4/13/2025 – Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura reached the final of the Paris Freestyle Chess Grand Slam after winning their respective semifinal matches against Fabiano Caruana and Vincent Keymer. Both matches were decided without the need for tiebreaks, with Carlsen and Nakamura each scoring 1½–½. Meanwhile, Arjun Erigaisi and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave forced tiebreaks in their placement matches and advanced to the battle for fifth place. Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu secured ninth place by defeating Richard Rapport. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
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.
Dominate the Open Catalan: Unlock key strategies and dynamic plans for a lifetime repertoire!
€49.90
Carlsen beats Caruana, Naka beats Keymer
The final of the 2025 Paris Freestyle Chess Grand Slam is set to feature the world’s top two players, as Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura both won their semifinal matches on Saturday to book their place in Sunday's final.
Magnus Carlsen defeated Fabiano Caruana 1½–½ in their match. The deciding encounter saw Carlsen dominate the early middlegame, gaining space and initiative. Caruana spent over half an hour considering his response to 11.h4 and eventually opted for the bold 11...Qb8!? - a move which initially looked questionable but soon showed deep positional intent.
Carlsen v. Caruana
Despite navigating his way into a complex endgame, Caruana struggled with time pressure, and Carlsen capitalised with a strong sequence starting with 25.c5. The game ended after 44 moves with Carlsen securing the win and the match.
Top trainers strongly recommend regular study of well-explained classical games to improve your understanding of chess in the long term. 33 modern classics are explained in details on this video course.
Magnus Carlsen v. Fabiano Caruana | Photo: Stev Bonhage
Hikaru Nakamura also progressed with a 1½–½ score, ending Vincent Keymer's unbeaten classical run in freestyle chess. Keymer opened with the unusual 1.d4 d5 2.b3, a line which Nakamura admitted had concerned his colleagues during earlier preparation.
Keymer v. Nakamura
While the computer initially approved of Keymer's handling of the position, Nakamura gradually took control. A key moment came with 14...0-0-0, repositioning his king to safety and shifting the momentum firmly in his favour.
Black castled long here, with the king transferring to c8 and the f8-rook to d8
This video course features the ins-and-outs of the possible setups Black can choose. You’ll learn the key concepts and strategies needed to add this fantastic opening to your repertoire. An easy-to-learn and yet venomous weapon.
Keymer was unable to recover, and Naka claimed the full point to secure his place in the final.
In the placement matches, Arjun Erigaisi and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave both won their second games to level their matches and force tie-breaks. Arjun's win, hailed by commentators as the standout performance of the day, helped carry that momentum into the rapid games, where both players advanced to the match for fifth place.
Elsewhere, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu defeated Richard Rapport to take ninth place in the overall standings.
The final day of the tournament will feature Carlsen v. Nakamura for the title, Caruana v. Keymer in the third-place match, and Arjun v. Vachier-Lagrave for fifth.
From Mating with a queen; a rook; two bishops; a knight and a bishop; to the basics of pawn endgames – here you will gain the necessary know-how to turn your endgame advantages into victories!
Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu v. Richard Rapport | Photo: Stev Bonhage
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.
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.
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 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
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, analysis cookies and marketing cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies. Here you can make detailed settings or revoke your consent (if necessary partially) with effect for the future. Further information can be found in our data protection declaration.
Pop-up for detailed settings
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies, analysis cookies and marketing cookies. You can decide which cookies to use by selecting the appropriate options below. Please note that your selection may affect the functionality of the service. Further information can be found in our privacy policy.
Technically required cookies
Technically required cookies: so that you can navigate and use the basic functions and store preferences.
Analysis Cookies
To help us determine how visitors interact with our website to improve the user experience.
Marketing-Cookies
To help us offer and evaluate relevant content and interesting and appropriate advertisement.
