11/1/2011 – The fourteen top players from the Corsican Open were joined by two seeded world-class grandmaster for the Masters Knockout. The latter showed why they sit on the top of international rating lists by going through to the final. There World Champion Vishy Anand outplayed Azeri Super-GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov with a clean 2-0 result. Annotations by GM Elshan Moradiabadi.
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Your personal chess trainer. Your toughest opponent. Your strongest ally. FRITZ 20 is more than just a chess engine – it is a training revolution for ambitious players and professionals. Whether you are taking your first steps into the world of serious chess training, or already playing at tournament level, FRITZ 20 will help you train more efficiently, intelligently and individually than ever before.
Biel Chess Festival 2025 with analyses by Aravindh, Navara, Wojtaszek et al. Opening videos by Blohberger, Engel and Sokolov. Training columns ‘The fortress’, ‘Opening traps , ‘Fundamental Endgame Knowledge’ and much more
€21.90
The 15th edition of the Corsican Circuit was staged on an island that breaks
the world record per capita chess players (5375 active members in a population
of 300,000). In a difficult economic environment the organisers managed to maintain
the same level of prizes (95,000 €), having mobilised a total of 124 sponsors!
Hundreds of young people participated in the festive event, which this year
welcomed over 800 friends from the five continents.
The Open tournament consisted of nine rounds and finished with the following
top results:
Now came the final phase: the top fourteen players were joined by two seeded
world class grandmasters for a sixteen-player knockout competition, with two
games per match, played at a rate of fifteen minutes for all moves plus three
seconds increment per move from the start. Turned out that the "two seeded
world class grandmasters" were in a league of their own, since both went
through to the final, which was played on Monday. Here is a table with the pairings
and results:
Corsica Masters Knockout
The great success of Corsica Circuit apparently caught the organisers
unprepared: the official web site (given in the link below) crashed and
there was no information available. Luckily we had been following the
games on Playchess, and the super-reliable Mark Crowther of TWIC
soon had them up as well. And one of the Playchess visitors provided us
with light commentary: GM Elshan Moradiabadi of Iran
(picture right) submitted them a few hours after the games had finished.
As soon as we receive visuals from Corsica we will add them to this page,
but until then we give you Elshan's thoughts on the final for your enjoyment
and as a special treat. We have also tagged on an endgame lesson sent
in by GM Karsten Müller, which examines a missed opportunity from
an earlier round.
Winner of the Corsica Masters Knockout: World Champion Viswanathan Anand
Dominance Duel
In addition to the GM commentary of Elshan Moradiabadi we bring you analysis
by our resident GM Karsten Müller, who looks at a critical game from the
first round. French GM Laurent Fressinet had contrived to lose his first game,
with the white pieces, against his compatriot IM Gabriel Battaglini, rated 244
points lower than him on the rating scale. In their second game Fressinet had
a chance to equalise (and force tiebreak games) in an endgame that saw the fight
of bishop against knight zugzwang, where dominance often plays a crucial role:
In this course, you’ll learn how to take the initiative against the London and prevent White from comfortably playing their usual system by playing 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 Nh5.
London System Powerbase 2026 is a database and contains in all 11 285 games from Mega 2026 and the Correspondence Database 2026, of which 282 are annotated.
The London System Powerbook 2026 is based on more than 410 000 games or game fragments from different opening moves and ECO codes; what they all have in common is that White plays d4 and Bf4 but does not play c4.
In this course, Grandmaster Elisabeth Pähtz presents the London System, a structured and ambitious approach based on the immediate Bf4, leading to rich and dynamic positions.
Opening videos: Open Spanish (Sipke Ernst) and Classical Sicilian (Nico Zwirs). Endgame Special by Igor Stohl: ‘Short or long side’ – where should the defending king be placed in rook endgames? ‘Lucky bag’ with 35 master analyses.
YOUR EASY ACCESS TO OPENING THEORY: Whether you want to build up a reliable and powerful opening repertoire or find new opening ideas for your existing repertoire, the Opening Encyclopaedia covers the entire opening theory on one product.
The Queen’s Gambit Declined Exchange Variation with 5.Bf4 has a great balance between positional play and sharp pawn pushes; and will be a surprise for your opponents while being easy to learn for you, as the key patterns are familiar.
€9.90
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