3/2/2026 – A clear leader has emerged in the Challengers tournament at the Prague International Chess Festival, as 16-year-old Vaclav Finek moved a full point ahead of the field after defeating Daniil Yuffa with the white pieces. Divya Deshmukh, meanwhile, scored her first win of the event, while the remaining games ended drawn. The players now get a rest day before the final four rounds of the event take place from Tuesday to Friday. | Photo: Petr Vrabec / Prague Chess Festival
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.
FIDE Grand Swiss 2025 with analyses by Giri, Blübaum and many others. Opening videos by Kasimdzhanov, Sokolov and Blohberger. Training columns including ‘The Fortress’, ‘The Trap’, ‘Fundamental Endgame Knowledge’ and much more
€21.90
Finek and Divya score wins
After five rounds of the Challengers tournament at the Prague Chess Festival, 16-year-old Vaclav Finek stands clear at the top of the table with a full-point lead. The Czech IM secured his third victory of the event on Sunday by defeating Daniil Yuffa with the white pieces, moving to 4/5. His remaining two games have both ended in draws.
Yuffa had been one of four players trailing Finek by half a point before the round began. The loss leaves him outside the chasing group, which now includes Thomas Beerdsen, Jachym Nemec and Stepan Hrbek, all of whom drew their games in the final round before the rest day and trail the leader by a full point on 3/5.
The key game between Finek and Yuffa turned on a strategic decision. Yuffa chose to exchange his dark-squared bishop, a trade that left the dark-square complex around his king significantly weakened.
Finek responded energetically, advancing his kingside pawns and maintaining pressure in a position where all six major pieces remained on the board.
In this video course, Grandmaster Ivan Sokolov explores the fascinating world of Dutch and Grünfelkd structures with colours reversed. In this video course, Grandmaster Ivan Sokolov explores one of the most intriguing and under-examined areas of modern chess: reversed opening systems, focusing on the Reversed Grünfeld and the Reversed Dutch. At first glance, these two systems seem unrelated. However, they share a common strategic challenge: the value of tempi, structure, and psychology when familiar openings are played with colours reversed. Drawing on his long professional experience, Sokolov explains why these positions are far more subtle than they appear and why traditional engine evaluations often fail to capture their true complexity.
Free sample video: Introduction
Free sample video: Larsen’s b4 Plan vs Reversed Stonewall Setups: Larsen - Spassky
With his opponent's king exposed, Finek gradually increased the tension and converted his advantage in convincing fashion.
The only other decisive result of the day was scored by Divya Deshmukh, who obtained her first win of the tournament by defeating Surya Shekhar Ganguly with the black pieces. Deshmukh thus returned to a fifty-percent score, recovering from her earlier setback against Zhu Jiner in round three.
The critical moment came when Ganguly opted for 19.Nxh7?, a knight sacrifice that did not yield sufficient compensation.
White could have gone for 19.Qh3 and, in fact, have a slight advantage. Instead, there followed 19.Nxh7? Qh5 (the refutation) 20.Nxf6+ gxf6 21.f3 Qxh2+ 22.Kf2 Qh4+ 23.Kf1
Doesn’t every chess game get decided by mistakes? Absolutely. But most players never truly comprehend that they are making the same kind of mistakes over and over again.
The black knight jumped from e7 to d5 and from d5 to c3 in the following two moves, forking the rooks to gain an exchange. Ganguly resigned the game on move 35.
Divya Deshmukh | Photo: Petr Vrabec / Prague Chess Festival
Among the three drawn games, the encounter between Zhu and top seed Benjamin Gledura stood out. Zhu agreed to a draw by triple repetition in a position that engines assessed as better for her, with an evaluation of around +1.3.
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.
Given her difficult start to the tournament, which had seen her lose three of her first four games, the practical decision to secure half a point was understandable.
Zhu Jiner | Photo: Tomáš Krist / Prague Chess Festival
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.
2/25/2026 – The eighth edition of the Prague International Chess Festival was officially opened at the Don Giovanni Hotel in Prague, launching the Masters, Challengers and Futures tournaments. The event features the reigning World Champion, Gukesh Dommaraju, who played a symbolic opening duel with Czech beach volleyball world champion Ondřej Perušič. The game was part of the festival's ceremonial start ahead of play through 6 March. | Photo: Petr Vrabec
12/18/2025 – The Prague International Chess Festival will be held from 24 February to 6 March 2026. As the organisers have announced, Divya Deshmukh and Jiner Zhu, two of the world’s leading women players, will compete in the Challengers tournament. The event combines high-level chess with the opportunity to enjoy Prague, one of Europe’s most attractive cultural and tourist destinations.
This entry into the 60 minutes series concentrates on the Modern variation of the Italian game where White opens the centre early : 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 d4 exd4 5 e5!. This line can be reached by various move orders, most frequently from the Scotch 3 d4 exd4 4 Bc4. It's a sharp variation and Grandmasters such as Evgeny Sveshnikov have used it frequently,with very good results. It's a perfect line for club players to adopt which is relatively easy to learn and which contains many traps. All the main responses are covered here, including 5...d5, 5...Ng4 and 5...Ne4 and the conclusion is that is is difficult for Black to equalize in a straightforward way. Problems are being posed, which over the board might prove tough to solve.
In this course, Grandmaster Elisabeth Pähtz presents the London System, a structured and ambitious approach based on the immediate Bf4, leading to rich and dynamic positions.
Opening videos: Open Spanish (Sipke Ernst) and Classical Sicilian (Nico Zwirs). Endgame Special by Igor Stohl: ‘Short or long side’ – where should the defending king be placed in rook endgames? ‘Lucky bag’ with 35 master analyses.
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.
€39.90
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)
