12/25/2010 – We wish all our readers and friends, all over the world, a Merry Christmas
2010, wherever they are and in whatever
language they speak. The greetings are sent to you from snow-covered Hamburg,
in the north of Europe frozen to a standstill, with thousands stranded at airports
and train stations, trying desperately to get to their loved ones. Here is something
to cheer them up.
new: Fritz 20
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.
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.
2024 Chess Olympiad with analyses by Abdusattorov, Aronian, Giri, So, et al. Blohberger, Werle and Zwirs show new opening ideas in the video. 10 repertoire articles from English to King's Indian and much more!
€21.90
Christmas surprises
The "Hallelujah" chorus by George Frideric Handel, composed in London
during the summer of 1741, is one of the most beautiful and popular works in
the Western choral literature. Although the work was conceived for secular theatre
it was, like almost all music at the time, religiously inspired. Today you can
hear it everywhere during the Christmas season The Royal Melbourne Philharmonic
has performed it for 157 years in succession, and the Bethany College, Lindsborg,
Kansas, at least once every year for the past 130 years. The oratorio premiered
in Dublin, Ireland, on 13 April 1742. On a trip there we found the following
original scoresheet in the Christ Church Cathedral.
The above video, which you will notice has been watched by over 25 million
visitors, reminds me (Frederic Friedel) of something that happened many years
ago – during a Kasparov match and before the age of pocket video cameras
and YouTube unfortunately.
I was strolling with my wife around Covent Gardens in London, where there are
a number of open-air cafés. We were approached by an inconspicuous young
woman in jeans and t-shirt, a student type, who held a hat towards me. I smiled
and said “What for?”. She smiled back and did not reply. I followed
up with “If you want money from me I need to know what it is for.”
In the background there was a music box playing some classical strains. She
kept smiling and holding the hat.
Suddenly, cued by the music, she started to sing Carmen’s Habanera, from
two feet away, in a breath-taking rich contralto. I believe there is still a
puddle in Covent Gardens from the partially melted Fred. I gave her all the
money I had, plus my watch, fountain pen and cuff links. She was part of an
operatic students group and had given me the most intense musical experience
of my life. To get an impression of what it was like watch the following video
and imagine Angela Gheorghiu in jeans and a t-shirt, standing in conversational
distance from you.
Well, after this interlude on to our yearly Christmas puzzles, for which a
lot of readers have been clamouring.
This year the puzzles have been selected and will be presented by the world
problem solving champion Dr John Nunn, who will each day between Christmas
and New Year show us a variety of challenges, with no two installments being
of exactly the same type. There will also be some very nice prizes, which will
be announced during the course of the week. Here are the links you will need:
In this insightful video course, Grandmaster David Navara shares practical advice on when to calculate deeply in a position — and just as importantly, when not to.
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.
Trompowsky Powerbook 2025 is based on 53,000 computer games from the engine room of playchess.com as well as 49,000 games from Mega and correspondence chess.
Trompowsky Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 8727 games from Mega 2025 and the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 316 are annotated.
2025 European Championship with a German double victory and analyses by Bluebaum, Svane, Rodshtein, Yuffa, Navara and many more. Opening videos by Engel, King and Marin. Training sections “The Fortress”, “The Trap” and “Fundamental Endgame Knowledge" etc.
In this dynamic and practical video course, IM Andrew Martin arms you with powerful antidotes to White’s most annoying sidelines.
€34.90
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