Anastasia Corotcova vs. Mikhail Tal (Level = Strong Club Player)

by Arne Kaehler
6/26/2026 – Anastasia Corotcova challenged the virtual version of Mikhail Tal in Fritz 21, hoping to experience the legendary attacking style that made the former World Champion famous. After gaining a promising position, she and Arne Kaehler struggled to find a series of critical defensive moves, allowing Tal’s relentless sacrificing attack to take over. The game was full of tactical fireworks and captured the feeling of facing the real “Magician from Riga,” making it an entertaining and memorable experience.
YOUR PERSONAL CHESS COACH - Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.
FRITZ is more than just a chess engine – it’s a training revolution! Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.

Anastasia Corotcova vs. Mikhail Tal (Level = Strong Club Player)

Tactical analysis of the game

YOUR PERSONAL CHESS COACH - Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.
FRITZ is more than just a chess engine – it’s a training revolution! Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.

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Topics: fritz 21, yagmur gunduz
Arne Kaehler, a creative mind who is passionate about board games in general, was born in Hamburg and learned to play chess at a young age. By teaching chess to youth teams and creating chess-related videos on YouTube, Arne was able to expand this passion and has even created an online course for anyone who wants to learn how to play chess. Arne writes for the English and German news sites, but focuses mainly on content for the ChessBase media channels.
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6/13/2026 – Yağmur Gündüz takes on Fritz 21 and shows that even club-level players around 1200 Elo can have exciting and entertaining games against the engine. Although Yağmur quickly gets into a difficult position and loses several pawns, she keeps fighting actively, finding creative tactical ideas involving forks, pins, and mating threats. The game suddenly turns around as the “Fork Queen” uncorks a series of strong tactical combinations and reaches a winning position. The episode demonstrates perfectly that Fritz 21 is not only enjoyable for grandmasters, but can also provide fun, learning moments, and real excitement for ambitious hobby players.

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Video

60m The Two Knights

This entry into the 60 minutes series concentrates on the Modern variation of the Italian game where White opens the centre early : 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 d4 exd4 5 e5!. This line can be reached by various move orders, most frequently from the Scotch 3 d4 exd4 4 Bc4. It's a sharp variation and Grandmasters such as Evgeny Sveshnikov have used it frequently,with very good results. It's a perfect line for club players to adopt which is relatively easy to learn and which contains many traps. All the main responses are covered here, including 5...d5, 5...Ng4 and 5...Ne4 and the conclusion is that is is difficult for Black to equalize in a straightforward way. Problems are being posed, which over the board might prove tough to solve.