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Press release by the Play Magnus Group
The Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour is a showcase for some of the world’s most talented young male and female chess players, and we’re now into the final regular event on the tour.
The Hou Yifan Challenge is named after the current women’s no. 1 and 4-time Women’s World Champion Hou Yifan, who is also one of the coaches helping Vladimir Kramnik and Judit Polgar provide advice and instruction to the players.
The prize fund is $15,000, with $3,000 for the winner, who also gets to play alongside Magnus Carlsen and co. in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour — the winner of the Hou Yifan Challenge will now be invited to the first event on next year’s tour, starting in February 2022.
The action kicks off at 10:00 ET/16:00 CEST/19:30 IST on Saturday 18th September, with five rounds of 10+5 rapid chess, before there are four rounds on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. All games are played in the chess24 Playzone.
Calculation Training in Attack & Defence Vol.1 & Vol.2
The two DVDs offer you the chance to solve 66 exercises with multiple questions. These exercises are presented in the interactive format, which makes them accessible for players of different strengths as we will go through the thought process step by step
The top seed is Praggnanandhaa, who won the first event on the tour, the Polgar Challenge, while his Indian colleague Gukesh, who won the Gelfand Challenge, doesn’t play. That’s significant, as Gukesh is currently in the Top 8 players on the tour who will be invited to next month’s $40,000 Final, but he can now be caught.
The current player scores — there are 20 points for finishing 1st, 19 for 2nd, and so on:
| Title | Name | Rtg | Club | Polgar Ch | Gelfand | Kramnik | Hou Yifan | Total |
| GM | Keymer Vincent | 2591 | Polgar | 15 | 18 | 20 | 53 | |
| GM | Abdusattorov Nodirbek | 2627 | Kramnik | 19 | 15 | 18 | *NP | 52 |
| IM | Murzin Volodar | 2478 | Polgar | 16 | 17 | 15 | 48 | |
| GM | Liang Awonder | 2592 | Polgar | 14 | 13 | 19 | 46 | |
| IM | Yoo Christopher Woojin | 2455 | Kramnik | 13 | 14 | 17 | 44 | |
| GM | Praggnanandhaa R | 2608 | Kramnik | 20 | 19 | 39 | ||
| GM | Gukesh D | 2578 | Polgar | 18 | 20 | *NP | 38 | |
| GM | Lei Tingjie | 2505 | Kramnik | 10 | 10 | 16 | 36 | |
| GM | Nihal Sarin | 2620 | Polgar | 17 | 16 | *NP | 33 | |
| IM | Mendonca Leon Luke | 2549 | Kramnik | 12 | 12 | 6 | 30 | |
| WGM | Zhu Jiner | 2459 | Polgar | 9 | 7 | 11 | 27 | |
| GM | Bjerre Jonas Buhl | 2550 | Kramnik | 11 | 8 | 7 | *NP | 26 |
| IM | Khademalsharieh Sarasadat | 2494 | Polgar | 5 | 11 | 9 | *NP | 25 |
| IM | Shuvalova Polina | 2476 | Polgar | 7 | 3 | 10 | *NP | 20 |
| IM | Yip Carissa | 2430 | Kramnik | 3 | 2 | 14 | *NP | 19 |
| IM | Saduakassova Dinara | 2500 | Kramnik | 1 | 5 | 12 | *NP | 18 |
| IM | Salimova Nurgyul | 2397 | Kramnik | 8 | 6 | *NP | 14 | |
| IM | Mammadzada Gunay | 2443 | Polgar | 4 | 9 | 13 | ||
| IM | Maurizzi Marc Andria | 2488 | Polgar | 13 | *NP | 13 | ||
| IM | Abdumalik Zhansaya | 2472 | Polgar | 6 | 4 | *NP | 10 | |
| FM | Daggupati Balaji | 2429 | Polgar | 8 | 8 | |||
| FM | Sokolovsky Yahli | 2415 | Kramnik | 5 | 5 | |||
| IM | Badelka Olga | 2433 | Kramnik | 2 | 1 | *NP | 3 |
*NP = not playing
In fact, given who’s playing in the Hou Yifan Challenge, it’s only Leon Mendonca and Zhu Jiner who are outside the Top 8 and have a chance to break in during the event. For instance, 9th place for China's Zhu Jiner would see her overtake Gukesh.
There are also overall team standings, with the teams competing for a trip to Dubai during the Carlsen-Nepomniachtchi World Chess Championship match. Team Polgar has a big lead — 260½ points to 234 — but Team Kramnik has some reinforcements for this event.
Power Play 24: A repertoire for black against the Catalan
On this DVD Grandmaster Daniel King offers you a repertoire for Black against the Catalan, based around maintaining the rock of a pawn on d5. Keeping central control ultimately gives Black good chances to launch an attack against the enemy king.
12-year-old Abhimanyu Mishra needs no introduction after becoming the youngest chess grandmaster in history at the age of 12 years, 4 months and 25 days, while there are also two young Polish players making their debut on the tour on the personal recommendation of World Cup winner Jan-Krzysztof Duda.
18-year-old Paweł Teclaf reached the semi-finals of this year’s Polish Championship, while 21-year-old Oliwia Kiołbasa pulled off a shock by taking bronze at this year’s European Women’s Championship, despite starting as only the 43rd seed.
Vishali, a former Girls World Youth Under 12 and Under 14 Champion, was previously announced as a reserve, and will now join her brother Praggnanandhaa in playing.
Team Polgar also sees two players who were previously reserves making their debut: 14-year-old Indian IM Aditya Mittal and 16-year-old Russian WGM Leya Garifullina, who knocked Olga Girya out on the way to Round 3 of the recent FIDE Women's World Cup.
Live commentary will be provided on all four days of the event from Latvian Grandmaster Arturs Neikšāns, who will be joined first by Ellen Nilssen, and for later days by Boris Gelfand, with more guests sure to join the commentary.
Master Class Vol.11: Vladimir Kramnik
This DVD allows you to learn from the example of one of the best players in the history of chess and from the explanations of the authors (Pelletier, Marin, Müller and Reeh) how to successfully organise your games strategically, consequently how to keep y
