3/17/2024 – Who hasn’t experienced it? You’re prepared for an exciting game in the open Najdorf Sicilian, and suddenly your opponent puts one of the seemingly countless minor variations on the board - in order to avoid the main Najdorf variations. Should you be frustrated? Absolutely not! Luis Engel uncovers the Anti-Sicilians, so you can prepare well.

12/16/2023 – Dr. Karsten Mueller and Luis Engel have generated a lot of interest with their four player type model. Now, with Fritz 19 offering different club player characters as opponents, the question arises whether there is a correlation to the player types. Surprisingly, the answer is quite positive, as Karsten Mueller explains in detail in the video. The German GM has also analysed three of the games against our ChessBase authors and friends Robert Ris, Jan Jettel, and Svitlana Demchenko.

12/13/2023 – The Sicilian Najdorf is one of the most aggressive answers to 1.e4, and its theory develops dynamically - the young German grandmaster Luis Engel brings all aficionados up to date with his two-volume Fritztrainer course. Christian Höthe had a look at the course and is enthusiastic.

6/9/2022 – Are you an 'Activist', a 'Theorist', a 'Reflector' or a 'Pragmatist’, the four types of players identified by Karsten Müller and Luis Engel in their ChessBase course about player types? It might help to know, and in a review in the "New in Chess Magazine" English Grandmaster Matthew Sadler talks about the pros and cons of such a model and argues that it is useful to identify your strengths and weaknesses if you want to improve your game.

5/16/2022 – Four-time Indian women’s champion IM Padmini Rout reflects on ‘The 4 Player Types standard model’, a FritzTrainer authored by GMs Karsten Müller and Luis Engel. She writes, “This has been one of the most useful DVDs I have come across, and I recommend everyone to watch it. Know more about your strengths and weakness [and] what areas to work on”. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

5/13/2022 – A sceptic regarding the value of ‘learning styles’ approaches, Professor Barry Hymer feared that “The Human Factor in Chess”, a book written by GMs Karsten Müller and Luis Engel, would fall short of expectations. As he states in his review, though, the book “recognises the dynamic evolution of many players’ styles and, for the most part, it avoids assertions that are overly deterministic and mystical”. Moreover, Hymer asserts that the book is both instructive and a pleasurable read.

2/28/2022 – The Grandmasters Dr. Karsten Mueller and Luis Engel have set a ball rolling in Germany with their latest Fritztrainer. GM Lars Bo Hansen designed the four-player model in 2005, and was perhaps ahead of his time. In the 5-part interview with Dr. Karsten Mueller, all four player types are discussed in detail. Today - The Summary, and questions about all four types.

2/20/2022 – The Grandmasters Dr. Karsten Mueller and Luis Engel have set a ball rolling in Germany with their latest Fritztrainer. GM Lars Bo Hansen designed the four-player model in 2005, and was perhaps ahead of his time. In the 5-part interview with Dr. Karsten Mueller, all four player types are discussed in detail. Today - The Theorist.

2/13/2022 – The Grandmasters Dr. Karsten Mueller and Luis Engel have set a ball rolling in Germany with their latest Fritztrainer. GM Lars Bo Hansen designed the four-player model in 2005, and was perhaps ahead of his time. In the 5-part interview with Dr. Karsten Mueller, all four player types are discussed in detail. Today - The Pragmatic.

2/6/2022 – The Grandmasters Dr. Karsten Mueller and Luis Engel have set a ball rolling in Germany with their latest Fritztrainer. GM Lars Bo Hansen designed the four-player model in 2005, and was perhaps ahead of his time. In the 5-part interview with Dr. Karsten Mueller, all four player types are discussed in detail. Today - The Reflector.

1/30/2022 – The Grandmasters Dr. Karsten Mueller and Luis Engel have set a ball rolling in Germany with their latest Fritztrainer. GM Lars Bo Hansen designed the four-player model in 2005, and was perhaps ahead of his time. In the 5-part interview with Dr. Karsten Mueller, all four player types are discussed in detail. Today - The Activist.

12/21/2021 – Playing styles in chess are an important and thus often discussed topic. GM Dr. Karsten Müller and GM Luis Engel take up a model by GM Lars Bo Hansen based on 4 player types - namely ‘activists’, ‘pragmatics’, ‘theoreticians’ and so-called ‘reflectors’. Their respective strengths and weaknesses are explained with the help of many examples, enabling the reader to try and assign himself or herself to one or the other player type.

8/4/2021 – This week, Merijn van Delft takes a close look at the game Luis Engel against Rasmus Svane, which was played at the German Masters and in which the young German Grandmaster Engel shows his attacking and his tactical skills. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

11/26/2019 – This week IM Lawrence Trent delves into the opening weekend of the new season of the German League (the Bundesliga) | Puzzle time: In the diagram, it's White to move! | Lawrence is on-demand this week beginning at 17:00 UTC (18:00 CET / Noon EST) and free for a limited time, or forever on-demand with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can register a free 90-day account to watch.

4/9/2019 – The last weekend of Germany's Premier League, (a.k.a. the Bundesliga), brought the perennial champions OSG Baden-Baden another success. With a 7-1 victory against Düsseldorf, Baden-Baden (pictured) once again became German Team Champion, securing their 13th title in 14 years. 14-year old German talent Vincent Keymer narrowly missed his third and final GM norm. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

3/10/2019 – The Swiss Grandmaster Noel Studer confidently won the Accentus Young Masters, which took place from February 27th to March 7th at the Hotel Schloss in Bad Ragaz in Switzerland. He started with 5 out of 5 and finished with 7½ out of 9. One point behind was Lev Yankelevich and Nikita Petrov who shared places two and three, while Yankelevich also achieved a GM norm. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

4/3/2018 – On Easter Monday, the GRENKE Chess Open ended with a sensation. Vincent Keymer won Europe's largest open chess tournament with 8.0 points from nine rounds. He started as number 99 in the ranking list, yet left behind 49 grandmasters, including such well-known names as Etienne Bacrot (France), Richard Rapport (Hungary), Alexei Shirov (Latvia) and Anton Korobov (Ukraine). What makes the victory all the sweeter is that it comes with a GM norm and a cash prize of 15,000 euros. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis