10/18/2025 – We take a unique behind-the-scenes look at how top chess masters organize their digital workspace. Grandmasters and trainers like Svitlana Demchenko, Robert Ris, Michael Prusikin, Harald Schneider-Zinner, Frederik Svane, Felix Blohberger, and Dorian Rogozenco share their screens to reveal their personal ChessBase 18 setups — from meticulously clean desktops to chaotic databases full of ideas. They show us their board designs, current projects, and discuss their favourite or most-used ChessBase functions, offering fascinating insights into how great minds prepare, study, and work with chess every day.
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.
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.
Instead of forcing you to memorise endless lines, Raja focuses on clear plans, typical ideas, and attacking motifs that you can apply in your own games without delay. A short, focused, and practical repertoire.
€39.90
My ChessBase 18 Desktop! - Chess Masters invite us in
with Dorian Rogozenco, Robert Ris, Svitlana Demchenko, Frederik Svane, Felix Blohberger, Harald Schneider-Zinner, and Michael Prusikin
Dorian Rogozenco
Grandmaster Dorian Rogozenco reveals his clean and highly organized ChessBase setup, where only the essential databases for his current projects are visible.
He explains that he’s currently working on a Rubinstein Masterclass, gathering and analysing all of Rubinstein’s games while using specialized opening databases.
Rogozenco demonstrates how he connects live tournament games with the Opening Encyclopedia to instantly identify novelties and explore related positions — a workflow that keeps his study dynamic and up-to-date.
Although his desktop looks minimal, it hides a deep structure of personal repertoires, analytical files, and multilingual resources that reflect his decades of disciplined work with ChessBase.
Dorian Rogozenco
0:00 – Clean ChessBase 18 Setup: Dorian shows his minimalist desktop and explains why he keeps only essential databases open.
1:24 – Rubinstein Project: He mentions his new Rubinstein Masterclass and how he organizes all of Akiba Rubinstein’s games.
2:14 – Opening Encyclopedia 2025: Dorian highlights how much he relies on the Opening Encyclopedia for research and preparation.
2:51 – Live Database Demo: He demonstrates how he tracks current tournaments and links live games directly to the encyclopedia.
7:01 – Personal Repertoire: Dorian opens his own repertoire files for White and Black, showing his clean and efficient working system.
Top trainers strongly recommend regular study of well-explained classical games to improve your understanding of chess in the long term. 33 modern classics are explained in details on this video course.
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.
The Queen’s Gambit Declined Exchange Variation with 5.Bf4 has a great balance between positional play and sharp pawn pushes; and will be a surprise for your opponents while being easy to learn for you, as the key patterns are familiar.
After 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4 Nc6 5.Bb5 Bd7 6.Qd3, White sidesteps mainline theory and steers the game into less explored, strategically rich positions.
In this course, you will learn the foundations and key ideas of the Vienna Game and discover a variety of systems that make you extremely difficult to prepare for.
Tata Steel 2026 with analyses by Bluebaum, Giri, L'Ami, Woodward and many more. Opening videos by Kasimdzhanov, Marin and Zwirs. 10 exciting opening articles with new repertoire ideas and much more.
In this course, Dutch Grandmaster Jan Werle presents a modern and practical repertoire in the French Advance Variation, focusing on the critical line 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3.
One of the major battlegrounds of the Queen’s Gambit Declined is the Catalan, and against it Zwirs chose an ambitious strategy: accept the pawn and hold onto it with …c6 and …b5, aiming for an unbalanced fight from the very start.
€9.90
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