Gibraltar Chess Festival: Hou Yifan leads with a 2900 performance
28.01.2012 – After four rounds of the tenth Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival and a lot of exciting chess there are eleven players in the lead with 3.5/4 points. They do not include the top two seeds, but instead a 17-year-old girl from China, who appears to be in top form. It is, you might have guessed, Women’s World Chess Champion Hou Yifan. You can follow the event in hours and hours of video reports.
 

Wijk aan Zee Rd11: Carlsen plays like Tal to beat Topalov
27.01.2012 – Six wins in seven games in both groups A and B, but the highlight was Carlsen's game against Topalov in which he went for broke with a Tal-like attack, and turned a lead position into gold. Leader Aronian lost to Navara but so did Ivanchuk, after committing suicide against Gelfand. Radjabov beat Gashimov and joins Carlsen tied for second. Express report with annotations by GM Alejandro Ramirez.
 

Way out?
27.01.2012 – Playing 53.e5-e6 (diagram) White has deprived the bishop d5 of its protection and more or less forced it to strike on g2.
This (53...Bxg2) leads to victory for ...
A) ... Black;
B) ... White;
C) ... neither nor (equality).

ChessBase Magazine, larger diagram and solution.
 

David Friedgood: More on Novotnys
27.01.2012 – We continue with our discussion of the Novotny theme in chess problems, where a white unit plays onto the intersection square of, typically, a black rook and bishop, causing a double interference. Dr Milan Vukcevich was an OTB IM and a GM of Chess Composition. He explored this theme with many superb creations and our selections in this article are all by him.
 

Ari Ziegler: Modern Benoni for Advanced Players
27.01.2012 – The Modern Benoni is perhaps the most dynamic approach to meeting 1.d4 without sacrificing a pawn. International Master Ari Ziegler has produced a new Fritztrainer DVD that will help you build a fighting repertoire against all white systems in this opening. Ziegler provides many surprisingly simple solutions in many lines. The target audience is club players with a rating of 1500-2400. Get it now.
 

CBM training: Endgames from Tata Steel
26.01.2012 – Another installment of instructive endings, picked out by our resident endgame expert GM Karsten Müller from the games that are being played in Wijk aan Zee: Ivanchuk-Giri, Nyzhnyk-Harikrishna and Ernst-Potkin. His popular ChessBase Magazin section will carry plenty more, but here for now are three current and topical examples. Learn and enjoy.
 

New FIDE Chess in Schools initiative
26.01.2012 – "Let us help you to build your federation and your chess in schools programme," says the press release. "Our objective is to be able to generate more income than you pay to FIDE – much more." This reversal of flow of funds is admittedly something new for FIDE. The income is expected to be generated by Premium Membership and the goal is one billion chess players on the planet.
 

Wijk aan Zee Rd10: Aronian plays masterpiece against Giri
25.01.2012 – Four wins for four Blacks, assuredly newsworthy, but the eye-catcher was Levon Aronian's win against Anish Giri, in which he played a superb exchange sacrifice for longterm pressure, and finished it off with a fantastic combination. Caruana bounced back with a win over Topalov, Kamsky beat Karjakin, and Ivanchuk is now sole second after beating Navara. Report with video analysis by Aronian.
 

Football legend Maradona promotes chess in the UAE
25.01.2012 – Diego Armando Maradona is arguably the greatest football player of all time. He played in four World Cups, and captained the Argentine team that won the title in 1986. Maradona has always been interested in chess, and was glad to be part of a remarkable Chess & Society campaign that is being staged in the United Arab Emirates. Big pictorial report by Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh.
 

Tenth Gibraltar Chess Festival under way
25.01.2012 – It began as a small event ten years ago, but its popularity grew steadily, and today it has become an internationally popular chess festival which attracts hundreds of player, many with top rankings. This year there are over fifty GMs, eleven of them rated above 2700 Elo. At the opening there was some special news of philatelists. In round one the top seeds all won their games.
 

Wijk aan Zee Rd9: Aronian beats Caruana; Karjakin beats Carlsen
24.01.2012 – Once again the balance of power's pendulum swung, and Aronian took a full one-point lead after beating Caruana in a strong game in which he always seemed a step ahead. For Carlsen, it was a double nightmare as a mistake put him in hot water against Karjakin from which he never recovered. Ivanchuk also beat Giri after a tense game. Report with video analysis by Sergey Karjakin.
 

ChessBase Puzzles 2011 – Solutions part two
24.01.2012 – Today we bring you the solutions to the rest of our Christmas puzzles, including the logical brain teaser. This produced a voice-from-the-past message: Danish programmer Lars Rasmussen proposed a solution and theory to the problem. Rasmussen? Wasn't he the man who produced the world's first five-piece database that was accessible to normal chess players – twenty-one years ago!