5/14/2020 – Two clear wins, three draws and many missed chances - that was the result of round 10 in New York. Emanuel Lasker crushed Reti and Bogoljubow made short work of Yates, but Capablanca squandered the advantage he had easily secured against Marshall. Tartakower, too, had chances against Janowsky and Alekhine was lucky not to lose to Edward Lasker. | Photo: Emanuel Lasker

5/13/2020 – With four draws and a loss World Champion José Raúl Capablanca started badly into the tournament in New York, but he now seems to be back in shape, and in round 9 he defeated Efim Bogoljubov with a fine positional performance. But sole leader remains Emanuel Lasker, who allowed himself a couple of bad moves against Frank Marshall but still managed to escape with a draw. Meanwhile, Richard Reti showed the advantages of "hypermodern" chess. | Photo: José Raúl Capablanca (Archive)

5/12/2020 – In his weekly show IM Lawrence Trent takes a look at the crucial final round encounter of the FIDE Nations Cup today between the USA and China, and analyses the game Yu Yangyi vs Wesley So. | Lawrence' show is available at 17:00 UTC (19:00 CEST, 13:00 EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archive)

5/12/2020 – Former World Champion Emanuel Lasker, at 55 years of age the second-oldest player in New York seems to be in splendid shape in New York. In round 8 he defeated Efim Bogoljubow with persistence and good endgame technique. In the second top encounter of the round Alekhine won against Reti, while World Champion Capablanca only drew against Maroczy. Lasker now leads with 5.5/7, half a point behind is Alekhine with 5.0/7. | Photo: Emanuel Lasker (Archive)

5/11/2020 – In round 7 of the New York Tournament World Champion Capablanca showed Yates what knights can do while Janowsky showed Bogolyubov the strength of bishops and Emanuel Lasker won a very modern game against Maroczy. Reti also played in modern fashion, but won with a classic motive: the dim knight on the rim. Alekhine and Marshall played the only draw of the round but showed some fascinating tactics. | Photo: Modern parking in New York

5/8/2020 – His convincing win against Alexander Alekhine in round 3 of the tournament in New York seems to have inspired former World Champion Emanuel Lasker, and in round 4 he won his second black game in a row, this time against his old rival Dawid Janowsky. In the prestige duel between Capablanca and Alekhine the Cuban dominated once again, but in the end Alekhine managed to escape into a draw. Bogolyubov came to a nice win against Reti and Yates won against Edward Lasker. Tartakower and Maroczy drew but Tartakower enriched the theory of openings with an original concept.

5/7/2020 – The top game of the third round of the New York tournament in the Alamac Hotel was the clash between the 31-year-old Alexander Alekhine and the 55-year-old former World Champion Emanuel Lasker. Alekhine has good chances to become the next challenger of World Champion Capablanca and is famous for his dynamic play and ferocious attack but against Lasker's magic he was helpless. | Photo: Emanuel Lasker

5/6/2020 – The second round of the Grandmaster Tournament New York 1924 saw only one decisive game. After a bold opening experiment Alexander Alekhine won with Black against Geza Maroczy, and with 2 out of 2 he is now sole first. The duel of the World Champions between Emanuel Lasker and José Raúl Capablanca ended in a bloodless draw but the game between Edward Lasker and Efim Bogoljubow was an interesting fight and gave Edward Lasker the opportunity to show why even the best players in the world make mistakes. | Photo: Alexander Alekhine (Archive)

5/5/2020 – In his weekly show IM Lawrence Trent talks about New York 1924, recaps the Magnus Carlsen Invitational, and looks forward to the Online Nations Cup. | Lawrence' show is available at 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST, 12 Noon EDT) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archive)

3/27/2020 – As many predicted, the Coronavirus outbreak has interrupted the one strong sporting event that was taking place amid the worldwide crisis, the FIDE Candidates Tournament. This is not a first, however. During the twentieth century, strong chess tournaments were taking place when war declarations — that would eventually turn global — put a stop or gravely affected chess competitions. | Image: World War I cartoon by Sava Zlachkin

10/26/2019 – A Britannica Special Feature: ChessBase has received special permission from Encyclopaedia Britannica to highlight several sections from the classic article by Grandmaster ANDREW SOLTIS on chess, aimed at newcomers to the game. In Part 3: Hypermodernism, the Soviet school, and the pragmatists. | Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Chess theory consists of opening knowledge, tactics (or combinations), positional analysis (particularly pawn structures), strategy (the making of long-range plans and goals), and endgame technique (including basic mates against the lone king).

6/29/2019 – When on May 26th 2017, in Netanya, a man died during the preparations to celebrate his 80th birthday, the jubilee turned into a memorial for one of the greatest study composers from Israel. Many chess composers have an endless love and passion for chess, but he also had it for raising other young talents. | Photos: Arves.org

6/1/2019 – Many will know the Austro-Hungarian (and later Czechoslovakian) Richard Réti as a world-class player, but also as a great composer of endgame studies, so — in time for his 130th birthday — we continue our exploration of European chess composers with him. (Read part 1) | Photo: Ernst & Cesanek, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

5/25/2019 – Many will know the Austro-Hungarian (and later Czechoslovakian) Richard Réti as a world-class player, but also as a great composer of endgame studies, so — in time for his 130th birthday — we continue our exploration of European chess composers with him. As it would go too far to analyse his entire biography, just the important details will be given here, while also exploring the history of the Réti manoeuvre. | Photo: Ernst & Cesanek, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

4/14/2019 – When asked how many Germans had the chance to play a match for the World Championship most chess players probably would name two: Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch and Dr. Emanuel Lasker. But there is a third: Efim Bogoljubov, who was born 130 years ago, on April 14, 1889 in Stanislavchyk, near Kiev, but in 1927 became German and in 1929 and 1934 played title matches against Alexander Alekhine. | Photo: Screenshot from a newsreel video by the German "Bundesarchiv" about the Bad Pyrmont tournament in 1951

3/18/2019 – He beat two legends — Capablanca and Alekhine in succession on their way to the world championship. In those days, 'Capa' was invincible and Alekhine irresistible. This son of Barcelona made his city proud even if it those victories came about “only” in simultaneous displays. But it is not on these chance victories that this player’s claim to fame rests. Valentin Marin y Llovet (1872-1936) was a composer with more than 250 problems to his credit. If the name rings a bell, we showed a challenge from Vladimir Kramnik and a solution with Vishy Anand last month. Here is a tribute to the great master. Don’t miss the problems in the end. They are for you.

11/19/2018 – Today, November 19th, José Raúl Capablanca, would have celebrated his 130th birthday. After World War I the Cuban was the world's best player and World Champion from 1921 to 1927. During his career, he played more than 500 tournament games but lost only 36 of them. | Photo: Screenshot from the movie "Chess Fever"

11/8/2018 – In a day or two, Fabiano Caruana will challenge Magnus Carlsen. Will there be the new World Chess Champion by the end of the month? Commentator STEPHAN OLIVER PLATZ examines some history of the sixth World Champion, chess legend Mikhail Botvinnik, including select games against Capablanca, Alekhine, Reshevsky and Portisch. | Photo: J.D. Noske, Nationaal Archief, von li: Max Euwe, Vasily Smyslov, Paul Keres, Mikhail Botvinnik and Samuel Reshevsky.

9/14/2018 – 170 years ago, September 14th, 1848, Adolf Albin was born. Statistics give Albin a historical rating of 2643 for August 1895 and with this rating he would have been the world's number 15 of that time. Today, Albin is mainly known as the namesake of an entertaining line in the Queen's Gambit, arising after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5!? - the Albin Counter-gambit. Another gambit, which Albin liked to play, is named after Alekhine. | Photo: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

6/20/2018 – Why, after all, are the Indian openings called "Indian"? Conrad Schormann tried to find an answer to this question and found it in the ChessBase Mega Database. It led him back to a clash of classical and hypermodern theory in old India.

4/28/2018 – Chess is a wide field with many interconnections, and while preparing this month’s article about pawn endgame composer Nikolay Grigoriev, study expert and historian SIEGFRIED HORNECKER learned about a nearly forgotten chess organizer from the early Soviet Union, Valerian Eremeev. But also Alekhine’s five queen game might have influenced Grigoriev.

2/20/2018 – Emanuel Lasker was born on December 24, 1868, in Berlinchen, which today is Barlinek in the northwest of Poland. This year Lasker would celebrate his 150th birthday — reason enough for the German Chess Federation to declare 2018 as Lasker-year. From 1894 to 1921 — 27 years — Lasker was World Champion, longer than any other player before or after him. Let's take a look at the legacy of the second official World Champion. | Photo: (left) public domain (right) Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-00457 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

11/1/2017 – Alexander Alekhine himself thought that he was born on November 1, 1892, but historians checked again and concluded that he was born on October 31. The confusion seems to be due to an error in the conversion of the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. All the same, we celebrate the fourth World Champion's birthday — reason enough to look back on his life and career. | Photos: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

7/26/2014 – Following up on the popular new Master Class series, after covering Bobby Fischer in volume one, and Mikhail Tal in volume two, here is the next with one of the most creative attackers of all time: Alexander Alekhine. Each phase of his play is scrutinized by a grandmaster, providing thorough and often insightful analysis, with numerous games and excerpts to enjoy. Here is a review.