8/15/2018 – The 25th edition of the Abu Dhabi Chess Festival kicks off today at Hotel Dusit Thani, Abu Dhabi. The anniversary event is extra strong this year, featuring five grandmasters with a 2700+ Elo, among them the FIDE Presidential candidate Nigel Short making a brief return to the chessboard amid a hectic campaign season.
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GM Blohberger presents a complete two-part repertoire for Black: practical, clear, and flexible – instead of endless theory, you’ll get straightforward concepts and strategies that are easy to learn and apply.
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Abu Dhabi Chess Festival turns 25
The 2018 Abu Dhabi Chess Festival is underway at Hotel Dusit Thani in the Emirati capital of Abi Dhabi. The tournament is a 9-round Swiss Open with a time control of 90 min per player plus 30 seconds per move starting from the first move.
Besides the main event, the festival also consists of an Open tournament for players rated below 2100 (since July 1st, 2017), a Juniors’ tournament for players below 16 years of age a blitz event and a lot more.
Celebrating its silver jubilee this year, the festival’s premier event, the Abu Dhabi Masters, will feature a field of very strong grandmasters. More than 100 titled players from 25+ countries have confirmed their participation this year.
In comparison to the previous year when Nigel Short was the top seed of the event with an Elo of 2688, this year, the tournament features five grandmasters rated above 2700. The line-up includes some well-known names like Richard Rapport, Le Quang Liem, Ivan Cheparinov, and Short, currently focused on the FIDE Presidential race, is back as well.
Some of the top grandmasters in the fray
GM Nigel Short has taken some time off his presidential campaign to play in Abu Dhabi | Photo: Prashant Mullick
Also, there are tons of very talented youngsters who can unsettle these bigwigs. Last year, the inaugural round had seen both of the top two seeds held to draws by players rated around 300 points lower and at least 14 years younger.
Aditya PaiAditya Pai is an ardent chess fan, avid reader, and a film lover. He holds a Master's in English Literature and used to work as an advertising copywriter before joining the ChessBase India team.
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.
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