The Power Play Show

2/22/2019 – Friday at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, Noon EST) Daniel King will go on air 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...

Passed pawn vs. mate attack

2/22/2019 – Played only six years ago, to many this is already a WCh classic: after 26...b2 27.Rf4 b1D+ from the diagram position, Black got a fresh queen with check. But the challenge is to ensure the survival of his king afterwards. Up to it?

New: Nick Pert: Attacking Repertoire with 1.d4!, Vol 1 & 2

2/22/2019 – On his two DVDs "Attacking Repertoire with 1.d4" the English Grandmaster, renowned coach and author Nick Pert presents a repertoire for White based on 1.d4. Volume 1 deals with 1.d4 d5 2.c4, volume 2 with systems arising after 1.d4 Nf6. With these two DVDs Pert complements his previous DVD "Solid and safe against the wild Indians" which showed how to play against the King's Indian and Grünfeld.

Aeroflot Open: Indians on top

2/22/2019 – Four out of six players on a perfect 2/2 score at the Aeroflot Open are Indians, as fighting chess was the rule during Thursday's second round. Incidentally, none of the co-leaders are among the top-10 rating favourites, a rather expected fact given the strength of the tournament. However, some of the highest-rated players scored their first wins on round two, including Wei Yi, Wang Hao and Anton Korobov. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili / Russian Chess Federation

Champions Showdown: Caruana and Rapport start best

2/21/2019 – The Champions Showdown in St. Louis features five exhibition matches in which five US players compete in rapid and blitz against five non-US players. With three wins and one draw Fabiano Caruana (who played against Pentala Harikrishna) and Richard Rapport (who played against Sam Shankland) scored best on day one. Caruana more than once showed superb endgame skills. | Photo: Saint Louis Chessclub

Encounters: Richard and Richard and Woody

2/21/2019 – Last year's World Chess Championship in London was an exciting affair. All twelve games were drawn, and not everyone was there for the final tiebreak day, to see Carlsen win three games and retain his crown. But Frederic Friedel did attend the spectacular opening gala and the first two rounds. He describes the many interesting people he met and the impressions they left. This is the first in a series on chess-related encounters.

Fast and Furious: Sharp and fun to play

2/21/2019 – Today's topic: The Carlsen Line (1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4 Nc6 5.Qd2!?) against the Sicilian. Thursday, at 16:00 UTC (17:00 CET, 11 am EST), IM Robert Ris shows sharp and double edged opening lines. If you fancy sacrificing or playing gambits, this show is a must see. Not only will you profit from specific opening ideas but you'll learn a lot of interesting general opening concepts too. The live show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows.

Organizing databases in ChessBase 15!

2/21/2019 – Keeping your chess databases in order, e.g. by arranging databases according to topics, players, openings, etc., makes training and improving easier and more fun. Database administration in ChessBase 15 is not difficult. Here's a little tutorial to help you. | Drawing: ChessBase
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Aeroflot Open: Better late than never

2/21/2019 – After a bomb threat forced the first round to be postponed, the Aeroflot Open kicked off on Wednesday at the Cosmos Hotel. A lot of the rating favourites only managed to score half points, but plenty of fighting chess was seen on the lower boards. The biggest surprises were given by Kaido Kulaots and Liu Yan, who defeated Parham Maghsoodloo and Jorden van Foreest, respectively. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili / Russian Chess Federation

Game of the Week: P. Maghsoodloo vs S. Tiviakov

2/20/2019 – Ideas and strategies in Grandmaster games can be quite instructive. IM Merijn van Delft presents games like these every Wednesday at 19:00 UTC (20:00 CET, 2 pm EST). On this week's show: P. Maghsoodloo vs S. Tiviakov from the 3rd Stars Cup in Iran. The live show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows.

Berlin to host big Bundesliga weekend

2/20/2019 – This year's edition of the prestigious German teams tournament has reached its half-point and, unlike the previous edition, it will see the squads gathering in Berlin midway through instead of doing so at the end. On March 1st-3rd three rounds will be played, which will include two key match-ups for defending champions and current leaders OSG Baden-Baden. Standings, pairings and more below. | Photo: schach2019.berlin

Preparation made easy: the ChessBase 15 Playerbase

2/20/2019 – The ChessBase 15 Playerbase is a very useful tool. It helps you to find information about other players: the openings he plays and how well he plays them or his rating development. Sometimes this information even comes with one or several photos of the player. And you can search online or offline. | Grafik: ChessBase
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James Mason and the London System

2/20/2019 – Today, the London System (1.d4 Nf6 - or 1...d5 - 2.Bf4) is a very popular opening but it took a while before it was taken seriously. Though it is a rather old line, and James Mason, one of the strongest players of the 19th century, used to play it regularly and with success. Stephan-Oliver Platz tells more about Mason and the development of the London System.

Bomb threats in Moscow: Round 1 of the Aeroflot Open was aborted

2/19/2019 – After a bomb threat the first round of the Aeroflot Open had to be aborted 45 minutes after the start of the games. The Cosmos Hotel, the venue of the Aeroflot Open, was evacuated. Moscow had to cope with various bomb threats this afternoon, and shopping centers, cinemas, and theatres were evacuated. Thousands of people are affected.

Endgame Magic with Karsten Müller and Robert Ris

2/19/2019 – Karsten is joined by Robert Ris. This week's show is live at 14:00 UTC (15:00 CET, 9:00 AM EST) and FREE to watch on-demand (for a limited time)!

The Weekly Show: Games from the 4NCL

2/19/2019 – IM Lawrence Trent brings you the latest trends, games and combinations from elite chess tournaments every Tuesday at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET, Noon EST). This week he looks at games from the 4NCL, Britain's Four Nations League. Free to watch on-demand for a limited time with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.

Fast pawns and tricky endings

2/19/2019 – Pawn endings sometimes appear simple but they can be really tricky. And you may see this deceptively simple position as a warm-up for today's "Endgame Magic Show" in which Karsten Müller has Robert Ris as his guest. The "Endgame Magic Show" starts live at 14:00 UTC (15:00 CET, 9:00 AM EST) and is FREE to watch on-demand (for a limited time)! But first enjoy the warm-up.

Did Yoo know?

2/19/2019 – Child stars are a common sight in the chess world these days, but getting to know them more closely remains to be an enticing activity. At 12, Christopher Yoo already earned three IM norms to become the youngest American IM in history. And if he gets three GM norms in less than twenty months he will overcome Sam Sevian, United States' youngest ever grandmaster. Let us explore some curious facts about the future star. | Photo: David Llada / American Chess Magazine

New: Masterclass Vladimir Kramnik

2/19/2019 – For almost three decades Vladimir Kramnik has been one of the world's best players, and from 2000 to 2007 he was World Champion, the 14th in the history of chess. Kramnik has inspired countless players, from amateurs to grandmasters, and the new ChessBase Masterclass reviews the career of this outstanding player, improves your game and invites you to enjoy chess with Vladimir Kramnik.

Simon Says — Sacrificing the Rook on a8 in the Opening!?

2/18/2019 – In this Simon Says we take a look at some very interesting examples where in the opening, Black sacrifices the Rook on a8. Sounds weird!? Well you will have to tune in to see! Simon is live this week at the usual time: 18:00 CET (17:00 UTC). If you miss the show, you can watch it in the archive with a ChessBase Account. Don't have an account? You can register a free 90-day account to watch!

"Trophée Napoléon": Maxime Vachier-Lagrave wins match against Jorden van Foreest

2/18/2019 – 250 years ago, August 15, 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte was born. The statesman and military leader is said to have been a passionate chess player, and in France the opening 1.e4 e5 2.Qf3 is called "Ouverture Napoléon", Napoleon's Opening. The French emperor also founded the city of La Roche-sur-Yon which celebrated Napoleon's jubilee and his passion for chess with a match between Maxime Vachier and Jorden van Foreest. A campaign in which "MVL" was more successful. | Photo: La Roche-sur-Yon, Ville & Agglomération

The adventure of chess programming (3)

2/18/2019 – In the first two sections of this series, originally published in Der Spiegel, Europe's largest (and most influential) news portal, Frederic Friedel described his decades-long involvement in computer chess. He was commissioned to make the story personal, and in part three he describes his encounter with the latest twist in this area of research: artificial intelligence and self-learning machines that are playing at the very highest levels of the game. Where are we headed and what will the future bring?

Chess boom in Norway: Mikroputt and Liliputt

2/18/2019 – Tournaments for children have a certain tradition in Norway. In 1999, Carsten Opseth won one of these tournaments, Ørnulf Stubberud and Johannes Kvisla finished second and third. With 3 points out of 6 games a certain Magnus Carlsen was eleventh. Today, Stubberud and Kvisla are FIDE Masters while Carlsen is even more successful. | Photos: Holger Blauhut

The importance of endgame training

2/17/2019 – This week, JON SPEELMAN takes a gander at two games played by Niels Engelen, a 37-year-old Dutch software developer from The Hague (pictured), who is enjoying chess more than ever. Niels says he has been playing more often after having found a couple of chess buddies at his town's club, but he has also started to focus on training endgames, an activity that has already borne fruit. | Photo: Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0