Pranesh takes first place

Pranesh M (right, photo: Lennart Ootes) won the 2026 Kanizsa Open in Nagykanizsa, Hungary. The Indian GM remained unbeaten over nine rounds and scored 7 points. The second seed and one of the pre-tournament favourites made a flying start with four wins, followed by four draws. In the final round, he defeated German representative Vadym Petrovskiy, who finished 30^th, to secure the winner's trophy. IM Or Bronstein, GM Andrei Volokitin and GM Karthik Venkataraman also finished on 7 points. Tiebreaks decided the order, with Bronstein taking second place ahead of Volokitin and Venkataraman. A total of 226 players from 36 federations took part in the tournament.

Bluebaum well off the pace

For top seed GM Matthias Blübaum, by contrast, the tournament was disappointing. The German grandmaster, rated 2689 and number one on the starting list, scored only 4½ points and finished 21^st. After a reasonable start with two wins and two draws, he lost to IM Adelard Bai from Chinese Taipei in round five. Bluebaum subsequently managed two more wins, but also had to settle for two further draws. With this result, he lost around 17 Elo points and moved further away from the 2700 mark.

Korchynskyi impresses

Evans & Friends Vol.1 & 2

This is a full repertoire after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 focussing on the Evans Gambit as the main weapon.
Few openings teach the art of attack as directly as the Evans Gambit. After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4, White gives up a pawn to rip open the position, build a powerful center and head straight for the black king. The best part is that the tactics aren't forced or memorized. They arise naturally from the position, which makes the Evans the ideal opening for club players and ambitious juniors who want sharper, more confident results. But a great gambit is only half a repertoire. Across these two volumes, IM Andrew Martin gives you the complete picture after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3, with a clear, ready-to-play answer to everything Black can throw at you.

The tournament went very differently for 16-year-old FM Mykola Korchynskyi. The German junior, who entered the event rated 2408 and seeded 63^rd, finished 11^th, ten places ahead of Bluebaum. Korchynskyi scored 5½ points and gained 20.5 Elo points. He thus continued the remarkable progress he has made in recent years: only in November 2025, Korchynskyi won the U16 section of the European Youth Championship in Budva with an outstanding 7½/9 points, including a final-round victory over Austrian IM Lukas Dotzer (see photo right, photo: German Chess Federation / Philipp Mueller).

Like Bluebaum, Korchynskyi began with two wins and two draws before losing his fifth game. His finish, however, was considerably stronger: he scored 3½ points from the final four rounds. After drawing GM Maksim Chigaev in round three, he defeated the well-known GM Gleb Dudin in round seven and GM Gergely Antal in round nine. In between, he also drew with black against GM Bence Korpa.

Here is his attractive game against Gleb Dudin, who even allowed his opponent to deliver a particularly elegant checkmate on the board:

Final standings

How to exchange pieces

Learn to master the right exchange! Let the German WGM Elisabeth Pähtz show you how to gain a strategic winning position by exchanging pieces of equal value or to safely convert material advantage into a win.

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Improve your pieces - a winning system you need to know

In this course, we will learn how to identify passively placed pieces in any given situation and how to improve their health by bringing them into active squares.