5/15/2008 – Their rating difference is just 116 points. But former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik is dominating the rapid chess match against top Czech GM David Navara. Kramnik won the first three of eight games, drawing the fourth for a halftime stand of 3.5:0.5. A big gala event kicked off the CEZ Chess Trophy, with blindfold chess and (you believe it) hacky sack displays. Illustrated report.
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Tata Steel 2026 with analyses by Bluebaum, Giri, L'Ami, Woodward and many more. Opening videos by Kasimdzhanov, Marin and Zwirs. 10 exciting opening articles with new repertoire ideas and much more.
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CEZ Chess Trophy 2008
14th-18th May 2008, in Prague
The event is an eight-game rapid chess match between the world's second
highest ranked player, former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik and the
top grandmaster of the Czech Republic, David Navara.
The rate of play is 25 minutes per player per game, with a five second
increment per move. Two games are played per day from Wednesday, May 14th
and Sunday, May 18th, starting at 5:00 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. Friday is a
free day with simultaneous exhibitions by the 2008 Czech champion Vlastimil
Babula and by Vladimir Kramnik.
The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the
Playchess server.
The event is also host to an exhibition of humorous chess drawings and
cartoons.
Vladimir Kramnik speaks with match commentator Grandmaster Lubomir Kavalek
... and with GM Sergei Movsesian (perspective distortion – Sergei is not
a Hobbit)
A blindfold chess exhibition with GM Marek Vokac playing against WGM Katerina
Nemcova, with the great blindfold master GM Vlastimil Hort executing the moves
on the sensor board and referee Pavel Votruba watching.
A demonstration by Vasek Klouda, world champion in hacky
sack
Curious? Here's what a Vasek Klouda performance looks like. There is plenty
more in YouTube
Press conference with David Navara and Vladimir Kramnik
After the first half Vladmir Kramnik leads by 3.5:0.5 points
In this video course experts examine the games of Bent Larsen. Let them show you which openings Larsen chose, where his strength in middlegames were, how he outplayed his opponents in the endgame & you’ll get a glimpse of his tactical abilities!
From the 2026 Candidates Tournament, featuring a video review by Dorian Rogozenco, to Jan Werle’s opening video on the French Tarrasch Defence, and Oliver Reeh’s tactical column ‘Top Grandmasters at Work’. Analyses by Giri, So, Wei Yi and many others.
You will learn how Black's dynamic piece activity and structural counterplay more than compensate for White's extra tempo in the colour-reversed setups.
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.
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