9/20/2024 – India suffered their first match defeat in either section of the Olympiad in Thursday's eighth round, as the women's squad was beaten by Poland, the third seeds in the event. Wins by Alina Kashlinskaya (pictured) and Monika Socko allowed the Polish team to catch up with India in the standings. They are now tied for first place with Kazakhstan, who edged out France by a 2½-1½ score. Three teams - Ukraine, United States, and Armenia - are just 1 match point behind the leading trio as the competition heats up with only three rounds to go. | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza
ChessBase is a personal, stand-alone chess database that has become the standard throughout the world. Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it.
Winning starts with what you know The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
Unlock the secrets of one of the most resilient and strategic openings in chess with our comprehensive video course, “The Caro-Kann Defence.”
€36.90
India, Poland and Kazakhstan share the lead
India's dominance in the Women's Olympiad came to a halt in round 8, as Poland secured a 2½-1½ victory over the previously undefeated Indian team on Thursday. Wins by Alina Kashlinskaya and Monika Socko on the top two boards secured Poland's win, despite Divya Deshmukh defeating Aleksandra Maltsevskaya. The game on board 4 saw Vantika Agrawal losing a clear advantage in a single move, handing India their first defeat in the event.
Poland's triumph allowed them to join the top-seeded Indian team in the lead, while Kazakhstan also caught up with the co-leaders. Kazakhstan, with wins by Bibisara Assaubayeva and Alua Nurman (both with white), defeated France by the narrowest of margins. Kazakhstan have now won all their matches except their round-5 clash against India.
The competition for the top spots is now wide open, with three teams standing just 1 point behind the co-leaders: Ukraine, the United States, and Armenia. All three teams won their respective matches on Thursday, with Armenia's 3½-½ victory over Mongolia particularly impressive, given how strong the Mongolian squad had been at the start of the event.
In this video course, experts (Pelletier, Marin, Müller and Reeh) examine the games of Judit Polgar. Let them show you which openings Polgar chose to play, where her strength in middlegames were, or how she outplayed her opponents in the endgame.
As India and Kazakhstan already faced each other in round 5, the top pairing for round 9 is Poland v. Kazakhstan, which could feature an exciting clash between two in-form players -Kashlinskaya and Assaubayeva - on the top board. India will face the United States, while Ukraine will take on Armenia.
Alice Lee and Carissa Yip (standing behind) both won on Thursday for the United States and have been performing remarkably well in Budapest | Photo: FIDE / Maria Emelianova
Poland 2½-1½ India
This key clash could have easily ended with a 2-2 draw, had Vantika Agrawal not blundered in the following position while playing white against Alicja Sliwicka.
Vantika v. Sliwicka
Despite only being a pawn up, White is totally winning here, as these positions with major pieces and opposite-coloured bishop clearly favour the side with the safer king.
Here the straightforward 56.Re7, threatening mate on g7, wins for White - she should not fear 56...c5+, since after 57.Kg1 Qf8 White wins with 58.Qe4 (diagram), while after the desperate 56...Rf1+ 57.Kxf1 Qh1+, the king can escape the potential perpetual check.
Analysis diagram
Instead, Vantika's 56.Qe4 allowed Sliwicka to escape with 56...Qxa5.
After 57.Bc2, Black can force the queen swap with 57...Qd5
After 57.Qe8+ Rf8 58.Qg6, as seen in the game, Black has 58...Qf5, and the queens left the board in the next turn
The game continued until move 79, when a draw was finally agreed.
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 quick post-mortem in Vantika v. Sliwicka | Photo: FIDE / Mark Livshitz
Kazakhstan 2½-1½ France
Similarly to the aforementioned game in the India v. Poland match, France's Pauline Guichard misplayed a position with a queen, a rook and a minor piece per side. However, in this case, Guichard's mistake allowed Kazakhstan's Alua Nurman to play a winning combination.
Nurman v. Guichard
41...Qc4 was a decisive mistake (41...Kh7 or 41...Rc8 were correct), as it allowed 42.Qd2+ Kh7 43.Ng5+ Kh8 44.Qd8+ Ng8 and now 45.Qe8, a subtle move which creates deadly threats with the queen and knight tandem.
45...Qc5+ 46.Kh1 Qe7 47.Qxh5+ Nh6 48.Qg6 and Black resigned.
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.
Juliana Terao - "PISTACHIO ice cream is the best!"
In this Video-Course we deal with different dynamic decisions involving pawns. The aim of this Course is to arm club/tournament players with fresh ideas which they can use in their own practice.
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.
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.
Experts examine the games of Max Euwe. Let them show you which openings Euwe chose to play, where his strength in middlegames were, which tactical abilities he had or how he outplayed his opponents in the endgame.
This interactive video course of over 8 hours, provides an in-depth exploration of the Pirc Defence, a favoured opening for people looking to play for the win with the black pieces.
Pirc Defence Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 10027 games from Mega 2025 or the Correspondence Database 2024; of these 874 are annotated.
The Pirc Defence Powerbook 2025 consists for a greater part of engine games (168 000), to which has been added high value material from Mega and the Correspondence Database (115 000).
The free app from ChessBase! ChessBase Mobile has everything you need as a chess player on the go:
access your chess data in cloud databases - and 13 million games.
€0.00
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, analysis cookies and marketing cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies. Here you can make detailed settings or revoke your consent (if necessary partially) with effect for the future. Further information can be found in our data protection declaration.
Pop-up for detailed settings
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies, analysis cookies and marketing cookies. You can decide which cookies to use by selecting the appropriate options below. Please note that your selection may affect the functionality of the service. Further information can be found in our privacy policy.
Technically required cookies
Technically required cookies: so that you can navigate and use the basic functions and store preferences.
Analysis Cookies
To help us determine how visitors interact with our website to improve the user experience.
Marketing-Cookies
To help us offer and evaluate relevant content and interesting and appropriate advertisement.
