10/6/2023 – Magnus Carlsen’s Offerspill and Vishy Anand’s Superchess are sharing the lead in the open section of the European Club Cup. Both teams have a perfect 10/10 score after beating Novy Bor and Asnieres in closely contested matches. Meanwhile, SP Gaz Ukraine grabbed the lead in the women’s tournament after beating former sole leaders TAJFUN SK Ljubljana. | Photo: Niki Riga
Chess Festival Prague 2025 with analyses by Aravindh, Giri, Gurel, Navara and others. ‘Special’: 27 highly entertaining miniatures. Opening videos by Werle, King and Ris. 10 opening articles with new repertoire ideas and much more. ChessBase Magazine offers first-class training material for club players and professionals! World-class players analyse their brilliant games and explain the ideas behind the moves. Opening specialists present the latest trends in opening theory and exciting ideas for your repertoire. Master trainers in tactics, strategy and endgames show you the tricks and techniques you need to be a successful tournament player! Available as a direct download (incl. booklet as pdf file) or booklet with download key by post. Included in delivery: ChessBase Magazine #225 as “ChessBase Book” for iPad, tablet, Mac etc.!
Winning starts with what you know The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
Mastering piece setups in various pawn structures and transitioning to a dominant middlegame, this course equips you with the insight and flexibility to outmanoeuvre your opponents in the Closed Catalan.
€39.90
Carlsen on 4/4
It was all about the top two matches in round 5 of the European Club Cup. Finally, one of the favourites failed to win after all four top seeds reached the fifth round with perfect scores, as Magnus Carlsen’s Offerspill (4th seeds) defeated defending champions Novy Bor (2nd seeds).
Out of the six games, five finished drawn in this match, with Carlsen scoring the deciding victory on the top board, where he faced Vincent Keymer — who had beaten the Norwegian in a classical game in round 4 of the FIDE World Cup.
Meanwhile, Superchess, the team with the highest rating average in the field, got the better of Asnieres. Similarly to Offerspill’s victory, a single decisive game tipped the balance in Superchess’ favour. It was Vladimir Fedoseev who gave the Romanian team overall victory, by beating Sergei Movsesian on board 5.
These video courses feature a black repertoire against 1.d4, 1.Nf3 and 1.c4. The recommended variations are easy to learn and not difficult to remember, but also pose White serious challenges.
The top performer so far in Durrës is none other than Carlsen, who collected four wins in as many games to gain 8.7 rating points — and now stands over 62 points ahead of Fabiano Caruana in the live ratings list!
IM Robert Ris analysed Carlsen’s victory.
Curiously, both matches were inches away from ending draws, as Novy Bor’s Thai Dai Van Nguyen and Asniere’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave both missed chances to make the most of big advantages in their games against Pranav V and Richard Rapport, respectively.
In the following position, Nguyen had already lost some of his advantage, but his two passers on the queenside continue to give him the upper hand. Pranav, however, found the one trick that could potentially lead to a miraculous escape.
Nguyen vs. Pranav
48...Bxh3 49.gxh3 e4 is a clever way to create counterplay. Grabbing the pawn with 50.Qxe4, for example, fails to 50...Qg5, threatening mate on g1 and attacking the rook on d2.
The only move that keeps White’s advantage is 50.Qc3, while Nguyen’s 50.Qb2 is bad due to the good-looking 50...Rh1+
Now White cannot escape the perpetual check after 51.Kxh1 Qxh3+, etcetera. Note that 50.Qc3 would have prevented this idea. A narrow escape!
Offerspill beat Novy Bor, the defending champions | Photo: Niki Riga
In this Fritztrainer: “Attack like a Super GM” with Gukesh we touch upon all aspects of his play, with special emphasis on how you can become a better attacking player.
Women’s: SP Gaz Ukraine leapfrog TAJFUN SK Ljubljana
A new leader emerged in the women’s tournament, as SP Gaz Ukraine beat former sole leaders TAJFUN SK Ljubljana, with wins for Lela Javakhishvili and Deimante Daulyte-Cornette on boards 2 and 3.
In this video course, experts (Pelletier, Marin, Müller and Reeh) examine the games of Judit Polgar. Let them show you which openings Polgar chose to play, where her strength in middlegames were, or how she outplayed her opponents in the endgame.
Now three teams are sharing second place a match point behind. Besides Ljubljana, Garuda Ajka BSK and Superchess now stand on 8/10 points. It will be Superchess who will face the new leaders in Friday’s sixth round.
SP Gaz Ukraine defeated TAJFUN SK Ljubljana | Photo: Niki Riga
In a total of 6 chapters, we look at the following aspects: the right decision based on tactical factors, decisions in exchanges and moves, complex and psychological decisions in longer games and in defence.
Carlos Alberto ColodroCarlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.
The Trompowsky is especially suited for faster time controls as you don‘t have to memorise endless lines of theory, and you push your opponent out of their comfort zone after your second move.
Trompowsky Powerbook 2025 is based on 53,000 computer games from the engine room of playchess.com as well as 49,000 games from Mega and correspondence chess.
Trompowsky Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 8727 games from Mega 2025 and the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 316 are annotated.
2025 European Championship with a German double victory and analyses by Bluebaum, Svane, Rodshtein, Yuffa, Navara and many more. Opening videos by Engel, King and Marin. Training sections “The Fortress”, “The Trap” and “Fundamental Endgame Knowledge" etc.
2nd Move Anti-Sicilian Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 12090 games from Mega 2025 or the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 874 are annotated.
€9.90
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