2/4/2018 – The 7th round was played in the chess Bundesliga on Saturday. In Norderstedt, north of Hamburg, OSG Baden-Baden with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave on the top board clearly defeated the host club with 7 : 1, thus remaining at the top of the league. There was a big upset however, for the strong newcomer from Deizisau: The favoured squad lost a fight against Munich MSA Zugzwang 3½ : 4½. The match between Werder Bremen and Solingen finished 4 : 4.

2/3/2018 – The open games are the formative backbone of a chess player. They teach fundamental lessons on initiative, development, and material value. A common example can be when we sacrifice a pawn to gain a needed tempo. It is the sacred duty of every chess player, young or old, to try to play 1...e5 against 1.e4, and gain knowledge, and understanding, which will reflect in tournament games, as well as understanding high level praxis. The latest Sam Collins DVD provides the basis for such enrichment of our chess understanding!

2/3/2018 – Winning against a reigning world champion is always something special. In this example, Vlastimil Hort finds a tactic to take a point off of Anatoly Karpov.

2/2/2018 – The Gibraltar Masters wrapped up Thursday, with Levon Aronian in first place. This year round ten passed without incident, in contrast to 2017 when, on February 2nd, the story of the day was a rare scandal involving women's World Champion Hou Yifan deliberately losing a game in protest of the high number of women she was paired against. She was further confounded when a similarly unlikely string of pairings happened in October at the Isle of Man Open. Johannes Meijer looks at the odds in detail. Hou did not return to Gibralter in 2018, but instead competed in the Tata Steel Chess Masters. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

2/2/2018 – On the last day of the Tradewise Chess Festival in Gibraltar, there was plenty of excitement. Seven players ended tied after ten rounds. The four best on tiebreak battled in a pair of rapid and blitz matches. Aronian defeated Richard Rapport and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who ended Nakamura's run as Gibraltar champion. | Photo: Sophie Triay

2/2/2018 – ChessBase has video tutorials with the world's best grandmasters. Be it Garry Kasparov, Vishy Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Nigel Short, Viktor Korchnoi, everyone has recorded Fritztrainers with ChessBase. Continuing this legacy of products with outstanding quality, we are proud to launch two DVDs by Wesley So. This is an amazing opportunity to learn 1.b3 with white and Italian with black from a player who has a live rating of 2799.3! | Photo: Alina l'Ami

2/2/2018 – Wesley So published two new opening DVDs: 1.b3, the so called Nimzo-Larsen-Attack, for White and his black secrets in the modern Italian. Get them in a package and save money! In a total of nine video clips, top ten player Wesley So talks to IM Oliver Reeh, explaining his personal preferences as Black in the Italian game. The videos are structured according to specific concepts and ideas.

2/2/2018 – As we are privileged with so many interesting visitors and authors coming to the ChessBase office in Hamburg and frequenting our studio, we often try to grab them for a few quick questions to see how they are and what's new. This week it is IM Oliver Reeh who was sitting in the studio for an (off-camera) impromptu interview. | Photo: Pascal Simon (ChessBase)

2/1/2018 – There's a lot more going on every year in Gibraltar aside from the main Masters tournament. From player interviews, to master classes, to the always entertaining "Battle of the Sexes" here's some of what's been happening. | Photo: Sophie Triay

2/1/2018 – Blitz playoffs with Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Levon Aronian and Richard Rapport. Live commentary of the playoff! | Photo: John Saunders

2/1/2018 – Or, what Wijk-watchers have been missing. We take a look at the tournament of Levon Aronian who executed a "Swiss-gambit" of sorts, but finally is back in contention for first place. After lurking on the lower boards, Aronian is ready to pounce, and fans are treated to the hotly anticipated last round pairing Aronian vs. Nakamura, which could well decided the tournament. | Photo: Sophie Triay

2/1/2018 – Good chess players are often bad losers. After defeats they throw tantrums, berate themselves or their opponents and throw things around. But bad losers often train harder than others and learn from their defeats, provided they are self-critical enough. Some bad losers shy away from a critical look at their play. One of them was Siegbert Tarrasch. | Picture: Cover of the book "Die Schachwettkämpfe Lasker-Tarrasch um die Weltmeisterschaft 1908 und 1916", Edition Olms, Zürich 1990.