ChessBase Magazine Online

Gibtel Masters – Adams wins in play-offs
05.02.2010 – Nine players were tied for first after ten rounds, and four went into the tiebreaks. British GM Michael Adams eliminated first Jan Gustafsson of Germany in an Armageddon game, and then Francisco Vallejo (who had knocked out Indian GM Sandipan Chanda) to take overall victory at the Gibtelecom Masters in Gibraltar. There was a prominent visitor during the second half of the event. Final results.
 

Mr ‘First Saturday’ – Laszlo Nagy in Budapest
04.02.2010 – Once a month a world-renowned tournament is conducted in Budapest. It provides budding players with an opportunity to test their skills and achieve title norms. Carlsen, Sutovsky, Milov, Radjabov, Sofia Polgar, Nakamura have passed through the grinding mill of the tournament that has been running for 17 years now, organised by a former chemist in the Hungarian army. Big pictorial report.
 

Fire on board...
04.02.2010 – ... has become Alexei Shirov's trademark. In the tournament in Wijk aan Zee, which Shirov started with five wins in a row, the 37-year-old chess magician from Riga once more justified this reputation. In many middlegame positions he managed to put his opponents under pressure with inventive attacking play. And even in the endgame, one always has to take into account that Shirov might set the board on fire. This happened in the eleventh round in his game against Vladimir Kramnik, where he played 35.c5! in the diagram position. GM Karsten Müller has analysed the endgame for ChessBase Magazine Online.
 

Gibtel Masters – four leaders with one round to go
03.02.2010 – The leaders, with 7.0/9 points, are Sergei Movsesian, Francisco Vallejo Pons, Michael Adams and Jan Gustafsson. The Gibtelecom Chess Festival is being held in Gibraltar, which is basically a giant rock on the Spanish Mediterranean coast (but a British overseas territory). In winter it is populated by chess players, who on a free day's outing got to know some of the native residents.
 

ChessBase show: Colle against the Queen's Indian
03.02.2010 – Due to a problem with the server, or at least his connection to it, last Wednesday night's ChessBase presentation by Dennis Monokroussos was cut off practically from the very beginning. So we'll try it again this week at the usual hour: Wednesday night at 9 p.m. ET/Thursday morning at 3 a.m. CET. The hero of our narrative: Frederick Dewhurst Yates.
 

Solutions to our Christmas puzzles – Part one
02.02.2010 – From Christmas 2009 to New Year's day 2010 we published our yearly suite of chess puzzles. This time the theme was Revenge of the Humans – we presented problems that were designed to stump computers, but which at the same time human beings were able to comprehend. Today we bring you the solutions to the first five installments, with the rest to follow soon. Enjoy.
 

Fritz 12 – learning without the manual
02.02.2010 – It is not a completely trivial task to get to know all the functions of a program as sophisticated as our chess playing flagship Fritz 12. You can browse through the condensed handbook or read the extensive reference manual supplied with the program. But now you can also simply follow multimedia instructions, recorded by an expert. Visit the new Fritz 12 workshop by Nick Murphy.
 

Edward Winter's Chess Explorations (36)
01.02.2010 – The Editor of Chess Notes discusses a quintet of positions submitted by readers. The common theme is that in each case it has so far proved impossible to find the full game-score. Can further details about the games be discovered? Even if not, readers will certainly enjoy some entertaining and instructive play from a cast which includes Ehlvest, Nimzowitsch, Pachman, Simagin and Soultanbéieff.
 

Magnus Carlsen wins Wijk aan Zee 2010
31.01.2010 – The top seed and leader of the A-Group, Magnus Carlsen, drew his final game, as did his main contenders, which left the 19-year-old Norwegian the sole winner of the tournament. His FIDE ranking in the next list will most likely be the second highest in history. Kramnik and Shirov share 2nd-3rd. In the B-Group Anish Giri was first, ahead of top seed Naiditsch. Illustrated report.
 

Wijk 12: Anand beats Kramnik, Carlsen leads
30.01.2010 – Vishy Anand drew the first nine games of this event, and was to be found in the bottom half of the field. Today the World Champion beat his 2008 challenger Vladimir Kramnik, and after a win in round ten he is now in place four. After a draw against Peter Leko, Magnus Carlsen leads alone, half a point ahead of Kramnik and Shirov. The final round games begin an hour earlier tomorrow. Illustrated report.
 

Gibtel Masters – live video and three hours of Spassky
30.01.2010 – The Chess Festival in Gibraltar has set up an innovative broadcast suite called Archie, costing £100,000, which provides live audio and video streaming from the playing venue. The host is GM Stuart Conquest, who yesterday invited the guest of honour Boris Spassky to join him "for a few minutes". This turned into nearly three hours! Here are links and the solution to our Tannhäuser puzzle.
 

Wijk 11: Carlsen wins again, catches Kramnik
29.01.2010 – Vladimir Kramnik was in a bit of trouble with his Petroff against Alexei Shirov, but his defences held. Meanwhile his main rival in this tournament, Magnus Carlsen, kept up the pressure and his opponent Leinier Dominguez cracked in time trouble. With that he caught up with Kramnik on the scoreboard. Carlsen's trainer Garry Kasparov showed us some lines in a previous game. Illustrated report.