7/30/2119 – From July 20th to the 31st, the Swiss watch metropolis of Biel/Bienne will once again be a focus of chess activity in Europe. The festival features many interesting and young players as well as a new format that combines rapid, classical and blitz chess. Vidit won again with Black adding to his immpressive run. Shankland is second. Live games and commentary from 12:00 UTC (14:00 CEST / 8:00 AM EDT).

12/27/2020 – For 24 days, you could guess who our distorted and blurred Fritztrainers were. We received over 6000 emails in total! That's great! Thank you very much. From all the entries, we randomly selected three winners for each day. Furthermore, we raffled off T-shirts and masks with a ChessBase motif, as well as a few DVDs with signatures of grandmasters. Those who guessed all 24 days correctly, also entered into our super raffle. Maybe you are one of them? After all, there were 90 prizes to be won.

12/24/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/23/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/22/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/21/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/20/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/19/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/18/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/17/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/16/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/15/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/13/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/12/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/14/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/11/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/10/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/9/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

4/13/2021 – 13 April 2021, six days before the resumption of the FIDE Candidates Tournament in Yekaterinburg, the FIDE organised a press conference on the FIDE Candidates Tournament in Moscow, at the Rossiyskaya Gazeta Media Center. The speakers answered questions of journalists from all parts of the world, who were attending the event online. A press release by the FIDE has some details.

3/2/2021 – So far, the Tata Steel Tournament in Wijk aan Zee was the only over-the-board top tournament this year. It was played in the second half of January, but its results did not affect the rating list of February 2021. But Wijk changed the rating list from March 2021: Magnus Carlsen and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave lost points, other players gained rating.

3/6/2021 – FIDE has announced that, as the epidemical situation remains complicated all over the World, a significant number of qualifiers will be held in the hybrid format. This decision is considered inevitable and exceptional. | Pictured: Ding Liren at the Danzhou Tournament, an online event in which the Chinese participants played from the Country Garden Havana Holiday Hotel. | Photo: Liang Ziming

1/20/2021 – A few weeks ago, the FIDE Council approved a new set of rules to be applied to official online chess competitions. The document also established the framework for "hybrid" events, a format where the games are played online, but the participants are physically present in a public place like a club, federation headquarters, hotel, et cetera. In this format, all games are played under the supervision of an arbiter present on site.

1/7/2021 – FIDE has a new Managing Director. Dana Reizniece-Ozola, Woman Grandmaster and former Latvian Minister of Economics and later Finance, leaves the world of Latvian politics and dedicates herself to the politics of chess. | Image: Janis Deinats

1/28/2021 – Originally, the match for the World Championship between Magnus Carlsen and the winner of the Candidates Tournament 2020, was planned for November 2020. But the corona pandemic put a stop to these plans. Now, the FIDE announced a new date for the World Championship match: if everything goes according to plan, it will take place from 24 November to 16 December 2021 in Dubai, as part of the Expo. | Picture: FIDE

12/10/2020 – After Belarus has withdrawn its application to organise the Chess Olympiad 2022 in Minsk due to political uncertainty, and the Chess Olympiad 2020 in Moscow has been postponed to 2021, FIDE now decided "to have just one Olympiad during this period", in Moscow 2022. The Chess Olympiad 2024 will take place in Budapest. | Photo: FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich | Photo: Vladimir Barsky

11/5/2020 – In the last months only a few over-the-board tournaments took place, but in October 30 of the top 100 players were active again and played in FIDE-rated "real" tournaments. Magnus Carlsen is still the clear number one but it was Alireza Firouzja who made the biggest jump ahead by gaining 20 Elo-points in Stavanger.

10/23/2020 – The International Chess Federation announced that Gibraltar will host the final stage of the Women’s FIDE Grand Prix, to be played in January 17-29, 2021. The best female chess players in the world will be competing in a crucial event in the race for the World Championship title, since the two best players from the Women Grand Prix Series qualify directly for the Candidates Tournament. | Photo: David Llada / FIDE

11/19/2119 – When Magnus Carlsen decides to leave the Norwegian Chess Federation or gives interviews in Norway or plays for his new club in Norway's second league it is usually Tarjei Svensen who shares the news with the world, via his twitter account @TarjeiJS, which has thousands of ardent followers. STEFAN LOEFFLER spoke with the Norwegian chess journalist about Carlsen, chess in Norway and his wish to be always up-to-date. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

9/22/2119 – The 2019-2020 FIDE Women's Grand Prix, part of the Women's World Championship cycle, takes place in Skolkovo, a business centre in Moscow also known as the Russian Silicon Valley. Twelve players are competing in the first of four single round-robin events that will grant two spots at the next Women's Candidates Tournament. In the final round, Humpy Koneru earned the final half point needed to clinch victory ahead of Ju Wenjun. | Photo: Official site

11/18/2020 – One of the most amazing moves in Bobby Fischer’s rich career was 22.Nxd7+ in the seventh game of the Candidates final match against Tigran Petrosian. Endgame specialist Karsten Müller wonders whether the move was objectively the best in the position or if an alternative pawn push might have been a better try. You can help him solve the historical riddle!

2/24/2021 – On September 1, 1972, Boris Spassky resigned the 21st game of the World Championship match Fischer vs Spassky 1972 in Reykjavik and Bobby Fischer was new World Champion. But after winning the title the American did not play an official game for 20 years, and soon hid from journalists, fans and colleagues. However, before Fischer fled into hiding, he showed himself to the public, and on November 8, 1972, Fischer was a guest in Johnny Carson's legendary "Tonight Show". Recently, a video of this remarkable episode appeared on YouTube. | Pictures: Screenshots from the show

3/3/2021 – The traditional TePe Sigeman & Co tournament will take place at the Malmö Live Concert Hall on April 24-30. A highly attractive 8-player lineup will battle it out in a single round robin with a classical time control. Most notably, 69-year-old former world champion Anatoly Karpov will be participating. Alexei Shirov, Jorden van Foreest and Nihal Sarin will be among the Russian legend’s rivals! | Photo: Andrei Nikerichev / Moskva news Agency

3/9/2021 – Bobby Fischer was born 78 years ago today, on 9 March 1943. Countless articles and books have been written about the controversial American, and recently John Donaldson published another book about the 11th World Champion: "Bobby Fischer and His World". Well researched and well written, it shows the many facets of Fischer's personality, and is definitely one of the best books ever written about Fischer's life, if not the best.

3/29/2021 – Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik became the Classical World Chess Champion in 2000 by beating Garry Kasparov. He defended his title in 2004 against Péter Lékó, and defeated the reigning FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov in a unification match in 2006. In this article I will make a meal I think Kramnik would like and annotate the game Ponomariov – Kramnik, Linares 2003 | Photo: Lennart Ootes

4/12/2021 – On his Twitter account, Scottish chess fan Douglas Griffin regularly publishes historical photos of famous chess players. Photographs that awaken memories and keep them alive, pictures that allow views into the past. On 28 May 2019, Griffin published a photo that shows Max Blümich and Alexander Alekhine playing against each other in the 1941/1942 Krakow/Warsaw tournament. A picture that raises questions: How did the game go, who won, who was Max Blümich and who else is in the photo? | Photo: audiovis.nac.gov.pl

3/23/2021 – Karsten Müller once again asked our readers for help to solve an endgame riddle. This time, he looked at the 27th game of the first World Championship match between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. Was Kasparov right when he claimed that the endgame contains a number of mistakes? Turns out he was as, after all, he could have held the draw!

4/8/2021 – In the last couple of decades, China has become a chess powerhouse, with Ding Liren fighting at the highest level, the national squads accumulating success after success in team events and the women players continuing to show their strength. A week and a half before the resumption of the Candidates — where two of the participants are Chinese — we revisit two brilliant games by players born in the world’s most populous country: Liu Wenzhe and Wei Yi. | Photo: Niki Riga

3/22/2021 – Anish Giri defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi in tiebreaks to win the second edition of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational. In the second set of the match, Nepomniachtchi had kept the score tied by winning the fourth game on demand. Magnus Carlsen beat Wesley So in the match for third place.

3/1/2021 – As you surely know, in chess, as in other fields, it is important to study the past. But why is this the case? Our ChessBase Author tells us how he was told by his trainer to sit down at home with a book of the classics and think about what he found in them. Mattis discovered that – apart from the historical dimension – the process greatly enhanced his enjoyment and understanding of chess. He has a unique way of visualising the process.

3/11/2021 – Right around the turn of the century, one of the most dominating players in history showed his strength by winning the traditional Wijk aan Zee tournament three years in a row. Not only that — in his first appearance in Wijk, in 1999, Garry Kasparov defeated Veselin Topalov in what is now known as his ‘immortal game’.

2/25/2021 – In a mind-boggling performance, Fabiano Caruana won the second edition of the Sinquefield Cup after scoring victories in his first seven games and obtaining a stratospheric Tournament Performance Rating. The six-player field had an average Elo rating of 2802 and included world champion Magnus Carlsen. | Photos: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club

3/19/2021 – Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So are favourites in their semifinal clashes against Ian Nepomniachtchi and Anish Giri at the Magnus Carlsen Invitational. But they are both behind after the first set. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

3/16/2021 – Half the field moved on to the knockout stage of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational after three days of preliminary action. Carlsen himself won the round robin after scoring 3/5 points on day 3 to finish atop the standings a half point ahead of former sole leader Anish Giri. Levon Aronian was the last player to secure his spot in the knockout — the Armenian will face the world champion in quarterfinals. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

3/15/2021 – Anish Giri, Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So all scored 4/5 points on day 2 of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational preliminaries. Giri thus kept his spot as leader of the event, with Carlsen still a half point behind in sole second place. The last five rounds of the preliminary stage will be played on Monday, when half the field will be eliminated before the knockout stage kicks off the day after. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

2/16/2021 – On Sunday, February 14, Wesley So added another tournament victory to the long list of his successes: he won the Opera Euro Online Tournament by beating Magnus Carlsen in the final. Which So also managed to do in the Skilling Open and in the final of the World Championship in Fischerrandom. But why is Wesley So so successful and how does he manage to beat Carlsen again and again? In an interview with Wesley So Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal tried to find out!

4/17/2021 – In the diagram position, 32...Qf3+! 33.Kh3 would have led to victory for Black, a "wow move" included. Enjoy!

3/4/2021 – In the anniversary edition CBM #200, Grandmaster Rainer Knaak, who regularly writes about "Opening Traps" in the Magazine presents his Top Ten opening traps. Traps that again and again lead to success - not only in blitz, but also in high-level tournament! Some of the traps Knaak presents are well-known but his Top Ten list also include lesser known examples that might catch you or your opponent unaware.

2/9/2021 – Fat Fritz 2.0 is the successor to the revolutionary Fat Fritz, which was based on the famous AlphaZero algorithms. Using a new Japanese AI technology that achieves optimal performance on regular computerprocessors (CPUs – no expensive graphic card required) it combines the best of both worlds: a massive new neural network, trained by Albert Silver with the original Fat Fritz, while learning from the surgical precision of Stockfish’s legendary search. This new version takes chess analysis to the next level and is a must for players of all skill levels, whether beginner or professional, who won’t accept any compromises. Its understanding is unparalleled, as it learned by literally studying billions of chess positions. Fat Fritz 2 comes with the latest version of the most advanced chess playing interface in the world, which provides coach functions, automatic game analysis, a database with 1 million games as well as a six-month subscription to ChessBase Premium Account.

3/30/2021 – Who is better - bishop or knight? This is an old question and the answer usually is: "It depends". At any rate, the duel knight against bishop is often intriguing and full of surprise. In the diagram position the knight seems to give White good chances to win the game, but in fact Black's bishop can secure the draw. How?

4/11/2021 – It isn't often one sees a game between top programs in which a queen is trapped in the middlegame, but just such a thing happened in a game shared by Peter Grayson. What stood out was how both programs differed on a key juncture, leading him to comment, "Fat Fritz 2 exhibits almost human-like qualities to threaten the snaring of the queen". Enjoy this fun tussle and his kind analysis. | Photo: National Portrait Gallery, London

3/27/2021 – In the diagram position, White has just played 17.e5, attacking against Black's queen on f6 and Black's bishop on b7. The World Champion first defended cooly, but then blundered which allowed his opponent a spectacular finish. Enjoy!

4/24/2021 – Black's weak back rank is shielded only by the Ne6 - basically that's all you need to have in mind to work out how White wins from the diagram position. Especially the first move is a toughie, though. Have fun!

4/13/2021 – The diagram position is very sharp as both sides have dangerous passed pawns. It's White to move but should White take the pawn on g5 or should White play Rg3+ to win the pawn on h3?

4/10/2021 – In the diagram position, Black's strong knight on d5 controls many squares - but that is still not enough to withstand the force of White's attack. It's White to play - how would you attack Black's exposed king?

2/11/2021 – In a field that many thought had seen its final major upheaval with AlphaZero, Japanese programmers have now introduced a new neural network technology that reaches peak performance on just a regular CPU. First implemented in chess in Stockfish 12, now it powers the new Fat Fritz 2, a neural network twice its size, which takes it to the next level – vast chess knowledge paired with lightning speed. This is arguably the strongest entity that has ever played chess.

4/6/2021 – The duel knight against bishop is often deep and full of surprises. In the diagram position Black's knight on d1 seems to be in danger to get caught. But can White profit from its precarious position?

4/3/2021 – 26...Rxh4! in the diagam position was very strong, however, after 27.gxh4 Black failed to crown his combination and take the game home. Can you do better?

2/16/2021 – Endgames with knight against bishop can be very deep. In the diagram position Black can win, if he uses the power and the influence of his bishop and the sharp endgame weapon zugzwang in the right way.

3/22/2021 – In the diagram position, Black's rook and knight threaten White's exposed king. Time to bring up a third attacker - how?

3/2/2021 – Rook endings contain many theoretically important positions and methods. The following position is one example. White to move and win.

3/23/2021 – Rook endings have drawish tendencies and the diagram position is no exception to this rule. But White must still defend extremely carefully. How exactly?

3/13/2021 – In the diagram position 35.Rxg6+! wins for White - if White finds the right checks after 35...Kh7. Are you up to the challenge?

3/24/2021 – Dorian Rogozenco's video series "The Classic" has been part of the ChessBase Magazine since issue #160 - for almost seven years! Right at the beginning of his very first video, Rogozenco emphasized that looking at classical games is not about keeping the whole game in mind. It is much more important to develop and improve the understanding of certain moments, certain positions, ideas or plans that appear in these masterpieces. To celebrate the 200th issue of the ChessBase Magazine, we would like to treat you today to a selection from Rogozenco's popular column. Take a look and enjoy!