ChessBase's powerful games replayer for *Free*

7/7/2016 – You may have noticed the new replayer that is now used in the news articles. This powerful new tool brings a number of great features never seen before. For example, you can annotate games, analyze with an engine, and more, all directly in the replayer. However, if you have a chess page or blog, you can use this replayer with all the features and embed it in your page for free!

The 44. Sparkassen Chess Meeting Dortmund starts on Saturday

7/7/2016 – On Saturday, the 44. Sparkassen Chess Meeting begins in Dortmund. From 9th to 17th July some of the world's best players compete against the best German players. Vladimir Kramnik will play his 22nd tournament in Dortmund and hopes to win his eleventh title. But he has strong rivals such as Fabiano Caruana, the winner of the two previous events, or Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, currently number four in the world.

Gustafsson: Black Repertoire against 1.e4

7/7/2016 – Jan Gustafsson’s ChessBase DVD Black Repertoire against 1.e4: Open Games covers everything in 1.e4 e5 except the main lines of the Spanish (though it covers Spanish sidelines). "I believe that a basic knowledge of 1.e4 e5 from Black’s perspective is a kind of foundational knowledge for any strong player," writes reviewer Zhigen Lin. "I have no problem in saying that this is hands down the best openings DVD I have ever seen."

Huffington: Carlsen leads and quits Grand Tour

7/6/2016 – Magnus Carlsen leads the Grand Chess Tour after the speed events in Paris and Leuven. But the world chess champion will not be around for the next two established classical events in Saint Louis and London. He is leaving the competition, mainly to prepare for the world championship match against Sergey Karjakin, scheduled for November in New York City. Carlsen’s exit gives other players a chance to win it all.

CB Cloud + replayer = top tool for tournament organisers

7/6/2016 – Since a few days a new "replayer" is used on the ChessBase websites. Of course, you can replay games with it but you can also add an engine to analyse the game and you can enter and analyse variations. In conjunction with the ChessBase Cloud the replayer also offers possibilities, which are particularly interesting for tournament organisers who want to share the games of their tournament. And that's how it's done...

Jon Speelman's Agony Column #9

7/6/2016 – In last week's "Agony Column" Jon Speelman showed two games that were rather positional, and steeped in the importance of pawn structure and colour complexes. This week he gives a hint how Black might get active play after 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 and presents two games that have positional aspects but are rather more violent and feature two vicious attacks with nice tactics.

New DVD: Simon Williams – The Black Lion

7/6/2016 – Looking for an interesting, exciting, aggressive and flexible opening to play against 1 e4!? Then the Black Lion is just the opening for you! The Lion gets ready to roar after 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 4.Nf3 Nbd7 5.Bc4 Be7 6.0–0 c6. This opening, first brought into the limelight by Dutch amateur players Jerry van Rekom and Leo Jansen, now gets the grandmaster treatment. Simon Williams suggests a simple to learn, yet deadly system of development for Black. Add it to your tournament repertoire.

Grand Prix Chengdu: Humpy Koneru takes lead

7/5/2016 – After round four of the Women's Grand Prix in Chengdu, China, which takes place from 1st to 15th July, the Indian Grandmaster Humpy Koneru leads with 3.5/4. In round four she played against Tan Zhongyi from China and won her third game in a row. The other decisive game of the round was Ju Wenjun's victory against Pia Cramling. The four other games of the round all ended in a draw.

Komodo is World Computer Chess Champion

7/5/2016 – Its stiffest competition came from the German program Jonny, running on a giant 2400-core machine. With only 48 cores the US program Komodo finished the computer tournament in Leiden, Netherlands, equal first with Jonny, then went on to win a hard-fought tiebreak, making it the 22nd World Computer Chess Champion. It may interest you to know that the latest version of our flagship chess engine, Komodo 10, was released just a month ago.

World Seniors: Germany and Russia win

7/5/2016 – After eight of nine rounds Armenia led the World Team Championship 50+ in Radebeul, Dresden, by half-a-point. But this was too narrow a margin because in the last round Armenia won only 2.5-1.5 while Germany 1 won 3.5-0.5. This allowed Germany to catch up with Armenia to become new World Senior Team Champion. In the 65+ event the Russians dominated from beginning to end and convincingly won the title.

Fairy-tale mate

7/5/2016 – Every week ChessBase Magazine author and renowned endgame expert Karsten Müller presents a remarkable or particularly instructive endgame in his blog. A click on the diagram opens a larger board. Test your endgame skills, improve and have fun!

Grigoriy Oparin wins Russian "Higher League"

7/4/2016 – The Russian "Higher League", which finished 1st July and was played in Kolomna, is a strong tournament and a qualifier for the "Superfinal", the Russian Championship. Grandmaster Grigoriy Oparin, who turned 19 during the tournament, won with 6.5/9, half-a-point ahead of the field. He and four more players qualified for the "Superfinal".

Daniel King – new DVDs on QGD and Catalan

7/4/2016 – The Queen's Gambit Declined is one of the most reliable openings against 1 d4. With a rock of a pawn in the middle of the board, Black refuses to be pushed over in the centre. The Catalan is a reliable opening for White, but there are ways for Black to shake White out of his com-placency while still maintaining a sound and solid position himself. We have two brand new DVD on these openings by one of our most popular authors, Daniel King. Check them out.

Looking back: Xiong in the Capablanca

7/3/2016 – "Fast and furious" is the headline of an article published in the Cuban newspapers: but they were not referring to Ivanchuk, who won the Elite group in the Capablanca, or any of the players in that section for that matter. It was a teenage boy that was ripping apart the Premier section that caught everyone's attention. Jeffery Xiong continues to make headlines, and for good reason.

The new ratings: July 2016

7/2/2016 – FIDE published the rating list from July 2016. Carlsen remains number one, Kramnik follows on two, very narrowly ahead of Caruana. Two Chinese - Hou Yifan and Ju Wenjun - lead the women's ranking list, best junior is Richard Rapport who is 56 points ahead of Wei Yi. Aleksandra Goryachkina and Lei Tingjie, who both have 2482, lead the girls' ranking. Tables...

Panamerican Junior Championships in Guatepe

7/1/2016 – This year the Chess Federation of Colombia was host to the Panamerican Junior Championships and they invited the players to Guatepe, a small picturesque village not far from Medellin. The tournament schedule was tough but Guatepe with its cheerfully painted houses and its breathtaking landscape still left a deep impression. Dejan Boikov reports.

World Team Championship Seniors

7/1/2016 – After five of nine rounds Armenia and Germany I lead the World Team Championship 50+ that takes place from 26th June to 4th July in Radebeul, Germany. In the Championship 65+ the Russian team dominates. Radebeul is the place where Karl May, one of Germany's most successful and popular authors, died. But the heroes of his popular novels are still very much alive.

Kortschnoj Classic III

7/1/2016 – Tactics can seem deceptively simple, particularly when seeing an engine analysing grandmaster games. Strange, however, how difficult it is to find the right move and to calculate variations properly when playing yourself. It is easier if you solve tactical puzzles regularly. In the ChessBase Magazine and his tactics column Oliver Reeh helps you to do so.

55 and Fabulous: An interview with Keith Arkell

6/30/2016 – Over a 10-week period, English Grandmaster Keith Arkell played in and won seven weekend tournaments. The seven first-place-finishes in a row is a personal best for Arkell. In this interview, he tells how he prepares for his games, how his approach to chess changed over the years, why he works harder at the board and reveals why he thinks chess and life are fabulous at age 55.

Shanghai leads in Chinese Chess League

6/30/2016 – Twelve teams start in division A of the Chinese Chess League and from April to December they play a double-round-robin tournament, 22 rounds altogether. The teams play on five boards with at least two female players. The rating differences between the various players are often huge but this does not mean that the favorites do have an easy life.

The Blindfold King vs The Machine

6/30/2016 – Later this year GM Timur Gareyev will try play 47 opponents simultaneously, blindfold, breaking the current world record of 46 games. Neuroscientists found this interesting enough try to find out how his brain works – they put the GM into a MRI scanner while he played four blindfold games. In CHESS Magazine Timur provides a look into how he is preparing to take on arguably the game’s most impressive record of all time.

Czech Republic wins Mitropa Cup

6/29/2016 – This year's Mitropa Cup was played in Prague, from 19th to 27th June. The Mitropa Cup is a round-robin team event, in which ten Middle European nations take part, each nation ideally starting with a team in the open event and a team in the women's event. This year the Czechs won in the open section while Germany succeeded in the women's event.

Jon Speelman's Agony Column #8

6/29/2016 – Which openings to play, going quickly all-out for an attack or patiently steering the game into quieter waters, which pieces to exchange and which to keep, where to put one's pawns, when to offer a draw and how to win a winning position against a higher-rated player. Questions that all come up - and are answered - in Jon Speelman's Agony Column #8.

How to learn from chess studies

6/29/2016 – Regular players are often suspicious about chess studies and problems. The positions are considered artificial, the solutions extravagant and of little use to practical play. But that is not always the case. We showed you a prize-winning study that requires strategic ideas and manoeuvres that are genuinely useful in over-the-board play, and asked you to solve it. Now we provide the solution with didactic explanations.