2/22/2025 – On 15 February, Sportstar premiered the Sportstar Aces Awards 2025 on their YouTube channel. Divya Deshmukh received the award for sportswoman of the year (non-Olympic). She won the World Junior Girls Championship 2024 and achieved a double gold (individual and team) at the Chess Olympiad. The Indian Men and Women's teams received the National Team of the Year award for winning historic gold medals at the Chess Olympiad held in Budapest, Hungary. | Photos: Sportstar
new: Fritz 20
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.
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.
In almost every chess game there comes a moment when you just can’t go on without tactics. You must strike to not giving away the advantage you have worked for the whole game.
€39.90
A memorable year
Sportstar presented the Sportstar Aces Awards 2025 last week. Divya Deshmukh received the award for sportswoman of the year (non-Olympic) thanks to victories at the World Junior Girls Championship 2024 and at the Chess Olympiad. The Indian Men and Women's teams received the National Team of the Year award for winning historic gold medals at the Olympiad tournaments in Budapest.
Vidit Gujrathi and Srinath Narayanan were present to receive the men's award. Divya, Vantika Agrawal and Abhijit Kunte were present to receive the women's category award.
This DVD allows you to learn from the example of one of the best players in the history of chess and from the explanations of the authors how to successfully organise your games strategically, and how to keep your opponent permanently under pressure.
Legends Vishy Anand and Pravin Thipsay also attended this event and presented awards.
Divya Deshmukh gave this response when she was asked what would be the name of the channel if she starts streaming on popular social channels:
I think it would be something related to Queen's Gambit, I am not very sure. But maybe something like the Indian Beth.
Vidit Gujrathi had this to say when he was asked how chess became a team event when it is an individual sport at its core:
The format is simple. It's best four of each country playing the best four. This tournament (the Olympiad), where we won the gold, was played by I think more than 180 countries. So it was the best of the best players there.
Two Super Grandmasters from India explain the ins & outs of Attack, Tactics an Calculations in these two video courses.
Vidit and the captain of the team, Srinath Narayanan, were present to accept the award.
Abhijit Kunte, captain of the Indian women's team, said:
First of all, I would like to thank The Hindu group for honouring the Indian men and women's teams with this award. What they have achieved is [becoming] the second country in the world in the hundred years of Chess Olympiad to win men and women's titles together with more than a hundred countries participating. So I think it speaks for itself. The first country was USSR, which is not there anymore.
Abhijit, Divya and Vantika Agrawal were present to receive the award.
In this video course, GM Surya Ganguly joins IM Sagar Shah and drawing from his colossal experience, shares some uncommon endgame wisdom. The material mostly features positions with rook against rook and a pawn, and starts by covering the fundamentals.
Shahid AhmedShahid Ahmed is the senior coordinator and editor of ChessBase India. He enjoys covering chess tournaments and also likes to play in chess events from time to time.
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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