Chess News

1. Speed Chess Championship: Nakamura v. Niemann - Live!
   The match for third place in the Speed Chess Championship is taking place on 7 September at Espot in Paris. Hikaru Nakamura faces Hans Niemann in a 180-minute match featuring 3 sections of blitz and bullet chess. The final between Magnus Carlsen and Alireza Firouzja will be played on Sunday. | Follow the action live starting at 18.00 CEST (12.00 ET, 21.30 IST)
2. Riddle: Karpov-Hort 1979 - Solution
   In the final round of a Dutch tournament (in Waddingxveen 1979) World Champion Anatoly Karpov beat the second-placed GM Vlastimil Hort. But could the world-class Czech grandmaster have prevented this happening? This was the question we asked in our last Riddle. Today we provide you with the answer.
3. Puzzle solutions
   Last week we showed you three positions, miniatures with five or six pieces that looked simple enough. But finding a a clear and forced win was anything but trivial – you needed to work out some unusually subtle strategy to solve them. Today we present the solutions, in the form of videos by Gauri Shankar, chess trainer from Chicago, in his unique explanatory style.
4. "If one piece is bad, the entire position is bad"
   A badly positioned piece can make the difference between victory and defeat! In his series ‘Practical tips for the tournament player’, Jan Markos develops a winning strategy from this in the new CBM #221: Gain a decisive advantage by taking one of your opponent's pieces out of the game. In his video, he demonstrates how to do this using two sample games by Cheparinov and Carlsen. And afterwards you can test your skills with a small collection of exercises. Have fun with the free CBM-sample of this week!
5. Knocking down pieces in time trouble
   Time trouble is part of the game. In many cases, players in acute time trouble knock down pieces and don't fix them before pressing the clock. Some players are very meticulous to fix any displacement in their own time while others are not. Arbiter's intervention is to be determined in case to case basis. International Arbiter Alon Shulman shares an incident that took place recently in the ECU magazine.
6. New Riddle: Karpov-Hort 1979
   Four world-class grandmasters met in a Dutch town for a double round-robin tournament. It was dominated by World Champion Anatoly Karpov, who went into the final round with a 1½-point lead and faced the second-placed GM Vlastimil Hort. Karpov won the game – but could Hort have prevented this happening? That's an interesting riddle we want to solve. Can you help us?
7. This week: Jan Markos and Robert Ris
   In this week's Summer Special you can save a lot on our Fritztrainer packages. They are by Jan Markos, a Slovak grandmaster, coach, and author, a former European Youth Champion; and by Robert Ris, an International Master from The Netherlands, who nowadays is active mainly as an online chess trainer. You can get Jan Markos Middlegame Secrets Vol.1 +2 for €39.90 (instead of €59.80) and Robert Ris Calculation Trainingfor €79.90 (instead of €119.60). Don't miss your chance!
8. St. Louis Rapid & Blitz - Live!
   The fourth event of the 2024 Grand Chess Tour is the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament. Taking place on 12-16 August, the event starts with 9 rounds of rapid action, followed by 18 rounds of blitz. Included in the field are the three frontrunners in the race to win the 2024 Grand Chess Tour: Fabiano Caruana, Alireza Firouzja and R Praggnanandhaa. | Follow the games live with expert commentary starting at 20.00 CEST (14.00 ET, 23.30 IST)
9. Petrosian – Learning from the Master
   Tigran Petrosian was a very conservative player. On the other hand he could see tactics and combinations far in advance, so he went about countering them before even his opponents smell anything! Chess trainer GM Efstratios Grivas has always told his students to study the games of the former World Champion and try to understand what he had seen and why he chose his moves. Here is part two of his lesson.
10. Lasker-Capablanca solved!
    The tenth game of the 1921 match saw challenger José Raúl Capablanca gain an advantage with the black pieces, but with limited material on the board, World Champion Lasker had chances of survival. We gave our readers several interesting riddles we want to solve. Here is the definitive solution to the historic game.
11. US Senior and Junior Championships - Live!
    The strongest junior and senior chess players in the United States have returned to Saint Louis. On July 16-26, the top 10 players across three divisions - juniors, girls, and seniors - are competing for more than $135,000 in prizes. | Follow all the games live with expert commentary, starting at 20.00 CEST (14.00 ET, 23.30 IST)
12. Chess can be such fun!
    Here are some chess puzzles of a different kind. Some of you might find them very easy, some quite hard. They are at least most entertaining and should bring smiles to your face. Tell us which ones you could master. Next week we will give you the solutions – and show you a video of a strong chess player solving the problems live.
13. Chess and life expectancy
    In our previous section on how playing chess may affect your life, we asked our readers to guess whether chess players could expect to live longer or shorter lives, on average, than the rest of the non-chess people surrounding them. Today in the final section of the series, Frederic Friedel and Christian Hesse present some statistical results on this question.
14. Secret features of ChessBase
    The ChessBase board in itself is a vast paradise of various options! Here we are going to show you some of the key features that can help you in your analysis of a position. Some of you may not have “discovered” them yet, and many might find them useful in your study of games. Take a look – and don't miss your chance to get the software in our Summer Special week!
15. CBM #219: "Fundamental Endgame Knowledge"
    Why is the rook’s pawn called the "worst enemy of the knight"? How do you make best use of the "Knight Check Shadow" and when should you enter the "Karpov Distance"? In the new ChessBase Magazine #219, Karsten Mueller shows you the most important techniques in the endgame with knight against pawn(s) in part #9 of his series "Fundamental Endgame Knowledge". Take the chance and test your technique in two interactive training videos in this week’s CBM reading sample. Have fun!
16. Anatoly Bykhovski turns 90!
    He was the coach of the USSR Youth National team from the mid-60s, until the collapse of the Soviet Union – a driving force behind the great generations of Soviet chess, but always in the shadow. On 30 April Anatoly Awraamowitsch Bykhovsky celebrates his 90th birthday. Chess Trainer Adrian Mykhalchyshyn describes the career of the man who helped created the chess zenith of the USSR.
17. Grivas on the Mad Rook
    During the endgame, stalemate is a resource that can enable the player with the inferior position to draw the game rather than lose. In more complex positions, stalemate is much rarer, usually taking the form of a swindle that succeeds only if the superior side is inattentive. Chess Trainer GM Efstratios Grivas shows us how a "mad rook" can complicate matters for the superior side.
18. Yet another 12-year-old grandmaster
    He was born on 3 June 2011 in Bursa, Turkey. On April 1st (no April Fool's joke) the twelve-year-old, playing in the very strong GRENKE Chess Open, Yagiz Kaan Erdpgmus scored 7.0/9 points with a 2646 performance. With that he had fulfilled his final GM norm and become the youngest grandmaster in the world – the fourth youngest in chess history. We will be watching this young boy carefully. | Photo Ugur Medya
19. Svitlana's Smart Moves - The best tactics of all candidates! Double Edition!
    Svitlana dug deep to find some outstanding, beautiful tactics, by all the men's and women's candidates, who will compete in Toronto soon. Arne is trying hard to solve all the puzzles, and get 8 out of 8 in both videos. Will he succeed? And how will you do, dear viewer? These two videos are the perfect start to get into the mood for the candidates tournament!
20. The American Cup: Live!
    The American Cup, one of the United States’ premier chess tournaments, returns to Saint Louis. Now in its third year, the event runs from March 12-21, 2024, at the iconic World Chess Hall of Fame, featuring sixteen of America’s top chess talents. With $400,000 in prize money up for grabs, the competitors will prove their mettle under mounting pressure in the double-elimination knockout format. | Follow the games live with expert commentary starting at 19.00 CET (14.00 ET, 23.30 IST)
21. ChessBase Puzzle Challenge – 02
    Chess is a really fun game to play, but equally enjoyable is solving artificial positions – problems and studies – many that defy the imagination. In this ChessBase Challenge instalment, we have a set of puzzles that can challenge your brain. Can you solve the position? Can you find the mind-boggling strategy that is required to reach the goal? You have a week to do so. Then we will provide the full solution.
22. What can you learn from Vidit
    Have you ever finished last in a tournament? Well, it happened to Vidit Gujrathi at the Prague Masters 2024. As Vidit himself pointed out, this might be the first time ever that he finished last in his entire chess career. And it happened 20 days before the most important event of his life - the Candidates, this cannot really be a good sign, can it?
23. How to work with the Laws of Chess
    "As arbiters, we must first and foremost have full knowledge of the Laws of Chess. The Laws of Chess are like the Bible, everything starts there." In this article IA Alon Shulman shares his thought process in dealing with cases, on implementing the Laws of Chess. Arbiters must first and foremost have full knowledge of them, everything starts there. Those laws are the basis of every decision that are make. "Secondly, we must always bear in mind that those laws don’t cover everything, and we need to impose the rational of the laws as a whole." | Photo Mark Livshitz
24. Behind the board: An interview with GM Daniel Fernandez
    Chess players have certainly heard of Daniel Fernandez, who has already published a couple of Fritztrainers for ChessBase. But recently, non-chess players also got to know him because of a YouTube video with the title - "We Used An Adult Toy To Beat A Chess Grandmaster". How did this video happen? Are chess players cheating more often nowadays? And why can Daniel speak at least five languages, and helped out in a koala sanctuary? This, and many more questions, you can see in the interview with the English Grandmaster.
25. A Heart-Racing Experience! (4)
    Magnus Carlsen has been the World #1, since 2011! Apart from his tremendous chess talent, he also has a relatively higher HRV: his heart rate is typically between 75 bpm – 95 bpm, which enables him to balance alertness (for tactical danger and opportunities) and calmness (to optimize logical thinking and decision-making)! Calm heartbeats during critical moments lead to better decisions!