2/3/2023 – The play-in phase of the Airthings Masters is taking place on February 3 and is open to all grandmasters. A total of 54 players will qualify to the knockout stage set to start on Monday. A 9-round Swiss tournament will be followed by 2-game matches to decide who qualifies and to which division of the knockout. | Follow the live commentary, starting at 17.00 CET (11.00 ET, 21.30 IST)
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.!
Your personal chess trainer. Your toughest opponent. Your strongest ally. FRITZ 20 is more than just a chess engine – it is a training revolution for ambitious players and professionals. Whether you are taking your first steps into the world of serious chess training, or already playing at tournament level, FRITZ 20 will help you train more efficiently, intelligently and individually than ever before.
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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A Swiss and a knockout
Hundreds of professional players worldwide will take part in the flagship Champions Chess Tour, played on Chess.com, before an overall winner is crowned Tour Champion for 2023. Norway’s GM Magnus Carlsen, two-time Tour winner, the world number-one, and arguably the greatest player in chess history, will defend his title.
The competition includes open qualifiers and a division system to include more players in the Tour, as well as many innovative format changes designed to maximize excitement and make every match count.
The Airthings Masters is the first event of the Tour. In the play-in phase, a total of 54 players will qualify to the knockout stage set to start on Monday, February 6.
Follow the commentary webcast provided by the official organizers. Find more info about the format below the video feed.
The aim of this course is to help you understand how to make tactical opportunities arise as well as to sharpen your tactical vision - these selected lectures will help to foster your overall tactical understanding.
Commentary by David Howell, Tania Sachdev, Robert Hess, Kaja Snare & Jovanka Houska
Format
The Airthings Masters has a Play-in stage, open to all grandmasters, and a Knockout stage featuring three divisions. Each division has separate prize funds, with players also winning Tour Points according to the division they played in and their placement. By the end of the tour's sixth event, the players with the most Tour Points get a spot in the CCT Playoff.
Play-In
Open to all grandmasters.
Play-in consists of a nine-round Swiss and a “Match Play” stage.
The time control is 10+2.
The top-ranked players from the Swiss advance to the Match Play stage.
The top six players from the Swiss pick, one by one, their opponents for their Match Play among players placed between seventh and 12th.
The remaining Match Play pairings are based on players' Swiss final placement.
Each match in Match Play consists of two games.
A bidding Armageddon game breaks Match Play ties: there is a 10-minute base time for the armageddon game. The bid winner has the choice of color and starts the game with the amount of time they bid. Black has draw odds. If the bid is tied, players bid again. There is no increment.
Following Match Play, players advance to the Knockout stage and enter one of three divisions based on their results.
Wesley So published two new opening DVDs: 1.b3, the so called Nimzo-Larsen-Attack, for White and his black secrets in the modern Italian. Get them in a package and save money!
Knockout
The Knockout stage features 56 players playing across three different divisions based on their Match Play results:
Division I: 8 players.
Two invited players (Carlsen and So).
The six winners of the matches between the top-12 players from the Play-in Swiss.
Division II: 16 players.
The six losers of the matches between the top-12 players from the Play-in Swiss.
The ten winners of the matches between players placed 13th to 32nd in the Play-in Swiss.
Division III: 32 players.
The 10 losers of the matches between players placed 13th to 32nd in the Play-in Swiss.
The 22 winners of the matches between players placed 33rd to 76th in the Play-in Swiss.
Each division has prize money and Tour Points on the line.
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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