9/22/2025 – When the strongest pieces disappear from the board, a whole new game often emerges. In the current ChessBase Magazine #227, Mihail Marin highlights a wide variety of scenarios from practice. His article begins with a video introduction, and in the following text, he divides the illustrative material into three themes and provides a small collection of training exercises for each. Moreover, you can test your skills in two interactive training videos with our author. You can now view all analyses, exercises and videos in the new CBM reading sample – on your iPad, tablet, Mac or PC. Enjoy!

4/18/2025 – There was a lot of news at ChessBase in March: whether it was a mobile app, video course, ChessBase Magazine Extra, or databases – there was sure to be something to suit every chess taste. Take a look at last month's products:

4/17/2025 – You want to understand chess? Who doesn't? – To make the path to that goal a little easier, GM Robert Ris explains in two more episodes of his strategy series what he believes is important. Understand his ideas, and it will be easier for you to develop good plans of your own.

3/25/2025 – What's new at ChessBase? Whether it's a video course, ChessBase Magazine or databases - there's always something going on at ChessBase, and we have the right content for everyone. Many new video courses have already been released this month. Find out which ones they are in the following article...

2/28/2025 – What's new at ChessBase? Whether it's video courses, the ChessBase Magazine or databases: there's a lot going on at ChessBase and we have something for everyone. Many new video courses have already been released during the cold season. Find out which ones they are in the following article...

4/25/2023 – Middlegame secrets are revealed - in a series of articles featuring videos by Jan Markos. We'll begin with the Queen, exploring things to avoid when playing with the most powerful chess piece! If you wish to know more, we recommend the full course by Jan Markos: Middlegame Secrets Vol.1: The Power of the Queen | Photo: Alexis Fauvet/Unsplash

4/14/2023 – Middlegame secrets are revealed - in a series of articles featuring videos by Jan Markos. Next we'll discuss the Rook, exploring things like the impact of the 7th rank or the difference between rooks and minor pieces! If you wish to know more, we recommend the full course by Jan Markos, Middlegame Secrets Vol.2: The Potential of the Rook. | Photo: Benjamin Smith/Unsplash

4/7/2023 – Middlegame secrets are revealed - in a series of articles featuring videos by Jan Markos. We'll begin with the Queen, exploring things to avoid when playing with the most powerful chess piece! If you wish to know more, we recommend the full course by Jan Markos: Middlegame Secrets Vol.1: The Power of the Queen | Photo: Alexis Fauvet/Unsplash

4/4/2023 – Middlegame secrets are revealed - in a series of articles featuring videos by Jan Markos. Next we'll discuss the Rook, exploring things like the impact of the 7th rank or the difference between rooks and light pieces! If you wish to know more, we recommend the full course by Jan Markos: Middlegame Secrets Vol.2: The Potential of the Rook| Photo: Benjamin Smith/Unsplash

3/31/2023 – Middlegame secrets are revealed - in a series of articles featuring videos by Jan Markos. We'll begin with the Queen, exploring things to avoid when playing with the most powerful chess piece! If you wish to know more, we recommend the full course by Jan Markos: Middlegame Secrets Vol.1: The Power of the Queen | Photo: Alexis Fauvet/Unsplash

1/4/2023 – The theme of “decision-making” is an essential part of every chess game. At every moment of the game, you must make a decision that is not only tactical; as psychology, structural preferences, positional basics and good variation calculation are all part of the process of making the right decision.

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.

10/22/2021 – This was the question that a friend, grandmaster Alex Yermolinsky, posed after being inquired about a comment by another grandmaster. It was meant as irony, but was the logical result of a series of questions and comments that led to him posing this. He had explained with hard data how one could even ask this. If you want to know how we got to this point, read on!

1/27/2020 – There are two types of vision during a chess game. The first, which we use quite often, is to calculate variations in our head. We ask ourselves, "what happens if I move this and my opponent moves that...?" Often such vision is sharpened by the knowledge of common tactical motifs. The other type of vision is more abstract, and belongs to the realm of human imagination, we use the word "plan" to describe it. DAVIDE NASTASIO reviews IM Robert Ris' video series aptly titled "How to make a plan".

6/19/2019 – On May 22, 2019, before the Lindores Abbey Tournament and Norway Chess, Energi Danmark invited Magnus Carlsen to come to Copenhagen, Denmark, to play a two-game exhibition match against 14-year old Danish IM Jonas Suhl Bjerre and a simul against 24 opponents. Carlsen won the match 2-0 and the simul 24-0 but between simul and match he still found time for an interview in which he talked about his development, how he got better, strategy, planning, and the way he thinks. | Photo: Screenshot from the interview | Energi Danmark

5/2/2019 – ChessBase Magazine regularly offers high-class training materials by top players and coaches — material that helps you to improve your strategic understanding. The following tutorial shows how to make the most of these training materials. | Drawing: ChessBase

11/1/2018 – Do you manage to execute your plan at the board, only to watch an advantage slip away? Are you able to convert a strategic idea into concrete moves, but in the end cannot convert the win? This is the essence of technique and GM Adrian Mikhalchishin faces this esoteric subject head-on in his latest FritzTrainer. Through examples from the games of great players past and present, he details their plans, catalogues their mistakes, and demonstrates how they transformed ideas in their minds into plans over the board. In this review, DAVIDE NASTASIO says you will learn a lot from this video series, and eventually be able to apply such knowledge to your own games.

1/1/2018 – Chess is mainly a strategic game because of the pawn structures. Different pawn structures require varying approaches. Strategy is the human concept since unlike an engine, we can't find the right move through brute force. We need to know a given pawn structure, and the plans it engenders. In the past we needed years to learn which were the correct plans depending on which pawn structures we encountered in our games. Now, thanks to this DVD made by one of the most expert trainers in the world, we can learn through the videos, and reviewing curated games, to understand how to deal with the different pawn structures, and reach the next level. Davide Nastasio digs in.

9/5/2016 – In the third round of the Baku Olympiad 2016, Evgeny Tomashevsky was playing Iordachescu. In their game, the Russian had a dominating knight on d4 against his opponent's sick-looking bishop on e6, yet he captured the bishop with his knight in what seemed to be a positively paradoxical move. Had he blundered? Or was there a hidden reason behind this choice? The answer lies in a classic game played exactly 31 years ago by Anatoly Karpov!