12/13/2016 – From December 1 to December 24 we invite our readers every day to open a door in our advent calendar. Click and enjoy a little chess treat. Advent calendar, door 13.
new: ChessBase 18 - Mega package
Winning starts with what you know
The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
Winning starts with what you know The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
Chess Festival Prague 2025 with analyses by Aravindh, Giri, Gurel, Navara and others. ‘Special’: 27 highly entertaining miniatures. Opening videos by Werle, King and Ris. 10 opening articles with new repertoire ideas and much more.
€21.90
Mind Over Mayhem
Peter Falk alias "Columbo" was the hero of a famous TV series that ran from 1968 to 2003 over ten seasons and 69 episodes. (By the way: Steven Spielberg directed episode 3 of season 1.)
Columbo was not a classical "whodunit". Instead, each episode began by showing the crime and its perpetrator. Now the audience derived pleasure and excitement from watching Columbo - who in his trademark beige raincoat appears dishevelled and neither clever nor particular dangerous - encircle and convict the criminal.
Peter Falk himself was a passionate chessplayer and occasionally chess appeared in the Columbo series, for instance, in "The Most Dangerous Match" (season two, episode seven), in which Columbo proves to be more than a match for a murderous chessplayer.
Chess also is a topic in "Mind Over Mayhem", (season 3, episode 6), from 1974. Guest star is the chess playing robot MM 7.
In this episode Howard Nicholson, a scientist at an institute for cyber research, finds out that Neill Cahill, the son of the institute's director Marshall Cahill, plagiarized the work of another scientist. Nicholson asks Neill to admit to this and threatens to make the misdeed public. However, Cahill senior wants to prevent at all costs that his son loses his reputation and finally decides to kill Nicholson.
Another member of the institute is the 13-year old genius Steve, who developed the robot MM 7. MM 7 can do everything, including playing chess.
A very young and an old scientist
MM 7 in action
Two propellers turn in the glass head of MM 7. They are probably important: tablebases, permanent brain or cooling the processor? However, what's the use of the silver ring on the right?
The robot shows emotions: after losing a game he throws pieces and board through the room. This scene also shows that people in the 1970s believed that a computer could lose a game of chess against a human.
MM 7 not only plays chess but also helps Columbo to disprove Marshall Cahill's alibi and to make him confess.
Columbo talks to the robot
The robot who "plays" MM 7 was also the star in another movie. In 1956 he was "Robbie the Robot" in Forbidden Planet, a sci-fi version of Shakespeare's Tempest. Commercially, Forbidden Planet was a flop but the movie inspired the Science Fiction genre and thus helped to pave the way for the tremendously successful Star Trek series.
Ruy Lopez Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 12092 games from Mega 2025 and the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 1276 are annotated.
In this 60 Minutes, Andrew Martin guides you through all the key ideas you need to know to play with confidence. Whether you’re looking to surprise your opponents, or simply want a straightforward weapon against e5, the Centre Attack has you covered.
Videos by Mihail Marin: Najdorf Variation with 6.f4 and Nico Zwirs: Italian ‘giucco pianissimo’. ‘Lucky bag’ with 45 analyses by Edouard, Ftacnik, Gupta, Pelletier and others. Update service with over 50,000 new games for your database!
This video course provides a comprehensive and practical White repertoire in the Ruy Lopez! Through instructive model games and in-depth theoretical explanations, you will learn how to confidently handle both main lines and sidelines.
€49.90
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