2/23/2025 – French Grandmaster Marc'Andria Maurizzi delivered a commanding performance to win the Djerba Masters, a 10-player single round-robin held on the paradisiac Tunisian island. The 17-year-old secured first place with a round to spare and finished with an impressive 7½/9 score. Belgian GM Daniel Dardha claimed second place as the only other undefeated player, while Parham Maghsoodloo and Volodar Murzin shared third. | Photos: Djerba Chess Festival
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. ChessBase Magazine offers first-class training material for club players and professionals! World-class players analyse their brilliant games and explain the ideas behind the moves. Opening specialists present the latest trends in opening theory and exciting ideas for your repertoire. Master trainers in tactics, strategy and endgames show you the tricks and techniques you need to be a successful tournament player! Available as a direct download (incl. booklet as pdf file) or booklet with download key by post. Included in delivery: ChessBase Magazine #225 as “ChessBase Book” for iPad, tablet, Mac etc.!
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.
Knights add irrational content to any position. However, in this video tutorial you will learn how to tame them.
€34.90
Six wins and three draws
The Djerba Masters, a classical chess tournament held on the Tunisian island, saw a commanding performance from 17-year-old French Grandmaster Marc'Andria Maurizzi. Displaying remarkable consistency, Maurizzi secured six wins and three draws, clinching first place with a round to spare after defeating Bassem Amin with the white pieces on Saturday.
Despite already having an unassailable 1½-point lead over his closest rivals, Maurizzi ended the event in style, beating Volodar Murzin in the final round to conclude with a 7½/9 score. His outstanding performance earned him a 2898 Tournament Performance Rating (TPR) and a gain of 35.4 rating points.
Maurizzi, who obtained the GM title in 2021 at the age of 14, is the youngest French player ever to achieve the title. His successes include winning the 2023 World Junior Chess Championship in Mexico City and a strong showing at the 2024 Tata Steel Challengers tournament, where he finished in shared second place with 9/13 points. His triumph in Djerba further solidifies his status as a rising star in the chess world.
In round six, the eventual champion defeated his countryman Etienne Bacrot with the white pieces. The all-French duel saw Bacrot, fittingly, playing the French Defence. The game only lasted 22 moves, and featured a good-looking final move (full game analysis below).
Maurizzi v. Bacrot
Bacrot resigned here, as Black's pieces (stuck on the queenside) are unable to defend the king
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!
Volodar Murzin kibitzing the game between Parham Maghsoodloo and Vasyl Ivanchuk during the fifth round
Second place in the tournament went to Daniel Dardha, the 2024 champion. The 19-year-old Belgian GM was the only player apart from Maurizzi to remain undefeated. Entering the final round tied for second place with Murzin, Dardha secured clear second place by defeating Vasyl Ivanchuk with the white pieces. Murzin's loss against Maurizzi allowed top seed Parham Maghsoodloo to catch him in shared third place with 5/9 points after beating David Navara.
Meanwhile, the youngest participant, 11-year-old Argentine Faustino Oro, faced a challenging tournament. As the clear rating underdog, he managed three draws but suffered six defeats. Despite his struggles, the significant rating difference meant he only lost 7.6 rating points, while gaining valuable experience against high-level opposition.
This position had been
played recently in high-level games: Gurel v. Vaishali at this year's Tata
Steel Challengers, Navara v. Tabatabaei at the 2024 French Teams Championship
and Santos v. Bluebaum at the 2024 Bundesliga. Thus, it is strange that it
only took ten more moves for Bacrot to resign the game.13.a3Na514.Rb1Qc7This turned out to be a bit too slow. Surely, players who go for the French
Defence with black are used to finding themselves in positions that are
evaluated as inferior by engines due to the lack of space, but in this case,
this queen manoeuvre was the start of a bad sequence for Black.Better is
the more active14...Nc4and e.g.:15.Bf2Qa515.b3fxe5Again Black
fails to feel the danger. Opening up the f-file turned out to be a wrong
decision as demonstrated later in the game. Moreover, Bacrot needed to somehow
find coordination for his pieces despite the lack of space.In hindsight,
it is quite clear that Black should have preferred to enter a queenless
position with15...cxd416.cxd4Qxc1+17.Bxc116.dxe5
16...b517.g3
Opening up the "short" diagonal on the kingside for the light-squared bishop.Bb718.Bg2Of course not18.Bh3due tod4attacking two minor pieces
at once.18...Rac819.0-0Nb6Black was already in trouble, but this move
leads to a surprisingly quick defeat.19...Rfd8is necessary, vacating the
f8-square for either the knight or the bishop to defend the vulnerable king.
There might follow20.Kh2Nf821.Qe1Qd722.Bh3as White attempts to
bring more pieces to a potential attack.20.Qc2
20...Qd7Too passive.
Black's best chance is to go for the drastic20...d421.cxd4and e.g.c422.Qg6cxb323.Bh3though White is clearly for choice here as well.21.Qg6Rc622.Ng5
A beautiful final move!22.Ng5hxg522...Bxg523.fxg5Qe824.Rxf8+Kxf825.Rf1+Ke726.Qxg7+Kd827.Rf823.h6Bd824.fxg5Rf525.g4Rxf1+26.Rxf1Qe726...Rc727.h7+Kh828.Rf8#27.h7+Kh828.Rf71–0
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.
Ruy Lopez Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 12092 games from Mega 2025 and the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 1276 are annotated.
In this 60 Minutes, Andrew Martin guides you through all the key ideas you need to know to play with confidence. Whether you’re looking to surprise your opponents, or simply want a straightforward weapon against e5, the Centre Attack has you covered.
Videos by Mihail Marin: Najdorf Variation with 6.f4 and Nico Zwirs: Italian ‘giucco pianissimo’. ‘Lucky bag’ with 45 analyses by Edouard, Ftacnik, Gupta, Pelletier and others. Update service with over 50,000 new games for your database!
This video course provides a comprehensive and practical White repertoire in the Ruy Lopez! Through instructive model games and in-depth theoretical explanations, you will learn how to confidently handle both main lines and sidelines.
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.
€21.90
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.
