The Royal Hideaway Sancti Petri is a 5-star hotel located in Cadiz, Spain. Recently, world champion Magnus Carlsen visited the resort and was presented as ambassador of “The Maître’s Gambit”, a recurring activity in which Guillermo Garcia, a former Spanish Junior chess champion, plays simultaneous exhibitions against guests of the hotel. In an interview, Carlsen […]
Monthly Archives: November 2021
If you have a favourite book, or a favourite film, our guess is, you have read or watched them more than once. Without a doubt, one of the greatest chess games ever played is the one between Garry Kasparov and Veselin Topalov from 1999 in Wijk aan Zee. A game which you probably looked at […]
Elisabeth Paehtz played an outstanding tournament in the Women’s Grand Swiss, where she came second. Her performance granted her a spot in the next Grand Prix, and she also scored a GM norm, but it is not entirely clear whether this was her second or third norm. In an interview, she explains why and talks […]
The ‘Magician from Riga’, Mikhail Tal, enchanted the chess world in the 1950s and 1960s with his amazing combinations. He was ill all his life, but nevertheless belonged to the absolute top of the chess world for decades, even after losing the World Championship title. Today is the 85th anniversary of his birth. | Photo: […]
Following the Grand Swiss tournaments in Riga, a blitz tournament was held in honour of Mikhail Tal, whose 85th birthday anniversary is celebrated today. The young Ukrainian Kirill Shevchenko (19-years-old) got clear victory. Fabiano Caruana came second, ahead of Arjun Erigaisi. | Photos: Mark Livshitz and Anna Shtourman
In November 1991 ChessBase launched its first chess playing program for PCs. After a modest start it picked up strength and started challenging the best players in the world. In 1992 the reigning World Champion Garry Kasparov played 35 blitz games, on his notebook, a beta of Fritz 3. He won 31, the computer won […]
Draws on the top 13 boards in the final round of the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss meant Alireza Firouzja and Fabiano Caruana qualified to the next edition of the Candidates Tournament. Firouzja was the clear winner with a remarkable 8/11 score, while Caruana tied on points with Grigoriy Oparin but got a better tiebreak score […]
All chess analysis, and that of endgames in particular, has been transformed in recent years by computer technology. Not only can you turn an engine on to get an instant assessment, which is generally fairly correct, but when you get down to seven pieces, then you have the ear of God — or rather an […]
In his first opening video for ChessBase Magazine Markus Ragger takes up an idea that the World Champion tried out at the FIDE World Cup this summer. In the Moscow Variation (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+ Nd7 4.d4 cxd4) White almost always recaptures the d4-pawn with the queen. Carlsen played 5.Nxd4 against Wojtaszek instead and […]
A few weeks ago, Karsten Müller treated ChessBase readers to another endgame riddle. Charles Sullivan had come across an interesting endgame with opposite-coloured bishops that occurred in Botvinnik vs Pachman, Chess Olympiad Leipzig 1960, and Charles was curious whether Pachman had a draw with best play. The ChessBase readers came up with more than one […]