12/12/2023 – Ivan Sokolov has risen to the ranks of the top coaches since the team of Uzbekistan, which he coached, won gold at the the Chess Olympiad in Chennai 2022. In his Fritztrainer series "Understanding Middlegame Strategies", Sokolov regularly shares his grandmaster knowledge and shows what to do in a large variety of positions and structures. Hannes Langrock had a look at Sokolov's course on the Catalan.

11/13/2023 – Ivan Sokolov's long awaited "Understanding Middlegame Strategies" continues! The dutch Grandmaster and star coach released three new volumes on the French Winawer, Catalan Structures, and the French Tarrasch Variation.

8/31/2023 – World-class chess explained in video: Dorian Rogozenco shows two wins of Hikaru Nakamura from Norway Chess 2023, including the decisive last-round game against Fabiano Caruana – Sharjah Masters 2023: Analyses by tournament winner Arjun Erigaisi as well as Ivan Cheparinov, Grigoriy Oparin, Thai Dai Van Ngyuen and Samvel Ter-Sahakyan – “Special” on Hikaru Nakamura: exclusive collection of 19 encounters with detailed commentary from 2007 to 2023 – Action in the centre: Christian Braun's Anti-Sicilian recipe 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5!? - "Nakamura's strategy in practice": Mihail Marin sheds light on the US American's skills, incl. two interactive videos and a large collection of exercises – Rossolimo á la Carlsen: Daniel King recommends the cutting-edge 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 e5!? for Black. - "Basic Knowledge" Part #5: Karsten Mueller reveals tips and tricks in the endgame with two pawns against one. incl. two interactive training videos and much more!

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!

3/2/2023 – In the sixth volume of his FritzTrainer series, Ivan Sokolov, winner of the Olympiad as a coach of Uzbekistan, looks deeply into the ‘supreme discipline’ in chess, the Ruy Lopez, as he shares a number of top grandmasters’ secrets. Harald Wagner watched the seven-hour work and sent us a review.

11/16/2022 – Plenty of our customers are delighted by Ivan Sokolov's Understanding Middlegame Strategies series, and meanwhile we have six parts available. The Grandmaster who has participated at twelve chess Olympiads as a player, and reached a rating of over 2700 in January 2004, had very recent success again, as the coach of the Uzbek national team, who won the gold medal in Chennai in 2022. We wanted to know what Sokolov is doing besides chess, and why he is paying a tax when he meets the gym. | Photos: Ivan Sokolov Facebook page

11/4/2022 – Understanding an opening doesn’t stop after the theory. It’s essential to understand ideas and structures connected to the opening moves. Furthermore, recognising mistakes by your opponent to gain an advantage is a key component of the middlegame. In this video course we’ll concentrate on Rossolimo and Maroczy structures in the Sicilian Defence.

8/26/2022 – Ivan Sokolov has celebrated numerous successes in his career as a player. His greatest coup as a coach came only recently at the Chess Olympiad 2022 in Chennai, when he led the team from Uzbekistan to gold. In his video contribution to the current ChessBase Magazine Extra #208 he presents an idea on how to surprise your opponent in the Sicilian Four Knights Variation: The move 6.g3 may not look particularly aggressive - but when a player like Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan's number one and reigning rapid chess world champion) is on a loss with Black a few moves later, that can easily happen to your opponent too! You can see an excerpt from Sokolov's analysis here.

8/23/2022 – GM Ivan Sokolov is well-known for taking on challenging projects as a trainer. This year he turned his attention to the Uzbekistan team, a team that, like Iran (which Sokolov trained before), was very young. How did it so happen that the team surpassed all expectations and clinched the gold in the Chennai chess Olympiad? What was the role of Ivan Sokolov? How much time did he spend with the team? What were his training techniques? All of this and much more in this hour-long interview by IM Sagar Shah. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

8/17/2022 – After the closing ceremony, well past midnight, IM Sagar Shah made his way to the Grand Sheraton hotel where the Uzbekistan team was staying. Youngsters - Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Nodirbek Yakubboev, Javokhir Sindarov, Shamsiddin Vokhidov, and Jakhongir Vakhidov had just won the gold medal at the Chess Olympiad 2022. The Uzbek team was kind enough to give their time for an interview where all five of them sat together. We asked them about their best moves, and best games, and also spoke about what this victory means to them and their country.

8/14/2022 – An experienced trainer, Ivan Sokolov just helped Uzbekistan to win the Chess Olympiad in Chennai. In his FritzTrainer series for ChessBase, he showcases a pragmatic style, focusing on general ideas rather than on specific lines. In a section focused on positions where Black has not castled but placed his king on f8, Sokolov analyses a game between Fabiano Caruana and Daniel Naroditsky. Out of a French Defence, Caruana never lets go of the initiative, and achieves a remarkable victory. | Photo: Austin Fuller / Saint Louis Chess Club

8/1/2022 – ChessBase Magazine Extra #208 offers, among other things, almost an hour of video training: Ivan Sokolov presents 6.g3 as a surprise weapon against the Sicilian Four Knights. And Nico Zwirs examines the move 5...b5 in the Vienna Variation of the Queen's Gambit - an absolutely fashionable variation that leads to very dynamic play! "The brilliancy" is contributed by David Navara, who highlights his Black win with the Berlin Defense against Alexei Shirov. In addition, the "Lucky bag" with 59 annotated games - including contributions from Anish Giri and Kirill Shevchenko - holds a colorful mix of analyses and suggestions. ChessBase Magazine Extra is the perfect supplement to ChessBase Magazine. Available as a single issue or by subscription (6 issues per year). Available as download or on DVD.

6/15/2022 – The Budapest Gambit (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 Ng4) has its most loyal followers in club chess. 1.d4 players who are confronted with the gambit have to reckon with the fact that their opponents are far more familiar with the positions, if only because of the number of games they have played with that system. In the current ChessBase Magazine Extra 207 Ivan Sokolov shows a little-known but very convenient way for White to gain a nice advantage without extensive study of opening theory. You can watch an excerpt from his video analysis here!

5/31/2022 – The new Extra #207 offers, among other things, over an hour of video training with Elisabeth Pähtz and Ivan Sokolov. Germany's best female chess player presents one of her favourite weapons against the Gruenfeld Defence in a short video series. And Sokolov's contribution deals with a topic that should be interesting for many 1.d4 players, especially at club level: The GM from the Netherlands shows a method with which a nice advantage can be comfortably achieved against the Budapest Gambit. This issue's "Brilliancy" comes from Jorden van Foreest, who takes a critical look at his Sicilian experiment (3.Bc4) from the Tata Steel Masters 2022 against Praggnanandhaa. In addition, the "Lucky bag" with 56 annotated games offers a great mix of analyses and surprising ideas. ChessBase Magazine Extra is the perfect complement to ChessBase Magazine. Available as a single issue or by subscription (6 issues per year). Available as a download or on DVD.

4/22/2022 – An experienced trainer, Ivan Sokolov has worked with the Iranian team for a number of years, helping the likes of Alireza Firouzja and Parham Maghsoodloo to develop their talent. In his first FritzTrainer series for ChessBase, he showcases a pragmatic style, focusing on general ideas rather than specific lines. One of the games analysed in the section devoted to rolling pawns is Boris Gelfand versus Aleksey Dreev from Tilburg 1993, which included a couple of magnificent long-term sacrifices by Black!

9/14/2020 – Ivan Sokolov is well-known for his stunning attacking games. Most of them originate from middlegames, so no wonder he wrote various books about this topic. We are delighted to now present his "Understanding Middlegame Strategies" Fritztrainer series, starting with Vol.1 - "Dynamic Pawns", and Vol.2 - "Practical Play". While Volume 1 concentrates on several ideas and tips for dynamic pawn play, Volume 2 is focusing on decision taking and creating crisis. GM Sokolov coached the Iranian national team (Alireza Firouzja, Parham Maghsoodloo) for many years, so he is capable of guiding you through the topics professionally and interestingly. Those Fritztrainers will take your middlegame to the next level.

8/1/2019 – Trainer, commentator, author and Grandmaster Ivan Sokolov is Karsten's guest today. Live at 13:00 UTC (15:00 CEST; 9:00 AM EDT) and on-demand for ChessBase account holders. Don't have an account yet? You can register a free 90-day account to watch!

7/3/2019 – This week's training show covers the Dutch Championship game between Jorden van Foreest and Ivan Sokolov. Don't miss the "cool sacrifices"! The live show is free to watch, and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium account holders (but FREE for a limited time!). To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows. Merijn is live at 18:00 UTC (20:00 CEST / 2 PM EDT).

9/1/2018 – The 2018 Asian Nations Cup took place from July 26th until August 4th in the Iranian historical city of Hamadan. Teams from twelve different countries participated in the Open and Women sections. They faced each other in 7-round Swiss Opens in Classical, Rapid and Blitz chess. Iran won all three Open tournaments, while China took first in the Classical and Rapid sections amongst the women — India won the blitz. | Photos: Iranian Chess Federation

7/8/2018 – In Amsterdam the last round Sunday was not to determine a winner; the Dutch Champion for 2018 was already set in the person of Sergei Tiviakov. Tiviakov had to deal with Loek van Wely, the top seed in the field, in round six, but after Van Wely made a serious mistake, Tiviakov pressed an extremely dangerous initiative and converted his advantage confidently to take an insurmountable lead over Erwin l'Ami, Erik van den Doel and Ivan Sokolov. | Photos: Harry Gielen / Official site

7/6/2018 – Sergey Tiviakov got a full point Wednesday at the Dutch Championships in Amsterdam from Ivan Sokolov. In the Spanish game Sokolov committed suicide on the 23rd move and had to give up two moves later. Tiviakov is alone in the lead. In the women's tournament Peng Zhaoqin and Anne Haast lead ahead of Tea Lanchava. | Photo: Harry Gielen / official site

3/7/2018 – The dMP Batavia tournament (made possible by main sponsor De Melker & Partners), was won by Brazilian GM Alexander Fier, who flew to Amsterdam fresh off his success in the Brazilian Championship last month. Fier also won the blitz tournament for the second straight year. Tournament director and ChessBase contributor, IM Merijn van Delft, sent this recap. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

1/9/2015 – In the second part of the interview with Ivan Sokolov, the Dutchman touches on all kinds of subjects, from the difficulties of writing chess books, to the state of affairs for professional chess players in the Netherlands, to his employment in the United Arab Emirates and even Kasparov's match against Deep Blue! A fitting conclusion for this interview of a very lively character.

1/8/2015 – Ivan Sokolov needs no introduction. He has been one of the elite players in the world for more than two decades now. In this exclusive interview for ChessBase Ivan reveals about his beginnings, his idols, his path breaking win against Garry Kasparov, Vishy Anand, the 2014 World Championship match, why Magnus is the best and why Fabiano Caruana won't be Carlsen's next opponent in 2016!