Šachové programy

The long awaited candidates tournament in London exceeded expectations and has already secured itself a special place in the annals of chess. The result is that the challenger to World Champion Anand is Magnus Carlsen, the one the world of chess wanted to see. But some of the heroes of London were active shortly after at the Alekhine Memorial – Aronian and Gelfand came out on top just ahead of Anand. The third tournament on the DVD is the FIDE Grand Prix in Zug with an outstanding display by Topalov. Amongst the start authors in this issue are Kramnik, Aronian, Caruana, Gelfand and Ponomariov. At the same time, the DVD with its 12 openings articles again offers numerous ideas and suggestions for your repertoire, e.g. Najdorf with 6.h3, three articles on the French and a contribution by Zoltan Almasi on his special variation in the Nimzo-Indian.

The surpise winner of the Tal Memorial, Boris Gelfand, provides detailed notes on his decisive game against Nakamura. Fabiano Caruana comment on his victory over world-champion Anand in Moscow. For the first time US-champion Gata Kamsky analyses for ChessBase Magazine. He annotates his victory over Dominguez-Perez, the winner of the FIDE Grand Prix in Thessaloniki. Zoltan Almasi played a strategical master game in the Sicilian Rossolimo (3.Bb5) against the new European champion Moiseenko, the Hungarian GM offers in-depth analysis on the DVD. NEW! Daniel Kings presents his column „Move by Move“ in the new interactive video format with training questions and detailed feedback even when you fail to find the best move. In this issue your task is to win against the King's Indian (Eljanov-Baryshpolets, Kiew 2013). Opening video: Opening expert Mihail Marin reveals secrets of the Queen's Gambit in a 30 minutes lecture.

Vladimir Kramnik analyses the decisive game from the FIDE World Cup. All four players from the semi-finals comment on their best games! Biel: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave analyses his final round victory against Ding Liren which oepned the door to a four players' tiebreak. More annotated games by Ding Liren and Moiseenko. "Play of the day": Daniel King explains the best game of the day in video format. Dortmund: Michael Adams shows two of his best games from the tournament of his life. 11 new opening articles including "A simple plan" against the King’s Gambit, "A venomous side-line" – Ruy Lopez with 5.d4, the "Prins Variation" - 7...Na6 in the Grünfeld Defence.

The chess year 2012 ended on a world record. Magnus Carlsen not only won the London Chess Classic with a fantastic result (five wins and three draws), but in doing so surpassed Kasparov’s Elo record of 1999. The Norwegian now heads the world ranking list with the new record rating of 2861. The tournament in London constitutes a major element in this edition, e.g. for the more than four hours of analysis by the players themselves in audio format. The other two top tournaments in Tashkent and in Bucharest were also very close-run affairs. The FIDE Grand Prix even in the Usbek capital was won by the trio of Karjakin, Morozevich and Wang Hao all on the same score, and in the "Kings Tournament" in Romania Ivanchuk did not get the top spot till after his tiebreak with Topalov. The star authors on this DVD include Kramnik, Karjakin, Adams as well as the new women’s world champion Anna Ushenina.

Records, outstanding games, great suspense - the first super-tournament of the year again offered everything chess lovers could wish for. Wijk aan Zee once again, with a brilliant Magnus Carlsen (now 2872!), lead off. The open in Gibraltar with top players like Ivanchuk, Kamsky, Adams and Vachier-Lagrave ended in a tie-break, which was decided in favour of Nikita Vitiugov. In Baden-Baden Naiditsch and Caruana provided the entertainment but, with a fine finish, world champion Anand managed his first tournament victory in five years. In Zurich even Garry Kasparov was active - no, not as a player but as a live commentator. His critical expression will have had little to do with the play by Fabiano Caruana who won the tournament with 4 out of 6. The 20 year old also belongs to the star authors 12 opening articles on the DVD, amongst others, the Sicilian, Semi-Slav and Bogo-Indian with lots of stimulating ideas for your repertoire.

There were two close decisions in the top two mid-summer tournaments. Whereas in Dortmund the number of games with Black gave Fabiano Caruana his first victory in an elite tournament, in Biel Wang Hao made best use of the three-point rule. If the classic scoring had applied, Magnus Carlsen would have repeated his success of the previous year, but the Chinese player came out ahead as a result of his greater number of wins. On the DVD Caruana, Kramnik, Giri, Ponomariov and Meier are some of the protagonists to have analysed one of their best games in classical format. The DVD's special is a selection of video analyses with the participants of the Biel Chess Festival (total running time, 1 hour 40 mins.).

The final issue of the year is once again packed with high-level games and exciting top tournaments. On the DVD you will find over 4,000 from four world class events, in each of which the level of tension remained high right to the very. From the Chess Olympiad, in which Armenia secured another gold medal by an unbelievably close margin, all the way through to the European Cup with the Azeri team SOCAR the new title holders. At the Grand Slam finals in Sao Paulo/Bilbao the victor was not decided till the tiebreak between the two young stars who were equal on points, Caruana and Carlsen, and the decision was in favour of the number one in the world ranking list. And last but not least: the FIDE Grand Prix in London may have ended without a tiebreak, but nevertheless there were three winners all on the same number of points. Many of the principal actors in all this are among the annotators on this DVD, led by Carlsen, Kramnik and Caruana.

The focus of this issue consists of two top tournaments with diametrically opposed formats: the "Zurich Chess Challenge" saw the encounter of Vladimir Kramnik and Levon Aronian in a friendly match consisting of six games and ending, when you consider their closeness in strength, in a 3:3 draw. The European Championship in Plovdiv, on the other hand, was once more a giant tournament with far over 300 participants, including 180 grandmasters. Here there was a sole winner in Dmitry Jakovenko (title picture) with 8.5 out of 11. The new European Champion is, along with Kramnik, Karjakin, Bologan, Shirov, Inarkiev etc. one of our star authors. You will also find on the DVD 13 openings articles, which cover the usual wide spectrum: from the Dutch via the French Winawer to the topical "Westphalia Variation" in the Queen's Gambit. That means something for everyone!

World Champion Vishy Anand successfully defended his title for the third time. But against Boris Gelfand it was closer than ever before. The WCh match in Moscow - with, e.g., analysis by the challenger - constitutes the main theme of this issue. The WCh special on the DVD: Anand's second Rustam Kasimdzhanov reports on the match in an extensive video interview and gives you information about all the games. The second elite tournament in this issue also took place in Moscow. At the Tal Memorial Magnus Carlsen came out ahead once more after a tournament in which the lead kept changing. On the DVD Gelfand, Caruana, Radjabov and Andreikin (e.g.) annotate their best games. In addition with its 13 openings articles, the DVD offers a whole host of suggestions and discoveries: authors such as Mihail Marin, Michal Krasenkow and Evgeny Postny have contributed articles covering all sorts of openings from the English to the Grünfeld Defence.

In this first issue of the New Year you will find all the players at the very pinnacle of world chess. All the top players have been active in tournaments in these last few months: Magnus Carlsen (winner of the Tal Memorial), Vladimir Kramnik (victor in the London Chess Classic), World Champion Vishy Anand and his challenger Boris Gelfand, and also Aronian, Radjabov, Topalov, Karjakin, Ivanchuk, Morozevich, Gashimov, Nakamura, Caruana etc. etc. And the list of star authors on this DVD scarcely differs from the above one: the best and most successful players, namely Carlsen, Kramnik, Anand, Aronian, Giri, Karjakin, Caruana, Meier, Fridman, etc annotate their latest games for you. A particular highlight of this edition is formed by the good 10 hours of live analysis from the players at the London Chess Classic. In addition, the DVD offers you 11 openings articles on, for example, the Ruy Lopez, the French and the Nimzo-Indian: another long series of exciting ideas for your repertoire.

This year too, the series of world class tournaments opened with the classic in Wijk aan Zee. Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian, the two leaders of the world ranking list, were in the starting blocks. This time it was the Armenian who made the running in a high-class event with a lot of decisive games. As well as Aronian and Carlsen, Caruana, Radjabov, Karjakin and van Wely have annotated their strongest games from Wijk. The second tournament highlight is the Open in Gibraltar which is getting stronger from year to year. The sensation this time was Hou Yifan, who shared first place with Nigel Short and in doing so defeated opponents such as Shirov, Le Quang and ... Judit Polgar. The women's world champion annotates on the DVD her historic duel with the still (?) strongest woman player in the world. At the same time with its 13 openings articles the DVD again offers numerous ideas for your repertoire and suggestions as to what to play, e.g. a weapon against the Volga Gambit (4.Nf3), a strategic recommendation against the Maroczy Bind in the Sicilian, a re-discovered move in the in French Advance Variation and a completely new development in the Exchange Variation of the Queen's Gambit.

It seems to be the right time for comebacks. This year Boris Gelfand surprised us by winning the WCh candidates tournament, Judit Polgar and Alexander Morozevich made their return to top chess in impressive fashion. And now it is the turn of Peter Svidler who all of a sudden is proceeding from one success to the next. The previous youth world champion won the FIDE World Cup without conceding a single defeat. Then he and his team from St. Petersburg were successful in the European club championship, the second tournament highlight of this issue. Thanks to a successful tie-break against Ivanchuk, Magnus Carlsen was able to celebrate victory in this year’s Grand-Slam final. This strongest tournament of the year is of course a further theme of this issue. Amongst the star authors on the DVD we have Carlsen, Karjakin, Polgar, Eljanov, Caruana, Gashimov, Volokitin, Vitiugov, Sutovsky etc. In addition to that you will find 12 up-to-the-minute openings articles with extensive analysis and ideas for your repertoire.

A hot summer for chess means that the new issue of ChessBase Magazine contains five really top tournaments. Starting with the World Team Championship in Ningbo in China and the Russian Championship in Moscow via classic tournaments in Biel and Dortmund going all the way to the Botvinnik Memorial, in which the four best players in the world tested their rapid chess skills against each other. A particular theme this time is the Chess Festival in Biel (see cover). On the DVD you will find more than three hours of video analysis and with contributions from Carlsen, Morozevich, Shirov, Vachier-Lagrave, Caruana and Pelletier all the participants have something to say to you. Amongst the other star authors in the issue there are Kramnik, Aronian, Ponomariov, Le Quang and Hou Yifan. Not to mention the 11 openings articles with thorough analysis and ideas for your repertoire which await you.

Back to No. 1. Magnus Carlsen won the "Kings Tournament" ahead of Sergey Karjakin thanks to the superior tiebreak score and in doing so moved back into pole position in the world ranking list. The tournament from Mediasch in Romania with its two young victors constitutes one of the main focal points of this issue. In the candidates matches in Kazan it was anything but a breakthrough for youth. The winner was the oldest participant Boris Gelfand and he is the one who has the right to challenge World Champion Anand next year. On the DVD Gelfand annotates two of the key games on the way to the greatest triumph of his career so far. Other highlights: the tournaments in Lublin (Shirov was victorious and demonstrates his wins in video format), Havana (Le Quang Liem annotates) and the Ukrainian individual championship (won by Ponomariov, annotations by Eljanov). At the same time the DVD offers with its 13 openings articles all sorts of suggestions for your opening repertoire as well as training databases for the sharpening up of your strategic an tactical instincts.

Au revoir, Amber! The 20th and last edition of this classic tournament with its blindfold and rapid chess games, won this year by Levon Aronian, constitutes one of the main themes of this issue. On the DVD there is commentary, e.g., by Magnus Carlsen on his victory over the world champion, and Vugar Gashimov explains the subtleties of his attacking win over Vladimir Kramnik. Our second tournament highlight is the European championship in Aix-les-Bains, which is traditionally contested in the form of a super-strong Open. The three medal winners (Vladimir Potkin, Judit Polgar and Radoslaw Wojtaszek) have all annotated their best games for you. We have yet another highlight in Ruslan Ponomariov’s comments on his games in the Russian Team Championship. With its 14 openings articles, the DVD offers a whole host of suggestions for your repertoire, in addition to training databases to sharpen your strategic and tactical instincts.

Main points in this DVD are the triumphs awarded to an experienced and to a fresh face. The younger of the two is looking at you from the title picture: Hikaru Nakamura won the Tata Steel Tournament in Wijk aan Zee with a wonderful result of 9 points from 13 games. Vassily Ivanchuk’s result in the Gibraltar Masters was numerically even more impressive: his 10 out of 11 saw him playing at a level of almost 3000 Elo points. You will find on the DVD the games from these two top tournaments with detailed reports as well as games analysed by World Champion Anand, Kramnik, Nepomniachtchi, Vachier-Lagrave, McShane, Le Quang Liem and many more. The DVD also once more provides you with a rich source of ideas for your repertoire in 14 openings articles as well as tailor-made training lessons in strategy, tactics and the endgame.

ChessBase Magazine starts the 2011 issue with a premiere. For the first time a women’s tournament, namely the Women’s World Championship in Antakya in Turkey, constitutes the main theme of the DVD. A lot of games from the WCh have been annotated by the players and even World Champion Hou Yifan, who is just sixteen, comments on two of the wins which were decisive for victory in the race for the title. The other two tournament highlights of this issue are the London Chess Classic with another triumph for Magnus Carlsen and the 53rd Reggio Emilia tournament with its top class field, which ended in a photo finish between Gashimov and Vallejo Pons. Amongst the star authors on the DVD there are World Champion Vishy Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Sergei Karjakin, Luke McShane and the two victors of Reggio Emilia. In addition, with its 13 articles on openings the DVD offers you a host of ideas for your repertoire and tailor made training lessons in the fields of strategy, tactics and endgames.

Slavné oběti, nečekané taktiky a šachující útoky. Královský gambit je jedním z nejstarších a nejromantičtějších zahájení šachové hry. Bílý obětuje pěšce, aby vybudoval silné centrum a otevřel linie pro okamžitý útok na soupeřova krále. Už žádné nudné Berlíny - přeneste se do boje se soupeřem hned od začátku. Tento šachový program obsahuje vše, co potřebujete vědět, abyste se mohli vypořádat se svým soupeřem.

Francouzská obrana je jedním z nejspolehlivějších zahájení proti 1 e4. Pevný řetěz centrálních pěšců chrání černého krále a poskytuje základ pro protiútoky na obou křídlech. Na tomto DVD vám velmistr Daniel Král nabízí repertoár pro černého s francouzskou obranou.

Dámský gambit odmítnut (QGD) je jedním z nejspolehlivějších zahájení proti 1 d4. S kamenem pěšce ve středu šachovnice se černý odmítá nechat zatlačit do centra. Vytvoření centrální kontroly dává černému dobré šance k zahájení útoku proti soupeřovu králi.