Alexandra Botez spectacular in Reykjavík - The Underdog

by Arne Kaehler
3/19/2024 – The famous Reykjavík Open is up and running, and ready for some surprises. Popular streamer Alexandra Botez managed to win against a South African opponent rated almost 400 Elo points higher than her! In the French Defence, her opponent played the MacCutcheon, which was covered by Robert Ris in ChessBase Magazine 198, and his Fast and Furious show (Links below). In the wild game, with several sacrifices, Alexandra converted the endgame in her favour.

Calculation Training for 1000-1400 players Calculation Training for 1000-1400 players

Mastering these tactical motifs is essential to deepen your understanding of the game and become a better player. After all, you neither want to overlook the given chances by your opponent, nor blunder yourself!

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The Underdog!

with IM Robert Ris

We all love stories where a vastly underrated player surprises everyone by beating a much stronger player. Fortunately, we are all human.

But how do these things happen? What are the moves that lead to success? And what can we learn from these examples for the times when we face a stronger opponent?

Dutch IM Robert Ris presents us with real-life examples of such encounters from the past month. Together with his co-host Arne Kaehler, they look at the tactics and strategies that led to the upset victory.

Here are the mentioned "MacCutcheon" Videos by Robert Ris:

ChessBase Magazine 198

Robert Ris has authored plenty of FritzTrainers for ChessBase — these are his newest, and perfect for every "Underdog"

Calculation Training for 1000-1400 players

Mastering these tactical motifs is essential to deepen your understanding of the game and become a better player. After all, you neither want to overlook the given chances by your opponent, nor blunder yourself!

Calculation Training for 1400-1600 players

Mastering these tactical motifs is essential to deepen your understanding of the game and become a better player. After all, you neither want to overlook the given chances by your opponent, nor blunder yourself!

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Links:

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.