11/9/2022 – IM Laura Unuk has been the best woman of her country, Slovenia for over seven years. She has won several Slovenia girls championships - Under-10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 from 2009 to 2017. She has also won a team Gold, individual Gold (2014) and Silver (2017) at European Under-18 Girls' Team. She is also the World Youth Under-16 (2014) and Under-18 Girls (2017) champion. The brand ambassador of Ferme Fashion and Huawei Slovenia also became the brand ambassador of Ford Slovenia. She was given a brand-new custom designed Ford Puma hybrid car which she calls Pumica (Baby Puma). On her 23rd birthday, we wish her a very happy birthday and bring you a short interview we conducted few days ago. Photo: Cestni Dirkac
new: ChessBase Magazine 225
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.!
2022 Candidates Tournament with videos by Rogozenco and Ris, "Special" on Anna and Mariya Muzychuk, opening videos by King, Marin and Sokolov. 11 opening articles with new ideas for your repertoire and much more.
This interactive video course of over 8 hours, provides an in-depth exploration of the Pirc Defence, a favoured opening for people looking to play for the win with the black pieces.
€49.90
Slovenia no.1 gets a custom designed Ford Puma
Generally, whenever a brand ambassador is concerned in the chess universe, it is mostly the male players who have been and are associated with top brands. For e.g. Magnus Carlsen with Puma, Master Card, Jan-Krzysztof Duda with Lenovo etc. However, an active female player being associated with a globally recognized brand is quite rare, at least as per our knowledge. So when we got to know that Slovenia no.1 woman IM Laura Unuk became a brand ambassador of Ford Slovenia, we had to share this news. What better way to do it, than on her birthday? We hope this will inspire more brands to choose female chess players as their brand ambassadors around the globe.
Shahid Ahmed (SA): How happy are you to become the Brand Ambassador of Ford? How did it happen?
Laura Unuk (LU): I am extremely happy, traveling is big part of my life and having a reliable car is very important to me. It was always a big dream of mine to have my name written on a car, so it's actually a dream come true.
Well, the story is not as charming. I had a car that was very unreliable and it had to be repaired every few months, thus costing a lot of dollars. I decided to reach out to companies and gave them idea of chess as a positive thing. Ford was interested in the idea and now we are collaborating.
SA: Is there any other sportsperson from your country, Slovenia, who is/was associated with the same brand?
IM Laura Unuk with Sales and Marketing Director at Summit Motors Ljubljana, Tomaž Oblak | Photo: Cestni Dirkac
SA: Apart from Ford, you are also a brand ambassador for Huawei and Ferme, is there any other brand, you are also an ambassador which we are unaware of?
LU: No that's all for now :) We are representing Tajfun company with our chess club but it's not an individual thing.
IM Laura Unuk with her Tajfun - ŠK Ljubljana teammates at European Chess Club Cup 2022 | Photo: WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni
SA: What does it mean being a brand ambassador of such a globally recognized brand like Ford?
LU: Well it's a dream come true for me. I am happy they recognised me and chess as a potential collaborator. I love bringing chess to other fields and they said they have many ideas how to involve me in Ford and how to involve Ford in chess. Chess is still known for being a game and I am excited to present it as much more.
SA: Being associated with Ford is as big as the world champion, Magnus Carlsen being the Brand Ambassador of Master Card and Puma, something that no other active female chess player have currently, as per my knowledge. Do you agree?
LU: Yes it's huge. Of course I am not a global ambassador bit just in Slovenia however it's still great.
IM Laura Unuk playing a friendly game on her Ford Puma | Photo: Cestni Dirkac
SA: Is there any other brand you would like to be associated with apart from the ones you are already in?
LU: Well yes. So I connect chess with elegance and artificial intelligence. Thus, I love bringing idea of chess to brands who can associate with it. For example Ferme Fashion is a female Slovenian designer, a woman who was self made and represents strength, elegance, sustainability and many more strong characteristics which I love to represent and can also be represented in chess. As long as you associate with chess I am very happy to collaborate.
IM Laura Unuk donning Ferme Fashion attire at Sporto Conference 2022
SA: What would be your message to all the chess players and those who are trying to get better at it?
LU: Better at chess or at representing brands? I am still trying to figure both :)
But the key is that I love representing chess as more than a game, chess is a way of life. It improves patience, intelligence, critical thinking, decision making, memory and many more things. With so many positive characteristics, not known to Slovenia public or world, I am trying to show to non chess players that we are not just sitting at the board for 5 hours. We are growing with each game.
IM Laura Unuk is also a brand ambassador of Huawei
Previous coverage of Laura Unuk
Former World Under-18 champion and top Slovenian player Laura Unuk - World Junior 2018 | Video: ChessBase India
"I just love playing chess" - Slovenia no.1 Woman IM Laura Unuk | Video: ChessBase India
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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