12/25/2023 – Frank James Marshall and Dawid Janowski are two very memorable figures of chess history. Both were outstanding competitors who became title contenders. They are remembered as two of the finest attacking players from the late 19th to the early 20th century.
9/13/2023 – MegaBase 2023 is Chess History in action. Regularly updated every month, the Main Database currently offers 10 million games, many of them annotated. Our columnist offers a review with focus on modern master play. There is a lot more to discover in this treasure trove: grand battles, opening novelties and exemplary endgames.
8/10/2023 – The renowned Yugoslav/Serbian Grandmaster Aleksandar Matanovic passed away in Belgrade on August 9, two months after celebrating his 93rd birthday. Following the passing of Yuri Averbakh in May 2022, Matanovic was the world’s oldest living Grandmaster. A eulogy by Milan Dinic. | Pictured: Matanovic playing a tournament in Australia in 1970 / Matanovic with his wife Vesna in 1960. | Photos: Family Archive / Serbian Chess Federation
6/3/2023 – Genrikh Kasparyan is widely regarded as one of the most prolific endgame study composers and shared his knowledge with a younger generation. So his son Sergey also composed endgame studies - 56 are in the database, including versions and corrections. But also other friends from Genrikh's endgame studies teaching circle created interesting ones themselves or together. | Photo: Midjourney AI
3/30/2023 – The 2015 World Team Championship saw China winning its first gold medal (out of three) in the tournament. The team was led by Ding Liren on top board, and had its top scorer in 15-year-old Wei Yi, who collected scoring 7/9 points on board 4. Ukraine and Armenia finished second and third, while the clear rating favourites from Russia only managed fourth place. The tournament took place in Tsaghkadzor, a small touristy town in Armenia also known as the ‘valley of flowers’. | Photos: Arman Karakhanyan
12/26/2022 – GM Alexandr Fier and FM Juliana Sayumi Terao obtained outright victories at the Brazilian Championships (open and women’s, respectively). The events took place on December 15-23 at the Hotel Jangadeiro in Recife, the capital of Pernambuco. Fier grabbed his fourth national title by scoring 9½/11 points, while Terao dominated the women’s field and obtained a perfect 9/9 to claim her sixth national title. | Photo: Albert Silver (2018)
10/24/2022 – There is love at first sight, as everyone knows, and there are, somewhat surprisingly, "statistics at first sight". What is that? In the infamous matter labelled by now as "the Hans Niemann cheating case" (a title that S.S. Van Dine would have greatly appreciated, as well as the mystery surrounding the case) such "statistics at first sight" have attracted the undisputed attention of every party involved – and above all the attention of the ones not involved. | Picture: The rating development of Hans Niemann
10/21/2022 – When Lawrence and Arne began their weekly show, they started with news, and then went over to tactics. The formats fused, and now we give birth to "Trent's Ta(l)ctics". We discuss the latest chess news, and add some tactics in the end. Did anything interesting happen in the last weeks? Besides the Magnus vs. Hans feud, we also dive into the US Women's championship Armageddon match, between Yu and Krush. Finally, our road to 3000 with our good ol' tactics training continues, with the help of birthday boy Maxime-Vachier Lagrave, who thinks the tactics we struggle with are a piece of cake. How fitting.
10/7/2022 – Evgeni Vasiukov was considered one of the strongest players in the world, but never represented the Soviet team in the Olympiads. Remarkable was also, that he learned to play chess at the age of 15! Over decades, he won several tournaments from 1960 to 1991. In this time, he played some remarkable games with tough tactics. Lawrence found two jawbreakers.
9/23/2022 – In the women's chess world, certainly Judit Polgar is the absolute legend. Not only was she among the top ten of the chess world for quite a while, she also played powerful attacking chess, with stunning tactics. Lawrence found four of them, which are instructional, and lovely to solve.
9/2/2022 – Grigori Jakowlewitsch Löwenfisch was born in the 19th century, and advanced to one of the strongest chess players in the world in 1939. The Grandmaster was an avid writer for several chess books, and magazines. Loewenfisch had some venomous tactics up his sleeve, which Lawrence Trent is presenting to us.
8/26/2022 – The Russian Grandmaster Vladimir Simagin was considered a tactical genius. His game against Bronstein is famous, and his move to win the game takes some time to be discovered. Furthermore, Lawrence shows us his tactical brilliance, talks about Frederic Svane, and shows us the power of solving tactical puzzles, to recognize patterns better, and quicker. Also, the final tactic which Lawrence and Arne try to solve, ends terribly.
8/19/2022 – Viktor Kupreichik was a top chess player. The Grandmaster won the Belarusian Championship in 1972, and 31 years later as well, in 2003. His four tactics, which Lawrence has found for us to solve, are fun puzzles. Furthermore, when Lawrence and Arne try to solve the ChessBase tactics, you can witness their worst fail ever! It is painful to watch, but the questions remains: Can you find the mistake they made in their calculation?
8/12/2022 – Lawrence has prepared some stunning tactics, played by the German legend Wolfgang Uhlmann. The French Defence expert was a masterful chess player for ages, and beat Bobby Fischer in 1960, with this very opening. We continue with our journey to reach a rating of 3000. Meanwhile, we are comfortably sitting around 2550.
8/11/2022 – The 2017 World Rapid and Blitz Championship took place on December 26-30 in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh. The rapid tournament, which included 134 participants, saw Vishy Anand beating Vladimir Fedoseev in a blitz tiebreak after tying for first place with 10½/15 points. Anand, at 48, outscored his younger opponents, including world champion and rapid-play specialist Magnus Carlsen. | Photo: Official website
8/7/2022 – With three rounds to go at the Chess Olympiad, Armenia continues to lead the standings in the open section with an undefeated match score. On Saturday, they beat India thanks to a second win in a row for Gabriel Sargissian. The other marquee confrontation of the round saw India 2 shock the US with wins by Gukesh and Raunak. Gukesh defeated Fabiano Caruana to collect his eighth consecutive full point — the 16-year-old is heading for the stars! In the women’s event, India conceded its first draw of the event, and now has a 1-point lead over Georgia. | Photo: Stev Bonhage
8/5/2022 – Today, Lawrence and Arne are joined by German WIM Lara Schulze. She loves tactics, and we need help to reach the next chapter in our ChessBase tactics section - 2600. But sometimes, nightmares cross our path, and we have to think for much longer than expected. Join us in our Friday training, and sharpen your skills!
8/2/2022 – The big rating favourites in the open section of the Chennai Olympiad were held to a draw in Monday’s fourth round: Uzbekistan drew the United States thanks to a remarkable victory by Nodirbek Abdusattorov over Fabiano Caruana on top board. Meanwhile, five teams scored a fourth consecutive victory and are now sharing the lead — the most surprising member of this group is Israel, which beat the Netherlands on Monday. In the women’s section, eight teams are sharing the lead on 8 out 8 match points. | Photo: Stev Bonhage
7/29/2022 – Anatoly Karpov was definitely not famous for his outrageous tactics, but when you have played hundreds, and thousands of games, you certainly have some tactical games up your sleeve. Lawrence found some interesting examples, and tough nuts to solve for you.
7/21/2022 – Ending months of speculation, Magnus Carlsen has officially announced he will not be defending his title in a rematch against Ian Nepomniachtchi come the end of 2022. As a result, the second-place winner of the 2022 Candidates Tournament, Ding Liren, will face the Russian to determine the new World Champion. (Photo: Albert Silver)
7/8/2022 – Lawrence is sick, has no internet, is not even at home, but still commits to continuing "Trent's Tactics".
Live from the beautiful Island of Corsica, The "soon-to-be" GM is trying to get back on track with his chess, by playing a tournament. One way to strengthen the current chess level is to train - Tactics! Danish Grandmaster Larsen knows this very well, and Lawrence shows us some of Bent Larsen's striking moves.
6/22/2022 – ChessBase Magazine offers a window to the world of professional chess and it also provides arsenal for the tournament player. This issue offers games from two major events, FIDE Grand Prix and Ukraine Charity Cup. 353 games (37 annotated), 11 opening surveys, lectures and exercises for training. Annotators include Anish Giri, Wesley So, Andrey Esipenko, Grigoriy Oparin and Nikita Vitiugov among others. The icing on the cake is the Larsen Special, a tribute to the Great Dane. Our columnist Nagesh Havanur takes a look.
6/21/2022 – The Dutch GM was one of the strongest chess players in the late 70s, 80s, and early 90s. Timman never feared complicated games, which gave him many opportunities to discover some brilliant tactics against players like Kasparov, Kamsky, Karpov, and Anand. Lawrence dives right into the business, and gives us the chance to find the tactical moves ourselves. Furthermore, can we uphold the rating of 2500 in our tactics section, or will something unexpected mess things up?
6/10/2022 – As promised last episode, we wanted to display the beautiful queen sacrifice by Lawrence Trent from the HSK Gm Invitational open. But the main part of today, is the legendary GM Alexander Kotov, which Arne didn't even know about before. The "Kotov Syndrome" is named after the Soviet Grandmaster, and it describes a situation, where you think about an important position for too long, not finding the winning move, and with little time left, make a blunder instead. Probably all of us have been there.
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