4/2/2026 – A clear leader has emerged after four rounds of the Candidates Tournament in Cyprus. Javokhir Sindarov defeated Fabiano Caruana in the clash of co-leaders to move to 3½ out of 4, with a full-point lead over his closest chaser. Anish Giri also won, beating Andrey Esipenko with black to return to a fift-percent score, while the remaining two games were drawn ahead of the tournament's first rest day. | Photo: FIDE / Yoav Nis
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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.
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.
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.
€59.90
A full-point lead for Sindarov!
Round four of the Candidates Tournament in Cyprus produced a decisive result in the marquee encounter of the day, as Javokhir Sindarov defeated Fabiano Caruana in the crucial clash of co-leaders. The victory gave Sindarov an impressive 3½ score and a full-point lead going into the event's first rest day, with Caruana now in sole second place.
It has been a dream start for the Uzbek grandmaster, who is the youngest player in the field — four months younger than Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. Although ten rounds remain, he has already put himself in a position to realistically fight for first place and the right to challenge Gukesh Dommaraju.
In this Fritztrainer: “Attack like a Super GM” with Gukesh we touch upon all aspects of his play, with special emphasis on how you can become a better attacking player.
Sindarov's recent rise has been notable: in January 2025 he was still below the 2700 mark (2692 Elo), whereas he has now climbed to sixth place in the live ratings with 2759.2. While it is worth noting that he has played three of his four games with the white pieces, consecutive wins over Pragg and Caruana - two of the pre-tournament favourites - underline the significance of his achievement.
The man of the hour - Javokhir Sindarov | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza
Despite the loss, Caruana remains alone in second place as the only player other than Sindarov to hold a plus score after four rounds.
Half a point behind Caruana, on 2/4, are three players: Praggnanandhaa, Anish Giri and Matthias Bluebaum. Pragg and Giri each have one win and one loss, while Bluebaum - in his first Candidates appearance - is the only player besides Sindarov to remain undefeated, having drawn all four of his games so far.
The other decisive result of the day came from Anish Giri, who defeated Andrey Esipenko with the black pieces. The remaining two encounters, Wei Yi v. Hikaru Nakamura and Bluebaum v. Praggnanandhaa, both ended in draws.
Bluebaum and Pragg produced a solid 37-move draw without major imbalances. Nakamura, meanwhile, was involved in the longest game of the round once again, though this time he was the one pressing for a win. He obtained an extra pawn in a double-rook endgame against Wei Yi but failed to convert. In his post-game recap, Nakamura identified 48…Rb2 as his final mistake, as it led to a rook exchange.
Nakamura noted that 48…f5 would have allowed him to continue testing his opponent's ability to defend the position a pawn down.
Let us learn together how to find the best spot for the queen in the early middlegame, how to navigate this piece around the board, how to time the queen attack, how to decide whether to exchange it or not, and much more!
Looking for the win - Hikaru Nakamura | Photo: FIDE / Yoav Nis
The two decisive games were strongly influenced by opening preparation. In the headline clash, Sindarov got to play a line he had specifically checked for this game - with 10.a4 out of a Queen's Gambit Accepted.
Caruana soon began to fall behind on the clock and, by move 18, was already an hour down. With a clear understanding of the resulting structures and plans, Sindarov steadily increased the pressure, while Caruana was forced to invest time on nearly every move. A couple of inaccuracies left Black in a structurally inferior position and under severe time pressure.
On move 27, Sindarov got to play a strong pawn break, which soon left him a pawn up with a dominant position.
Caruana continued for a few more moves, aiming to reach the time control in a tournament played without increment before move 40, but eventually resigned on move 36. At that point, he had just 48 seconds remaining, compared to Sindarov's 42 minutes.
Glorious sacrifices, unexpected tactics and checkmating attacks. The King's Gambit is one of the oldest and most romantic openings in the game of chess. This DVD contains all you need to know to tackle your opponent.
In Esipenko v. Giri, the Russian grandmaster opted for a sideline of the Najdorf Sicilian, likely relying on deep preparation. However, Giri demonstrated his extensive theoretical knowledge by navigating the line confidently.
Esipenko correctly sacrificed a pawn with 16.b4 in an attempt to generate queenside activity, but an inaccurate capture two moves later allowed Giri to seize the initiative.
The move 18…Ba4, gaining a tempo by attacking the rook, gave Black a clear advantage.
From there, Giri's handling of the initiative was nothing short of admirable, as he converted his advantage into a memorable 34-move victory.
This video course includes GM Anish Giri's deep insights and IM Sagar Shah's pertinent questions to the super GM. In Vol.1 all the openings after 1.e4 are covered.
In this video course, experts including Dorian Rogozenco, Mihail Marin, Karsten Müller and Oliver Reeh, examine the games of Boris Spassky. Let them show you which openings Spassky chose to play, where his strength in middlegames were and much more.
Carlos Alberto ColodroCarlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.
4/1/2026 – Two players have already established a clear lead after three rounds of the Candidates Tournament in Cyprus. Fabiano Caruana and Javokhir Sindarov both secured their second wins to move a full point ahead of the field. Caruana defeated Wei Yi following an uncharacteristic pair of errors by the Chinese grandmaster, while Sindarov overcame Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu in a double-edged struggle. | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza
3/30/2026 – The 2026 Candidates Tournament kicked off in style, with three decisive results from four games, all in favour of the player with the white piece. Fabiano Caruana defeated Hikaru Nakamura in the all-American clash between top seeds, while Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and Javokhir Sindarov scored wins of different nature over Anish Giri and Andrey Esipenko, respectively. The only draw came in Matthias Bluebaum v. Wei Yi. | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza
For a long time the Scotch opening was considered harmless and rarely played. This changed in 1990 when Garry Kasparov successfully employed the Scotch opening in his World Championship match against Anatoly Karpov. But that was 25 years ago. Now, there is no need to panic if you want to play 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 and need a line against the Scotch. On this 60 Minutes renowned and successful coach Adrian Mikhalchishin gives simple practical tips how to neutralize and counter the Scotch.
You will learn how Black's dynamic piece activity and structural counterplay more than compensate for White's extra tempo in the colour-reversed setups.
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.
€169.90
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