Best Combinations - May 2014 (Monthly Chess Tactics Book 5)

The May edition of the Practical Tactics series is out with over 50 puzzles for you to solve.
Monthly Chess Tactics will allow you to
* Catchup on latest major chess news
* Follow top grandmasters
* Improve your game
* Study combinations any time and anywhere - on your PC, phone, tablet, or any eReader device
* Maintain regular practice by solving one or two puzzles a day

After the major top tournaments of the first 4 months of the year, May was a relatively quiet month on the top scene. But, of course, still a lot of tournaments were played at different levels, including top GM round robins - Capablanca memorial in Havana, won by Wesley So, and Karpov's tournament in Poikovsky, won by Morozevich. Several combinations in this edition also come from the Italian team championship, and the Czech national championship.

In June the Stavanger tournament will involve the top players again, and is sure to produce some interesting combinations that will be included in the next volume.

Here is the list of previous editions:

Tactics of the Month - January
Tactics of the Month - February
Tactics of the Month - March
Tactics of the Month - April

Chess News - Russian GM Alexander Morozevich wins XV Poikovsky Karpov Chess Tournament 2014

As reported by ChessBlog, Russian GM Alexander Morozevich wins XV Poikovsky Karpov Chess Tournament 2014:.

Having recently published two collections of Morozevich's combinations, I am glad to see that the former world's #2 player is in top form again. To recap, in the Practical Tactics Series: Attack with Alexander Morozevich - Selected Games and Best Combinations - includes Morozevich's combinations as White, while “Counterattack with Alexander Morozevich” focuses on his games as Black.

Best Tools to Work with Chess PGN Files

Today I will give a brief overview of how well different Chess Database software packages support the PGN file format.

Fritz - reads and writes

ChessBase (multiple versions on various platforms, including Light/Full, Windows/Mobile, etc) - reads and writes, except for CB Light

Chess Assistant (Full and Light) - read and writes
ChessX - reads, but writes have some issues
SCID - reads, but does not write

(If you know of another software that supports PGN files - please leave a comment.)

With so many tools that support PGN files, does that mean that you can use them interchangeably to update the same files? Yes and no. The major caveats are as follows:

• Each tool exports moves with a slightly different new line format
• Each tool (or even different versions of the same software) updates headers in its own way, putting PGN header tags in a different order. That results in issues such as player names in the game headers cannot read properly by some versions of the same packages. 
• Additional formatting, such as arrows, diagrams, highlighted squares, and engine evaluations also follow a different convention. So arrows you draw in Fritz, will likely show up as garbage if you open up the same PGN file in Chess Assistant and vice versa. What's even worse - if you add a diagram for a position in Chess Assistant, hoping to be able to print it from Fritz, you'd be in for a disappointment.

To learn more about this (and to possibly bypass some of these issues) - read my recent post Editing Pgn Files without ChessBase or Other Database Program – Syntax Highlighting or other posts I wrote about PGN.

Chess Tactics of the Month - February 2014 - Part 2

For the full set of over 50 tactical positions from February 2014 that you can solve on your own - checkout my ebook Best Combinations - February 2014 (Monthly Chess Tactics).

Chess Tactics of the Month - February 2014 - Part 1

For the full set of over 50 tactical positions from February 2014 that you can solve on your own - checkout my ebook Best Combinations - February 2014 (Monthly Chess Tactics).

Fighting for initiative - Multi-Purpose Move

Cabanas – Jiganchine, 2000
 White to Move
Find the strongest move, that serves multiple purposes:

1. Helps to transfer the White queen to the 'h' file
2. Threatens to open up the center
3. Threatens to support the g6 pawn with other pawns.

For the solution - watch the video.

Tactics of the Month – April Edition is out

As I am continuing with Tactics of the Month Series - Over 50 best combinations of April are now available for your solving pleasure as an ebook here.
The highlight of April 2014 was the Vugar Gashimov Memorial held in Shamkir, Azerbaijan. It was won by the World Champion Magnus Carlsen, who despite losing two games, scored 6.5/10. Caruana was second with 5.5 points.
The other major tournaments this month were the Women's Rapid and Blitz World Championships held in Khanty-Mansiysk, which were won by Kateryna Lagno and Anna Muzychuk respectively. Earlier that month Khanty-Mansiysk also hosted the Women's FIDE Grand Prix tournament, won by Hou Yifan, so April was truly a month of Women's chess in that city.
Carlsen – Mamedyarov, 2014
White to move
The solution is available in the free sample here.