An opening trap is particularly effective if it is built up with natural-looking development moves and is thus hardly recognisable for an uninformed opponent. Trap expert Rainer Knaak presents a collection of promising traps from tournament practice in every issue of ChessBase Magazine. In the current issue #215 there are eight examples - from Trompowsky via Sicilian and Ruy Lopez to King's Indian. Rainer Knaak also demonstrates three of his favourite traps in video in CBM #215; you can watch one of the videos here!
In an interview published in India’s “The Week” magazine, Viswanathan Anand talked about young Indian talents, how the pandemic impacted chess, his ongoing career as a professional player, among other topics. Referring to his young compatriots, Anand said: “They are all in the 2,700-plus group (rating). And they are all under 20. That just does not happen; it is really something special”. | Photos: Amruta Mokal
ChessBase Magazine #215 offers over an hour of video playing time with its three opening videos alone (the total playing time of all videos in CBM #215 is more than seven hours). Robert Ris uses three new games by Richard Rapport to examine what White can hope for in the Vienna Game after 5.Qf3. Ivan Sokolov examines the highly topical variation 11.h4!? in the Semi-Tarrasch, especially Giri's novelty 13.Rh3 against Praggnanandhaa. And Daniel King gives a recommendation for the side line 3.e5 against the Sicilian Rossolimo Variation which has already been tested at the highest level. You can watch an extract from Robert Ris' analysis here!
Thanks to his tournament wins in the American Cup and Norway Chess this year, Hikaru Nakamura moved up to second place in the FIDE world rankings (August 2023). In the "Special" of ChessBase Magazine #215 our authors analyse their favourite games of the top grandmaster - an exclusive collection of 19 great encounters from the period 2007 to 2023 awaits you! In addition, Mihail Marin sheds light on "Nakamura's strategy in practice" with videos + many training exercises. And Karsten Mueller presents a selection of the most beautiful endgames from "H-Bomb". As a sample from the "Special" you can watch Michal Krasenkow's analysis of his game against Nakamura from 2007 here. Have fun!
Are chess players ice-cold creatures who always make their decisions at the board out of pure calculation? Of course not, even Magnus Carlsen is not emotionless, says GM Jan Markos in his contribution to the current ChessBase Magazine #215. In fact, very different emotions can influence decision-making in chess - often to one's own disadvantage. Markos presents three examples of this from his own practice and explores the question of how the influence of emotions can be counteracted. You can watch an excerpt from his video contribution here.