8/20/2026 – Tan Zhongyi lost a game for the first time in the final round of the Cairns Cup. Thanks to her exceptionally strong performance over the first eight rounds and a draw by her only remaining challenger, Alice Lee, the Chinese player secured her second Cairns Cup title in Saint Louis, following her 2024 triumph. There is no reason for the 16-year-old Lee to be disappointed, however, as finishing second allowed her to earn her first grandmaster norm. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club
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Biel Chess Festival 2025 with analyses by Aravindh, Navara, Wojtaszek et al. Opening videos by Blohberger, Engel and Sokolov. Training columns ‘The fortress’, ‘Opening traps , ‘Fundamental Endgame Knowledge’ and much more
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Tan Zhongyi deservedly wins the Cairns Cup
Former women's world champion Tan Zhongyi found out just how useful it is to go into the final round with a substantial lead at the Cairns Cup. She suffered her first defeat in round nine, but thanks to her five wins and three draws she still had enough of a cushion to be awarded the winner's trophy outright after her closest rival Alice Lee drew her game.
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Tan Zhongyi would surely have liked to finish the tournament unbeaten, but her defeat against Stavroula Tsolakidou does little to diminish her performance | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club
It looked as though Tan would face an opponent in the final round whose energy might be beginning to fade. Stavroula Tsolakidou had remained unbeaten through round six. The Greek IM had even retained theoretical chances of winning the tournament and/or earning a GM norm. But she then lost to Bibisara Assaubayeva in round seven and to Carissa Yip in round eight. The spotlight of the final round seemed to inspire the 26-year-old, however. She played an excellent positional game and obtained a convincing win.
With this victory, Tsolakidou finished fifth in the strong field and gained 8 Elo points. She was the only player to inflict a defeat on both Tan and Lee, handing each of them their only loss of the tournament - a notable achievement. Tournament winner Tan, meanwhile, leaves with the trophy, $65,000 in prize money and a gain of 16 Elo points.
The Trompowsky is especially suited for faster time controls as you don‘t have to memorise endless lines of theory, and you push your opponent out of their comfort zone after your second move. Nowadays, the list of requirements for an opening repertoire is long: being sound and sustainable; not requiring much memorisation; offering great attacking chances; making your opponent think early on etc… The time of finding a minimal advantage from the opening has passed, and we are better off with a more practical approach - simply understanding the position better than our opponent does. The Repertoire for White 1.d4 ... 2.Bg5! from IM Robert Ris answers all these requirements!
Free video sample: Introduction
Free video sample: 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 e6 3.e4 Be7/d5/c5
Stavroula Tsolakidou had every reason to smile after defeating the tournament winner and former women's world champion | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club
The other winner: Alice Lee
Alice Lee was no longer able to catch the leader, but she was nevertheless delighted in the interview after her game. Finishing second in such a strong tournament is still a major success. Furthermore, with her score, the 16-year-old also earned her first GM norm. There was an added twist: in the final round, she faced her friend and defending champion Carissa Yip, needing another half-point to secure the norm.
Friends Alice Lee and Carissa Yip have already played many wild games against each other - their encounter on Wednesday was not quite as exciting, but it ended with an excellent achievement for the 16-year-old | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club
Lee admitted: "I was nervous before the game and unhappy with the opening because I was on the defensive". Yip's advantage, however, lasted only from moves 13 to 22 and, according to the engine, peaked at around one and a half pawns. Lee once again showed composure, equalised and reached a balanced endgame. Even then, she was not entirely reassured, as in this position...
...she had been worried about 40...Bf2 and envisaged having to defend for a long time with inactive pieces. After all, the bishop on f2 cannot be driven away, and Black could try to break through on the kingside. The engine, however, evaluates the position as 0.00.
Eventually, this position arose and, just when everyone expected Yip to repeat moves, she feinted a new move with a smile in Lee's direction – only to play 46...Ke8 after all, allowing 47.Ng1 and a repetition:
"I'm relieved and happy", Lee said afterwards, unsurprisingly, following what was probably the best tournament of her career so far, in which she defeated four grandmasters.
Two players who will want to forget the tournament
What goes through the mind of a former world champion after starting a major tournament with four straight losses? Alexandra Kosteniuk showed resilience and recovered. She drew four games in a row and then won her final-round game against Vaishali Rameshbabu. The result saw the two swap places: Kosteniuk finished second-last, while her opponent ended at the bottom of the standings. Whether Vaishali's result had anything to do with not wanting to reveal too much before her World Championship match is impossible to know. What is clear is that both will probably want to put this tournament behind them quickly.
Looking for a realistic way to play for a win with Black against 1.e4 without taking unnecessary risks? The Taimanov Sicilian is a reliable system, and hence one of the best options out there!
A positive finish for Alexandra Kosteniuk (left): after opening with four defeats, she followed with four draws and then scored her first win in the final round against Women's World Championship challenger Vaishali Rameshbabu | Photo: Lennart Ootes
Two more players without a win
Alongside Lee's draw, round nine produced two further draws. Bibisara Assaubayeva and Humpy Koneru agreed a draw that was a fair reflection of the play. Assaubayeva thus finished fourth overall, while the winless Koneru placed eighth.
Anna Muzychuk also finished without a win, but unlike Koneru, she remained unbeaten. She recorded her ninth draw in the ninth and final round. With black, she had little difficulty keeping the balance in her game against Divya Deshmukh.
The two DVDs offer you the chance to solve 66 exercises with multiple questions. These exercises are presented in the interactive format, which makes them accessible for players of different strengths as we will go through the thought process step by step
Stefan LiebigStefan Liebig, born in 1974, is a journalist and co-owner of a marketing agency. He now lives in Barterode near Göttingen. At the age of five, strange pieces on his neighbour’s shelf aroused his curiosity. Since then, the game of chess has cast a spell over him. Flying high in the NRW youth league with his home club SV Bad Laasphe and several appearances in the second division team of Tempo Göttingen were highlights for the former youth South Westphalia champion.
8/19/2026 – Tan Zhongyi (pictured) is on course for her second Cairns Cup title in Saint Louis after her 2024 triumph. Following her win against Bibisara Assaubayeva in the eighth round, she needs just a draw to secure overall victory. The only player who can still catch her is Alice Lee. She defeated Vaishali Rameshbabu, and a draw against Carissa Yip in the final round would be enough for the 16-year-old to earn her first grandmaster norm. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club
8/12/2026 – Tan Zhongyi and Alice Lee (pictured) maintained perfect scores after the second round of the Cairns Cup in Saint Louis. Tan defeated Humpy Koneru after breaking through on the queenside, while Lee overcame fellow overnight leader Divya Deshmukh in a rook ending. Defending champion Carissa Yip bounced back from her opening-round loss by beating Alexandra Kosteniuk, leaving Tan and Lee alone at the top on 2/2. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club
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.
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.
The Italian Four Knights is the ideal choice. It combines the solid foundation of classical openings like the Ruy Lopez or the Italian Game with an active, initiative-driven style of play.
IM Andrew Martin shows why this 19th-century opening weapon still is a fantastic choice for club players. The Evans produces exciting chess and teaches the art of attack.
The major part of the material on which the Petroff Defence Powerbook 2026 is based comes from the engine room of playchess.com: 357 000 games. This imposing number is supplemented by another 17 000 from Mega and from correspondence chess.
Petroff Defence Powerbase 2026 is a database which contains 6475 high class games from Mega 2026 and the Correspondence Database 2026, of which 682 annotated.
Videos: Felix Blohberger presents the surprise weapon 4…a6 in the Four Knights Game. Mihail Marin analyses the English Opening with 1.c4 e5 2.g3 g6 3.d4 exd4 4.Qxd4 Nf6 5.Bg2 Nc6. Plus the ‘Lucky bag’ featuring 37 analyses by Berg, Radjabov and others.
€14.90
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