10/19/2025 – The 2025 European Club Cup and European Women's Club Cup begin this weekend in Rhodes, Greece, bringing together no fewer than 122 teams and around 800 players from across the continent. The seven-round event features many of Europe's strongest clubs and a number of world-class players, including Arjun Erigaisi, Anish Giri, Gukesh Dommaraju, Aleksandra Goryachkina and Zhu Jiner. Both tournaments run from 19 to 25 October at the Rodos Palace Hotel.
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In this video course, Grandmaster Ivan Sokolov explores the fascinating world of King’s Indian and Pirc structures with colours reversed, often arising from the French or Sicilian.
€39.90
Twelve players rated 2700+ make it to Rhodes
The 40th European Chess Club Cup and the 29th European Women's Chess Club Cup open this weekend on the Greek island of Rhodes, bringing together a record 122 teams from across the continent. The event features 102 clubs in the open section and 20 in the women's, totalling around 800 players competing over seven rounds.
Both tournaments follow a 7-round Swiss system with a time control of 90 minutes for 30 moves, followed by 30 additional minutes to finish the game, plus a 30-second increment from move one. The competitions are hosted at the Rodos Palace Hotel, with games beginning on 19 October at 15:00 local time.
In this course GM Ganguly turns calculation into a trainable skill with a structured path for any level. If one skill decides more games, it’s calculation. Openings fade, plans change - but seeing clearly, comparing lines, and choosing with confidence wins points. In this course GM Ganguly turns calculation into a trainable skill with a structured path for any level. You won’t just solve tactics; you’ll learn how to think: where to start, which branches to explore, when to stop, and how to keep a crystal-clear mental board under pressure.
Free video sample: Introduction
Free video sample: Forcing moves
The event was declared open at the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes, a medieval fortress whose setting provided an evocative backdrop for the speeches and performances that marked the start of the event. Dignitaries attending included the President of the European Chess Union, Zurab Azmaiparashvili, the ECU Secretary General, Theodoros Tsorbatzoglou, and representatives of local and regional authorities.
Following welcoming remarks and the playing of the Greek and ECU anthems, the draw of colours was performed in suitably theatrical fashion: two knights of the palace carried chess pieces in their helmets, from which representatives of the top-seeded clubs drew lots. As a result, Cercle d’Echecs de Monte-Carlo (women's) will begin with the white pieces on the top board, while Bayegan Pendik Chess Sports (open) will start with black.
Leading teams and contenders
The open section features a strong lineup headed by Bayegan Pendik Chess Sports from Türkiye, Alkaloid from North Macedonia, defending champions Novy Bor from the Czech Republic, SuperChess from Romania, and Tuxera Aquaprofit Nagykanizsai from Hungary. Among the leading names in action are Arjun Erigaisi, Anish Giri, Vincent Keymer, Wei Yi and regining world champion Gukesh Dommaraju, all belonging to the world top ten.
In the women's competition, Cercle d’Echecs de Monte-Carlo once again start as favourites, followed by Turkish Airlines Sports Club, defending champions Tajfun SK Ljubljana, SuperChess and Sirmium Sremska Mitrovica. The lineup includes top players such as Zhu Jiner, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Anna Muzychuk, Alexandra Kosteniuk and Divya Deshmukh, ensuring a high level of play throughout the event.
The defending champions - Novy Bor in the open and Tajfun SK Ljubljana in the women's - face stiff competition from new challengers. With live commentary provided by Alojzije Jankovic, Sandra Djukic and Lena Miladinovic through ECU TV and YouTube, viewers can follow the games daily as the battle for the European club crown unfolds in Rhodes.
Let us learn together how to find the best spot for the queen in the early middlegame, how to navigate this piece around the board, how to time the queen attack, how to decide whether to exchange it or not, and much more!
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.
10/15/2025 – The European Team Championship was exciting from start to finish and in the end the well deserved winner was Ukraine. Their top scorer Igor Kovalenko has a very impressive life story, having served at the front lines of the war for 2.5 years and now returning to top level chess. Our Game of the Week is his positional masterpiece from the important seventh round encounter against the Netherlands, in which he outplayed Loek van Wely with a very creative manoeuvre. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can <a href="https://account.chessbase.com/en/create-account" target="_blank">register a Premium account here</a>.
10/13/2025 – The 2025 US Chess Championships began in Saint Louis with an eventful first day that saw Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian take the early lead in the open section, while Irina Krush, Atousa Pourkashiyan and Anna Sargsyan prevailed in the women's event. The opening round was notable both for the quality of play and for the unusual sight of an arbiter holding an umbrella during one of the games. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
King’s Indian fans who choose the Mar del Plata attack (7...Nc6) against White’s classical system (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0) usually aim for a complex position with mutual attacks on open wings, requiring long-term strategic planning and tactical sharpness in critical moments. Computers often do not know how to handle the arising complex strategic positions, which suits players who like to think on their own instead of memorizing long variations. However, the fashionable Bayonet Attack (9.b4) interferes with Black’s ideas. After Black’s main move 9...Nh5 the positions opens, the lines get forced and computer analysis is important again. But this DVD offers an antidote against White’s Bayonet Attack, namely 9...a5! This move leads to sound positions with very few concrete lines, in which the focus is on strategy not on tactics. Objectively chances are equal but if Black knows what to do things might quickly become dangerous for White.
GM Blohberger presents a complete two-part repertoire for Black: practical, clear, and flexible – instead of endless theory, you’ll get straightforward concepts and strategies that are easy to learn and apply.
GM Blohberger presents a complete two-part repertoire for Black: practical, clear, and flexible – instead of endless theory, you’ll get straightforward concepts and strategies that are easy to learn and apply.
GM Blohberger presents a complete two-part repertoire for Black: practical, clear, and flexible – instead of endless theory, you’ll get straightforward concepts and strategies that are easy to learn and apply.
Opening videos: Sipke Ernst brings the Ulvestad Variation up to date + Part II of ‘Mikhalchishin's Miniatures’. Special: Jan Werle shows highlights from the FIDE Grand Swiss 2025 in the video. ‘Lucky bag’ with 40 analyses by Ganguly, Illingworth et al.
In this video course, Grandmaster Ivan Sokolov explores the fascinating world of King’s Indian and Pirc structures with colours reversed, often arising from the French or Sicilian.
EXPAND YOUR CHESS HORIZONS
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