It is frequently anything but easy to make the material superiority of a rook over a bishop tell when all the pawns are on one side of the board. Last month we showed you a game with reduced material in which zugzwang brought about the decision. Today we follow that with an example with more pawns, in which White has to find access to a black fortress that is hard one to storm. The siege had already lasted for over twenty moves before White turned to radical measures with 55.f5!? GM Karsten Müller demonstrates how the game was decided and what additional defensive resources Black had. CBMagazine Online.

ChessBase Light is a program you can download on the right of this newspage. It is completely free and you have most of the functions of a full database program. In the latest ChessBase Workshop installment Steve Lopez shows you how you can analyse games with the standard unregistered version of CB Light, which comes with an older but very efficient chess engine. Streaming video.

168 players took part in the biggest chess festival of closed tournaments in France, with seventeen groups, from the A Group (ten players, average 2526 Elo) all the way to the last group with an average Elo of about 1300. Israeli GM Evgeny Postny won first place with 6.0/9. The venue, the “Conseil General”, is normally reserved for local government meetings. IM Christophe Philippe reports.

Britain's first ever grandmaster, the late Anthony John Miles, was not just strong but also extremely creative. When this fiery player clashed with Anatoly Karpov, it was pure provocation facing ice-cold strategy. In his Playchess presentation Dennis Monokroussos shows us Karpov succeeding – next week it will be Miles taking down his illustrious opponent. Be there at 9 p.m. ET.

Currently the FIDE rules require that players must be seated at the board no later than zero seconds past the scheduled start of a game. This has led to some unpleasant situations in the past. At the 11th European Individual Championships 110 participants signed a petition to change the grace period to 30 minutes. In the tournament Baadur Jobava and Zaher Efimenko lead. Round four report.

After three rounds in the European Championship Dieter-Liviu Nisipeanu was in the lead. The Romanian GM scored three consecutive wins, including one against Dimitri Reindermann. Perhaps he was helped in his efforts by an article in ChessBase Magazine, because in CBM 132 his compatriot Mihail Marin examined in detail a variation of the Alekhine Defence, which then was up for discussion in the game. The Dutch player chose a line which our author had rejected and received the ultimate punishment for doing so. Marin has provided a few notes on the game, and a thorough analysis will follow in CBM 136. Here is Nisipeanu - Reindermann

We long ago abandoned the practice of sending our readers to every article or international news report that contains the word "chess". But when a Euronews story contains video footage of a world class grandmaster (Boris Gelfand) playing the Deputy Prime Minister of his country (Natan Sharansky), who is assisted by the current PM (Benjamin Netanyahu), we make an exception.

At the New York, 1889 tournament a master lost a game by forfeit after only eight moves because he was, in the words of a newspaper report, ‘laboring under excitement’. The Editor of Chess Notes looks at three great players with reputations for heavy dependency on alcohol, examining how they have been treated by contemporaries and subsequent writers.

This event is taking place from March 6th to 18th 2010 in Rijeka, Croatia. Top players include Almasi, Bacrot, Movsesian, Navara, Vallejo, Motylev, Adams, Tomashevsky, Alekseev, Baadur, Naiditsch, Akopian, Volokitin, Bologan and Caruana. After two rounds 34 players have perfect scores, in the women's section it is 17. The venue is spectacular: see if you can read its name from space.

Here's another puzzle from our early-pictures scrapbook: who is the child in this photo? He was a boy prodigy, who at the sensational age of nineteen became the youngest grandmaster in the world. He has beaten twelve world champions. He lives in Europe and unlike his compatriots speaks flawless English. In our report we provide you with a few more or less helpful clues.

... the German chess fans had the pleasure of watching at the last Bundesliga weekend in Heidelberg, when Vishy Anand's club OSG Baden-Baden had to acknowledge their first defeat of the season versus title contender Werder Bremen. This is his white game from Sunday. How would you assess the situation after 23...Qxe5? A) White is in trouble since the bishop f7 can't move; B) this piece can be unpinned, but Black has no problems whatsoever; C) White wins by force.

The solution is here, but first ponder over it with a larger version of the diagram.

Actually at thirteen years and eleven months, but still according to our calculations the fifth youngest player in history to gain the title. Richárd did it in spite of a last-round loss to chess legend Lajos Portisch, who is almost 60 years older than the lad. The tournament was held in Hungary and was won by Alexander Beliavsky. Congratulations to the new GM.

The cooperation between Garry Kasparov, arguably the greatest chess player in history, and Magnus Carlsen, one of its greatest talents, began early last year. The results came faster than anyone had expected: Magnus was number one in the last two world rankings. Now the work between the two takes a new direction, with Magnus making all career decisions on his own. Press release.

An all-time great of chess, Bent Larsen, was born on March 4th, 1935. He is the greatest chess player of Denmark, and the strongest ever Scandinavian (before Magnus Carlsen). As a world top ten GM he beat many legendary world champions and was greatly feared by the Soviet chess hegemony. Today Bent turns 75. We have some remarkable contemporary and historical pictures.

Okay, the analysis of last week's endgame set you a pretty hard task. But since you are really up to speed on this material, there is an equally hard one for you this week.

After 72...Rb4+ (diagram) White had an important decision to take in the game Romanov-Vescovi: should he move his king aside to g5, in order to advance his h-pawn as quickly as possible, or is perhaps 73.Kh3 the better choice? Work out both variations – but be warned: there are all sorts of hidden tricks!

When former multiple world championship candidates collide what can you expect? The fun Icelandic Gambit, that's what. It goes 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 3.c4 e6 and is not entirely sound. But as Dennis Monokroussos explains in his Playchess presentation, if it worked against a player who was once #3 in the world, it could also work in your local club. 9 p.m. ET Wednesday night.

The German Bundesliga is the strongest team championship in the world. Just look at the names: Anand, Svidler, Gashimov, Mamedayrov, Shirov, Adams (playing on board six!). In round ten the champions OSG Baden-Baden faced the ambitious team of Werder Bremen, who snatched a surprise victory to catch the leaders on match points. There are four rounds left to play. Report and games.

For the second time in succession the 19-year-old Norwegian has topped the list – his 2813 rating is the second-highest in the history of chess. Second is Veselin Topalov, third Vladimir Kramnik, who has overtaken World Champion Vishy Anand. Levon Aronian is fifth, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (+19 points) and Alexander Grischuk (+20) are now in places six and seven. Top rankings.

The Albin Countergambit does not have a particularly good reputation, but since it is not an opening you have to face very often as White, a lot of players do not know how to achieve a safe advantage against it. This is above all the case after the main move 5.g3 when the switch to 5...Nge7 (from the previoulsy more usual 5...Bg4) means that it is no longer so clear how White can point to any opening advantage. Simple solutions are wanted and they are provided by GM Dorian Rogozenco with his repertoire for White based on the move 5.Nbd2. Here is the complete article, one of 12 in CBM 134. Read Rogozenco: Albin with 5.Nbd2.

This is an achievement of the Turkish Chess Federation, which invites teams of strong foreign players to take on indigenous talents in search of experience and titles. In the women's section the Turkish players faced a team of WGMs, in the men's it was mostly GMs. The tournaments are named after the local Angora breed of goats, cats and rabbits. Big pictorial by Anastasiya Karlovich.