1/21/2020 – The 18th Gibraltar International Chess Festival starts today at the Caleta Hotel on the east side of the Rock of Gibraltar. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov tops the starting ranking list, joined by fellow "2700 club" members Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Wang Hao, Veselin Topalov, David Navara, Le Quang Liem and Kirill Alekseenko. Anatoly Karpov opened the festival with a simultaneous exhibition. Live games and commentary with GM David Howell and Fiona Steil-Antoni from 14:00 UTC (15:00 CET, 9:00 EST). | Pictured: Mayor of Gibraltar John Gonçalves, made the first move on the top board at the start of the 2020 Gibraltar Masters with top seed GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov from Azerbaijan. Currently No.8 in the world he played his first round game against 12-year-old Candidate Master Raahil Mullick from India. Photo: Niki Riga
new: ChessBase Magazine 225
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.!
YOUR PERSONAL CHESS COACH - Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before. FRITZ is more than just a chess engine – it’s a training revolution! Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.
From the 2026 Candidates Tournament, featuring a video review by Dorian Rogozenco, to Jan Werle’s opening video on the French Tarrasch Defence, and Oliver Reeh’s tactical column ‘Top Grandmasters at Work’. Analyses by Giri, So, Wei Yi and many others.
€21.90
Round 1
The Gibraltar International Chess Festival 2020 starts today and runs over nine rounds through January 30th. It is the 18th edition of the tournament, which takes place, as usual, at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar and is directed by GM Stuart Conquest.
In the Masters tournament, 240 players are in attendance, including almost 100 grandmasters. The top seeds are Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Maxim Vachier-Lagrave, but also five other grandmasters rated over 2700. In addition, many other grandmasters with well-known names play along, including Vassily Ivanchuk and Michael Adams. Notably absent this year is the U.S. Champion Hikaru Nakamura who has been a Gibraltar regular in the past. The top-rated woman in the field is Anna Muzychuk — 59th on the overall list.
Official teaser video
Live games and commentary
Players receive 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for 20 moves, then 15 minutes until the end of the game plus 30 seconds per move starting from move one.
At the airport, in the hotel or at home on your couch: with the new ChessBase you always have access to the whole ChessBase world: the new ChessBase video library, tactics server, opening training App, the live database with eight million games, Let’s Check and web access to playchess.com
Standings after Round 1 (top 20)
With 17 players each, England and Spain unsurprisingly have strong contingents, but they are surpassed by the Indian delegation, which comprises 29 players, led by Adhiban Baskaran, and featuring future stars Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh.
The Caro Kann is a very tricky opening. Black’s play is based on controlling and fighting for key light squares. It is a line which was very fashionable in late 90s and early 2000s due to the successes of greats like Karpov, Anand, Dreev etc. Recently due to strong engines lot of key developments have been made and some new lines have been introduced, while others have been refuted altogether. I have analyzed the new trends carefully and found some new ideas for Black.
Gibraltar is known in part for its high prize fund specifically for women, with the top scorer taking home GBP £20,000, ensuring once again that many women take part in the Chess Festival. Notable names include Alexandra Kosteniuk, Sarasadat Khademalsharieh, Lei Tingje, Tan Zhongyi and many more.
Continuing a trend, the Tehran Times recently reported that Sarasadat Khademalsharieh, the strongest woman from Iran and eighth best player in the country overall, as well as number 13 in the women's world rankings, had announced her withdrawal from the country's national team on her Instagram account.
For many years, the Gibraltar Open was one of the best attended open tournaments in the world, a successor to the long-running Aeroflot Open. In recent years the Isle of Man has outstripped Gibraltar in this respect, particularly last year when the tournament was upgraded to a qualifying event for the FIDE candidates tournament. But the Gibraltar Chess Festival remains a first-class destination and its Masters group one of the absolute top opens. It is popular among players not only because of the high prize money, but also because of its friendly and fun-filled atmosphere.
In addition to the Masters, amateur and challenge tournaments are offered, as well as a blitz tournament and a number of other side events.
On this DVD a team of experts looks closely at the secrets of Karpov's games. In more than 7 hours of video, the authors examine four essential aspects of Karpov's superb play.
The 12th world champion in simultaneous action
Former World Champion Anatoly Karpov opened the festival with a simultaneous performance on 29 boards, which Karpov won with 27-2 (+25, = 4).
Translation from German and additional reporting: Macauley Peterson
YOUR PERSONAL CHESS COACH - Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.
The Hyper-Accelerated Dragon is fast, from the very first moves, your bishop heads to g7, seizes the long diagonal, and turns into the most feared piece on the board.
It rewards players who love initiative and clear attacking plans.
The Hyper-Accelerated Dragon is fast, from the very first moves, your bishop heads to g7, seizes the long diagonal, and turns into the most feared piece on the board.
It rewards players who love initiative and clear attacking plans.
The Hyper-Accelerated dragon is fast, from the very first moves, your bishop heads to g7, seizes the long diagonal, and turns into the most feared piece on the board.
It rewards players who love initiative and clear attacking plans.
“Mate is great!” – Tactical training with Oliver Reeh, “The 8th rank” – Andy Woodward analyses his game against Magnus Carlsen from TePe Sigeman 2026, “A modern Nimzo-Indian” – Andrei Volokitin introduces readers to "his" system and much more!
Chess is a concrete game. There is no way around training your calculation skills. Improve your visualization, pattern recognition and learn calculation techniques such as reciprocal thinking with this course.
This compact course is designed specifically for practical play. Instead of overwhelming you with endless theory, it focuses on the critical lines, typical plans, and recurring tactical ideas.
Slav and Semi-Slav Powerbase 2026 is a database and contains a total of 11 766 games from Mega 2026 or the Correspondence Database 2026, of which 1136 are annotated.
€9.90
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.
.jpeg)
