:00 CEST, 11:00 EDT) for a limited time, and on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Lars OA Hedlund

Chess and Golf for amateurs during the pandemic

9/2/2020 – During the pandemic, in-person chess almost disappeared while golf survived relatively intact. In this article, WIM Alexey Root and her co-author, amateur golfer and US Chess Senior Tournament Director Reka Sztaray, compare golf and chess under COVID-19 restrictions, as well as discuss costs and team competitions in both sports.

Spanish Championship kicks off in Linares

9/2/2020 – The 2020 Spanish Championship 2020 is taking place in Linares, as an over-the-board tournament. 138 participants have registered to participate. It is a 9-round Swiss open, which will also serve to decide who becomes the 2020 Spanish Women’s champion. The games start at 17:00 CEST and can be followed live at Live.ChessBase.com | Photo: Patricia Claros (FEDA)

GoodEarth Online Blitz Open

9/2/2020 – The next Playchess Online Blitz Open is scheduled for Saturday September 5th 2020 at 4:30 p.m. European time. The tournament is sponsored by the Indian environment-friendly enterprise GoodEarth, and is organized by ChessBase India. There is a low entry fee — just €4 for international amateurs — and a total prize sum of €685 (US $815). Registration has started, the last date for registration is September 4th.

The Best in - Trinidad and Tobago

9/2/2020 – In our “The Best in” series, we already talked to talented players from the Bahamas and Aruba. This time around, we will explore another island from the Caribbean — Trinidad and Tobago. While Jasel Lopez stands out in Aruba, Alan-Safar Ramoutar is the best chess player in Trinidad and Tobago, as he recently surpassed the 2300 rating barrier! He started playing chess in 2015, and only five years later he is getting closer to his goal of reaching a 2700+ Elo rating.

September FIDE ratings

9/1/2020 – FIDE’s world ranking has mostly stagnated since the beginning of the corona crisis and the cessation of over-the-board tournaments, especially at the top level. The best in the world have been playing, but only unrated online rapid tournaments. Nevertheless, a few “real” tournaments have taken place lately. | Pictured: Luis Engel, winner of the German Individual Championship | Photo: Frank Hoppe

The Weekly Show: Czech Championships

9/1/2020 – In his weekly show IM Lawrence Trent talks about what has been going on in the chess world. Lawrence focuses on the Czech Championships, more specifically in a win by eventual champion David Navara, who obtained his tenth national title in Pilsen. | Lawrence’s 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. | Photo: Official site

Free falling with Wolfgang Uhlmann

9/1/2020 – Vlastimil Hort and Wolfgang Uhlmann played together in many tournaments and shared numerous experiences. In memory of the world-class grandmaster who sadly passed away last week, Vlastimil Hort recalls a memorable episode of their lives.

Tricky pawn endgame

9/1/2020 – Usually passed pawns should be pushed, but there is no rule without exception! What is Black’s best move in the diagram? Endgame specialist Karsten Müller demonstrates why one should always calculate carefully not to spoil a winning position in the final stages of the game.

David Navara wins Czech National Championship

9/1/2020 – The Czech Republic is in the process of returning to normality after the corona crisis. Last week the Czech National Championships were held as over-the-board tournaments in Pilsen, without face masks nor Plexiglas walls. Rating favourite David Navara won the 9-round event after collecting 7½ points. | Photos: Official site

Riddle solved: Lasker was winning

8/31/2020 – One of the most mysterious passages of chess history was the 1910 World Championship match. Both the controversy of whether the world title was at stake in the ten-game confrontation and which were the conditions of said match are still unresolved. The riddle that Karsten Müller presented to our readers, however, had to do with game 5. The conclusion: Lasker was winning! | Pictured: Emanuel Lasker | Photo: Cleveland Public Library

FIDE declares India and Russia joint winners of the Online Olympiad

8/31/2020 – The 2020 FIDE Online Olympiad came to an end on Sunday, with an internet outage prompting FIDE to declare finalists Russia and India as joint winners. The match had started with a tie in the first six-game mini-match. In the second encounter of the day, however, Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh disconnected towards the end of their games and lost on time. First, the Russians were declared champions, but after India’s appeal, on the grounds that their players lost connection as a consequence of a massive internet outage, FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich decided to grant gold medals to both teams.

ChessBase Magazine 197 arrived!

8/31/2020 – ChessBase Magazine is the most comprehensive and most sophisticated chess magazine there is. World class players analyse their brilliancies and explain the ideas behind the moves to you, opening specialists present the latest trends in opening theory and offer exciting ideas for your repertoire. Master trainers in the fields 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!

Chess composition in the German Democratic Republic I

8/31/2020 – In 1949, four years after the end of World War II, the Allies divided Germany into West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany, FRG) and East Germany (the German Democratic Republic, GDR). For chess composers, the main restriction was that they were unable to travel into western countries and the fact that they could not always send chess compositions to western sources, nor receive them. Columnist Siegfried Hornecker tells us how the chess composition scene was kept alive in the GDR. | Pictured: Leipzig in the 1980s

And it went zoom!

8/30/2020 – Many users have comfortable — one could almost say “huge” — computer screens. So it is not surprising that texts in our databases and also those of ChessBase Magazine look almost “ridiculously small”. But that does not have to be the case! Solution: in the latest versions there is a zoom function which becomes available after you update your software online!

Logic Riddles for Chess Players (8)

8/30/2020 – Thank you for your commentaries about the last riddle and for clarifying the riddle before finding a solution. The chess logic-riddle community is very active — thanks for your engagement! Today’s riddle fits perfectly well into the chess world. It is a little odd though, I have to admit.

FIDE Online Olympiad: Russia and India joint winners

8/30/2020 – The quarterfinals, semifinals and final of the 2020 FIDE Online Olympiad scheduled to take place between Friday and Sunday (Augusto 28-30). After a draw in the first mini-match of the final between Russia and India, two Indian players lost connection to their games and forfeited on time in the second encounter. FIDE decided to declare both teams as joint winners! Follow the games live with commentary and computer analysis. | See the report on the semifinals!.

Online Olympiad: India and Russia reach the final

8/30/2020 – India and Russia defeated Poland and the United States respectively to reach the final of the 2020 FIDE Online Olympiad. After losing the first mini-match, India came back with a convincing win in the second. In the Armageddon decider, Humpy Koneru comfortably defeated Monika Socko to give her team overall victory. Meanwhile, the Russians defeated USA in the first mini-match and drew the second encounter to advance to the final. | Pictured: Humpy Koneru and Alexandra Kosteniuk | Photos: Austin Fuller / Russian Chess Federation