Many friendly guests...

In 2012 a lot of players worked hard in the tournament halls, but many were also busy in the ChessBase studio. Let's have a look at who has paid a visit to Hamburg this year.

Kritz

Danielsen

Breutigam

Rogozenco

GM Leonid Kritz was born in Moscow in 1984 and came to Germany at the age of 12. His greatest success in junior chess was becoming Youth U16 World Champion in 1999. In 2003 Kritz became a grandmaster and in April 2008 he made his first jump over the 2600 Elo mark. Kritz is studying Mathematics in Baltimore, but on his regular visits to Germany he always finds this way to Hamburg. Leonid has recorded 60 Minutes training sessions on the Chebanenko Slav and the Berlin Wall – there are sample videos on the info pages we linked to.

GM Henrik Danielsen comes from Denmark but lives in Iceland and has taken part in a total of five Chess Olympiads for the two countries. Danielsen works as a trainer and also has a lot of experience as an author of chess videos. He also visited and revealed a number of interesting secret weapons (2.Bf4!). You can find a list of his 60 Minutes download lectures here.

IM Martin Breutigam, who was born in 1965, is a chess journalist and International Master, who writes about chess in various major German daily papers and who is also responsible for more extensive publications. After "64 Monate auf 64 Feldern", "Meyers Schachturnier" (a spiral backed book) and "World Chess Championship 2004" he has recently published "Todesküsse am Brett". Martin lives near Bremen, and does not have to travel as players who visit. Still he was at first somewhat hesitant about coming, but now the print journalist has discovered the spoken word. You will find some of his recordings – on for example the Trompowsky, Tarrasch, Semi-Slav, Ruy Lopez C68 and C96, the Scandinavian Defence, King's Indian with h3 and the Chigorin – on this page.

GM Dorian Rogozenco was born in 1973 in Moldavia, and is today a citizen of Romania, but lives in Hamburg, the same city as our office. He qualified for the 2001 FIDE World Championship 2001, but at a relatively young age switched from professional chess player to author and chess trainer. Dorial is one of the most successful ChessBase authors. In 2000 there was his CD “Sveshnikov System”; then came “The Slav”, “The Dragon 1 and 2” and “The Alapin Sicilian”. This is in fact a list of his specialist fields in which he keeps on producing highly interesting contributions.

German language authors

Uhlmann

Kindermann

Richter

Pfleger

Luther

Jordan

We were particularly glad to make a DVD with GM Wolfgang Uhlmann. The chess legend from Dresden, who in his time took part in the candidates, showed his best games. The American IM John Watson recommends the DVD even for chess fans who speak no German. Two other German speaking authors were GM Stefan Kindermann, chess psychology expert from Munich, and IM Michael Richter, chess coach from Berlin.

Munich is also the town, in which GM Dr. Helmut Pfleger lives, and he recorded the third volume of the series in which he shows the most beautiful games from the history of chess. GM Thomas Luther and chess journalist Jürgen Jordan staged a typical learning scenario for their DVD on the French Defence: amateur asks master.

After introducing so many German authors, it's time for our other international authors, for instance Garry Kasparov. Yes, the 13th World Champion showed us brilliancies from the beginning of his career (up to 1985).

Garry Kasparov, assisted by Pascal Simon during the recordings...

... and taking a breakfast break with ChessBase commercial CEO Rainer Woisin.

There is a full description of Kasparov's latest DVD and links to his previous recordings here

Talking about world champions: Rustam Kasimdhzanov, FIDE World Champion of 2004, has also recorded many DVDs with us – most of the time he recommends a repertoire against certain openings. As the second of reigning World Champion Vishy Anand he is a renowned opening expert. This year, shortly after the World Championship in Moscow, he again came by to record new material. You will find a list of Rustam's DVDs and download lectures here.

A ChessBase studio newcomer was Sabrina Chevannes (above) from London. She runs a chess school in the English capital and recorded a DVD for beginners who now want to learn first tricks in the game. Her two initial recordings are here. IM Lawrence Trent, also from London, is more regular guest in the ChessBase studio. His second hobby is salsa dancing, and he has made a name for himself among the ladies in Hamburg's dance clubs. Here are his DVDs. As for GM Daniel King, Hamburg by now is almost a second home. He speaks fluent German and records all his DVDs in the Powerplay series in English and German.

Levon Aronian and Magnus Carlsen analysing with ChessBase authors Danny King
and Lawrence Trent during the recent Chess Classic in London

Shirov

Bologan

Mikhalchishin

Bojkov

Collins

van Wely

Among the regular guests visiting the ChessBase studio is GM Alexei Shirov. He, too, feels very much at home in Hamburg. The same goes for his former training colleague GM Viktor Bologan, who recently joined the ranks of the super-GMs – which might well be due to his work as an author. GM Adrian Mikhalchishin is considered to be one of the best chess trainers around. When younger he worked with Anatoly Karpov and others.

A regular guest in the studio is also GM Dejan Bojkov from Bulgaria, who, however, is always traveling all over the world. IM Sam Collins is the strongest Irish player with Irish roots. He also lived in Japan for a while and developed a love for the Japanese cuisine, so he knows Hamburg's best Asian restaurants. They say if you have one Dutch player, ten more quickly follow, to form a soccer team – or to record chess lessons, as did GMs Loek van Wely and Robert Ris. You will find all the products of these authors, alphabetically sorted, in our ChessBase Shop.

In autumn, GM Alejandro Ramirez from Costa Rica came to Hamburg for the first time. He is one of those "chess whizz kids", who made it to master strength without a coach, relying just on the help of the computer. However, the young grandmaster decided to first study in the US. His DVD about the Benko Gambit will appear at the beginning of 2013.

A number of authors regularly record videos for the ChessBase Magazine. Among them are GM Rainer Knaak, who has also produced a DVD about traps, IM Oliver Reeh, a.k.a. the "tactical fox", Dr. Karsten Müller, whose name is inseparably linked to endgames.

You will find the products of all our illustrious visitors in the ChessBase Shop