7/9/2023 – In the current ChessBase Magazine #214 you'll find three opening videos with a total playing time of over an hour. Ivan Sokolov presents Gukesh's novelty and pawn sacrifice 9.Qc2 in the Catalan from the Menorca Open 2023 - "excellent preparation by Gukesh!” Sipke Ernst examines the novelty 8.h4 in the Ragozin Variation of the Queen’s Gambit, which was discussed in the duel between his compatriots Van Foreest and Giri at the Tata Steel Tournament 2023. And Mihail Marin takes up the line 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5 3.e3 c5 4.Be2 Nc6 5.0-0, which came up on the board in the 12th game of the World Championship match between Ding Liren and Ian Nepomniachtchi, among others. You can watch an excerpt from Ivan Sokolov's analysis here!
new: ChessBase Magazine 225
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. ChessBase Magazine offers first-class training material for club players and professionals! World-class players analyse their brilliant games and explain the ideas behind the moves. Opening specialists present the latest trends in opening theory and exciting ideas for your repertoire. Master trainers in tactics, strategy and endgames show you the tricks and techniques you need to be a successful tournament player! Available as a direct download (incl. booklet as pdf file) or booklet with download key by post. Included in delivery: ChessBase Magazine #225 as “ChessBase Book” for iPad, tablet, Mac etc.!
World class players explain the ideas behind their moves. Opening specialists present current trends and exciting ideas for your repertoire. Master trainers in terms of tactics, strategy and endgame show you exactly the tricks and techniques that you need to be a successful tournament player!
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.
Gukesh managed to surprise his opponent, Aryan Chopra, in the 2023 Menorca Open with a novelty in a well-known position of the Catalan:
According to the Mega Database 2023 9.Qc2 had never been played before! Ivan Sokolov, who played this variation himself for several years during his active career, admits that he had never seriously considered this move. Because if you enter the move and start the engine, it starts flashing and shows -0.6 or -0.7. Gukesh, however, was not deterred by this and prepared the novelty 9.Qc2 for this game. Aryan Chopra did not take the sacrifice and continued with 9...Nbd7. The question is, of course, how to assess the position when Black accepts the pawn sacrifice with 9...Qxd4. Sokolov gets to the bottom of it and shows a multitude of pitfalls lurking for Black in this variation!
Excerpt from Ivan Sokokov's video analysis
Total playing time in CBM #214: 24 minutes
Mihail Marin: Queen's Pawn Opening
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5 3.e3 c5 4.Be2 Nc6 5.0-0
This, at first sight, rather tame play by White is actually a reversed Queen's Gambit. Considering that the Queen's Gambit in its normal form is already quite a decent opening for Black, the question arises whether White can claim a real advantage by adapting Black’s moves and thus gaining an extra tempo. Mihail Marin's analysis focuses on the game Firouzja-Nepomniachtchi from the 2023 Superbet Tournament in Bucharest, but a number of other world-class games - not least the 12th game of the World Championship match in Astana - are also discussed.
Sipke Ernst examines the game between Jorden van Foreest and Anish Giri from the Tata Steel tournament 2023. In the side line 6.Bf4 after 6...Ne4 7.Rc1 Nc6 Van Foreest tested the novelty 8.h4!? which involves an exchange sacrifice: after 8...Bf5 9.e3 Nxc3 10.bxc3 Ba3 the white rook has no squares left. So the game continued 11.Rb1 Bxb1 12.Qb1, and the critical position was reached. Anish Giri didn't find the engine continuation at the board (12...Ne7! with the idea to simply castle after 13.Qxb7), but his continuation 12...Rb8 was still good enough to keep the game in balance.
You can find all three opening videos with a total playing time of over one hour in the new ChessBase Magazine #214!
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Highlights of CBM #214
From the World Championship match Ding Liren against Ian Nepomniachtchi to repertoire ideas for Dutch, Najdorf or Scandinavian or the series "Fundamental Endgame Knowledge" Part 4 by Dr. Karsten Mueller:
Over 7 hours of video playing time with U14 World Champion Ilamparthi, Ivan Sokolov, Jan Markos, Mihail Marin, Dorian Rogozenco et al.
Top games and master analyses
World Championship 2023: Anish Giri, Hou Yifan, Sam Shankland and Wesley So comment on the most important games of a highly entertaining duel.
TePe Sigeman: The veteran Peter Svidler put several young top players in their place at the tournament in Malmö. Analyses of the tournament winner as well as Abhimanyu Mishra, Boris Gelfand, Nils Grandelius and Jorden van Foreest.
Special: Boris Spassky
CBM authors analyse their favourite game of the 10th World Champion. An exclusive collection of 27 annotated games from the period 1949 to 1989 awaits you!
All in One
The Hippopotamus Defence – a setup against everything! Igor Stohl dissects the game Tomashevsky-Carlsen with the opening moves 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.Nf3 a6 5.a4 b6 6.Bc4 e6 7.0-0 Ne7 8.Re1 Bb7 9.Bf4 Nd7 10.Qd2 h6
Ilamparthi: How I got U14 World Champion
With 9.5 out of 11, the now 14-year-old Ilamparthi won the 2022 U14 World Championship. Play through the decisive moments of his games together with Sagar Shah and the young champion - in interactive format with video feedback!
Opening videos
Ivan Sokolov checks Gukesh's novelty and pawn sacrifice 9.Qc2 in the Catalan from the Menorca Open 2023 - "excellent preparation by Gukesh!" Sipke Ernst examines the novelty 8.h4 in the Ragozin Variation, which was discussed in the duel between his compatriots Van Foreest and Giri at the Tata Steel tournament 2023. And Mihail Marin takes up the opening line 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5 3.e3 c5 4.Be2 Nc6 5.0-0, which came up on the board in the 12th game of the World Championship match, among others.
"Queens: flexible, lively or even dancing" - Rainer Knaak presents eight traps from current tournament practice. Including three FritzTrainer videos!
Move by Move
Robert Ris chose the eighth game of the World Championship match between Ding Liren and Ian Nepomniachtchi for his interactive video – a fascinating game in which the new World Champion missed the win, however.
Modern Classics
The Karpov-Yussupov game (1983) is a "real masterpiece of positional play". In this game, the then World Champion demonstrated in an exemplary manner how to prevent any active play on the part of his opponent through perfect prophylaxis.
Practical tips for the tournament player: Symmetrical positions
Should you aim for symmetrical positions if you want to play safe in a game? Jan Markos explains what is important in these positions and why small differences are of great importance!
All-rounder Boris Spassky
Strategy expert Mihail Marin sheds light on the strategy of the 10th World Champion on the basis of games before he won the World Championship title in 1969 - because as Korchnoi once said, Spassky played his best chess sometime between 1958 and 1963.
Tactics all the way!
In the tactics article with 45 games, our expert Oliver Reeh has compiled material for more than one training session. His four favourite combinations are best solved move by move in the interactive video format with feedback function!
Fundamental Endgame Knowledge Part 4: King+Pawn vs. King+Pawn
Karsten Mueller continues his training series. Following an introductory video, your technique is called for in three interactive videos! In addition, Mueller provides a contribution with the most beautiful endgames by Boris Spassky (video introduction + analyses).
ChessBase Magazine trial subscription with 33% savings advantage and thank you bonus!*
Try out ChessBase Magazine now! Order the ChessBase Magazine taster package! Read ChessBase Magazine for 6 months (= 3 issues) for thespecial price of only € 44.90 €(instead of € 65,70 for buying them individually). As a thank you, you will also receive 3 months ChessBase Premium Membership free of charge.
*Bonus for new subscribers only, i.e. there was no CBM subscription for 12 months!
ChessBase Magazine one year subscription - plus original ChessBase USB stick with 128 GB *
Save twice with ChessBase Magazine: For the annual subscription to ChessBase Magazine you’ll pay only € 109.90 per year (compared to € 131.40 for the 6 individual issues).
* Bonus only for new subscribers, i.e. there was no CBM subscription for 12 months! As a new subscriber you will receive the original ChessBase USB stick with 128 GB
In this insightful video course, Grandmaster David Navara shares practical advice on when to calculate deeply in a position — and just as importantly, when not to.
The Trompowsky is especially suited for faster time controls as you don‘t have to memorise endless lines of theory, and you push your opponent out of their comfort zone after your second move.
Trompowsky Powerbook 2025 is based on 53,000 computer games from the engine room of playchess.com as well as 49,000 games from Mega and correspondence chess.
Trompowsky Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 8727 games from Mega 2025 and the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 316 are annotated.
2025 European Championship with a German double victory and analyses by Bluebaum, Svane, Rodshtein, Yuffa, Navara and many more. Opening videos by Engel, King and Marin. Training sections “The Fortress”, “The Trap” and “Fundamental Endgame Knowledge" etc.
In this dynamic and practical video course, IM Andrew Martin arms you with powerful antidotes to White’s most annoying sidelines.
€34.90
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