ChessBase Magazine Online

Oh what the hell – put it on g1!
06.03.2002 – "Great players never castle," wrote Königsted in Kort Afhandling in 1784. While this is arguably the worst piece of advice ever published in a chess primer, even to this day many players give little thought to where His Majesty should reside. Robert Timmer has written a practical manual on the dangers of leaving the King in the center, and the possible drawbacks to castling too early, too late or on the wrong side. And our database program ChessBase provides interesting tools to research castling habits in chess. More
 

Service your Shredder 6 engine!
06.03.2002 – A chess program consists of a user interface – the part that allows you to enter moves and save games – and an "engine", which does the chess thinking. Periodically we upgrade the engine to correct errors or increase the playing strength. Now we have a new engine for Shredder 6 owners, plus as a special bonus the latest version that won the tournament in Paderborn. You can get it from our download section here.
 

Sometimes, the bull, he win
05.03.2002 – Remember the start of the Super-GM in Linares, when almost every game was drawn. Well, that has changed drastically. Of late an average of two out of three are decided. Today Ponomariov beat Adams (revenge for round 2) and Shirov, undaunted by his defeat at the hands of Anand, unleashed some fiery tactics against Ivanchuk, who succumbed in time trouble. Meanwhile John Henderson devotes his daily report this time to – bulls. You will find it together with annotated games and new pictures on our Linares 2002 page.
 

Man vs machine, Gulko vs computers
04.03.2002 – He is a strong player and a brave man. Boris Gulko, 1975 USSR Champion and, after his emigration, two-time US Chess Champion, will be taking on four of the world's best computer chess engines later this month. Junior, Shredder, Fritz and Hiarcs are the opponents. The games can be followed on our Fritz server and in the Kasparov Chess playing zone. More
 

Gelfand and Topalov win Cannes
03.03.2002 – With a last-round black win Boris Gelfand caught up with the leading Veselin Topalov. The two lead in the final standings by 1.5 points. Noteworthy was the patient 68-move victory of 19-year-old Etienne Bacrot over Anatoly Karpov, sensational the disasterous -242 performance of the world number 5 player Alexander Morozevich. Games, results and links are at our Cannes report page.
 

Kasparov, Anand win, Chucky under scrutiny
03.03.2002 – Garry Kasparov was crawling all over his 16-year-old Spanish opponent to take home the full point in round eight. In Anand vs Shirov the Latvian set the board on fire in his trademark style – unfortunately it was Shirov who went down in the flames. You will find all results, annotated games and new illustrated reports, including an extensive story on the adventures of Chucky, on our Linares 2000 page.
 

Shredder wins computer tournament – yet again
03.03.2002 – It does this with clockwork regularity. At the 11th International Paderborn Computer Chess Championship, which finished today, it was the German program Shredder which finished at the top of the list, with six wins and one loss. Second was Fritz, which beat Shredder in their individual encounter, but was not so ruthlessly efficient against the other programs. More
 

Ivanchuk stops Adams, Shirov holds Kasparov
03.03.2002 – Two exciting games – Shirov getting one of his rare draws against his arch-nemesis Garry Kasparov, and Ivanchuk blasting Adams off the board with a deadly queen. At half-time all players have six games on the scoreboard, and Kasparov is in the lead. You will find all results, annotated games and new illustrated reports on our Linares 2000 page.
 

Yasser Seirawan proposes – A Fresh Start for chess
02.03.2002 – We've got to admit, the professional chess world is in a mess. Two world champions, two organisations (with many coming and going over the course of the years). No players' union, strange formats and time controls. So what can we do about it? A respected GM, America's Yasser Seirawan, has set out a detailed, concrete proposal for sorting out the chaos that has afflicted top-level chess. Do not miss his thoughtful article here
 

Topalov beats Karpov in Cannes
02.03.2002 – At the NAO Chess Masters the game of the day was Veselin Topalov's 75-move victory over tournament leader Anatoly Karpov. Topalov and Gelfand are now at the top of the tables with 4.5 points each, with two rounds to go. Alexander Morozevich, the world's number 5, is last with an incredible 1.5 out of 7. Games, results and links are at our Cannes report page, a partial explanation for Morozevich's performance can be found in his CBM interview here
 

Kramnik concedes a draw to an 11-year-old
01.03.2002 – Wunderkind David Howell did actually achieve a world record and scored a draw against BGN world champion Vladimir Kramnik in a one-to-one blitz game, the last in their four-game encounter. The media interest was tremendous – in fact we caught the report on Sky News, where Kramnik said: "It was definitely not a walk-over, I had to concentrate!" He predicts a great future for David. More
 

Adams beats Anand, Ponomariov holds Kasparov
01.03.2002 – Vishy Anand still doesn't seem to have got a hold of himself. After drawing the first five games at the super-tournament in Linares the Indian star lost to world's number four Michael Adams. In another game Garry Kasparov played a very determined game against Ruslan Ponomariov but let the FIDE champion escape with a draw. You will find annotated games and new illustrated reports on our Linares 2000 page.