Recently we had the 17-year-old D Gukesh in our office. This super-talent has risen to number 18 in the world – with every intention of reaching the top ten in his teens.

Master Class Vol. 12: Viswanathan Anand

This DVD allows you to learn from the example of one of the best players in the history of chess and from the explanations of the authors how to successfully organise your games strategically, consequently how to keep your opponent permanently under press

Gukesh did recordings for ChessBase in Hamburg and in the ChessBase India studio

In the ChessBase office in Hamburg the founder and CEO of ChessBase India was present, and during a lull in the recordings challenged Gukesh to a blitz game. You can watch all the action in this video:

It was a rough and exciting game, which Sagar, a very strong IM, managed to win – on time! See, it was the first time in his life that Gukesh had used a mechanical Garde clock.

This is the famous analogue chess clock that many of us grew up with. It was used in professional tournaments and world championships before the introduction of digital timers. You saw it in countless championships and it is still available, e.g. at Amazon Germany, for around $90. ChessBase is the proud owner of a couple of these clocks. For our younger readers, here are instructions on how to use the Garde and similar chess clocks. Spoiler: they have no batteries and have to be wound up!

Problem is many of the young talents who visit our office have never seen a mechanical chess clock, and don't know how it is used.  The what? "Flag?" What does that mean, how does it work? You can see Gukesh learning about this in the above video.

Master Class Vol.14 - Vasily Smyslov

Smyslov cultivated a clear positional style and even in sharp tactical positions often relied more on his intuition than on concrete calculation of variations. Let our authors introduce you into the world of Vasily Smyslov.

How things have changed: today everyone is using LED digital clocks, which are available in all sizes and shapes. Analogue mechanical clocks, we are sad to inform you, are a thing of the past. Still you should keep your Garde or whatever clock, so that you can explain chess history to young upstarts.

Here's another clock adventure. Grandmasters Praggnanandhaa and Iniyan battling it out, in an Epic blitz battle using the old mechanical Garde chess clock in our Hamburg office! Watch how expertly they operate the mechanical clock in a time scramble, in which Pragg manages to "flag" his opponent two seconds before his own flag would have fallen.