8/18/2018 – The Riga Tech University Open from August 6th to 12th was won by a pair of Armenian grandmasters: Robert Hovhannisyan and Manuel Petrosyan, each scoring 7½ / 9. Hovhannisyan was undefeated with six wins; Petrosyan scored a whopping seven wins, one loss and a draw. Among the trailing pack on 7 / 9 were the young and talented Russian GM Andrey Esipenko, and the German GM Rasmus Svane. | Photos: Tournament page
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.!
The Petroff (or Russian) Defence which is characterised by the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 has been popular at the highest levels for many years and enjoys the reputation of being an extremely solid defence.
Master your Technique Vol. 2 is a must-have for ambitious players who want to confidently convert “better” positions, or turn equal ones into wins.
€39.90
German talents ditch national championship
An impressive phalanx of young, strong grandmasters faced off at the RTU-Open in Latvia, among them the cream of the German crop: Bluebaum, Donchenko, Svane, Schroeder, Kollars — a series of (roughly) 2600s, which testifies that at the top of the German chess the "young savages" are gaining ground. In Riga they could expect both stronger opposition and a threefold higher prize fund (€15,000 euros) than in the German Championship.
Of this group, Svane performed the best with five wins and four draws to reach a tie for 3rd-9th places. The biggest piece of the prize cake was sliced off by two Armenians: Robert Hovhannisyan and Manuel Petrosyan landed in shared first with 7½ / 9, followed by local hero Igor Kovalenko and upcoming Russian star Andrey Esipenko among two of the seven players with 7/9.
The RTU-Open
The 16-year-old Esipenko is going to be one to watch in the coming years. He has been steadily moving up the ranks of the Top Juniors list — currently at number 18.
In the seventh round, he dismantled IM Cruz Lledo's dubious novelty 9...f5 in the Queen's Gambit Accepted.
Also in the seventh round, Hovhannisyan took down his main rival GM Igor Kovalenko with a killer blow:
Garry Kasparov took to the Queen’s Gambit at a relatively late stage of his chess career, but then had the best training anyone could imagine: in his first match for the world championship against Anatoly Karpov, this opening appeared on the board no less than 19 times. Now he shares his knowledge with you.
Petrosyan won his last three games to pull into a tie for first place including a fine effort in the last round against local Latvian GM Nikita Meshkovs.
White has been dutifully "playing for two results" and has managed to get his opponent into a position where he has no constructive moves. But 34...h6 proved to be quite destructive after the nice manoeuvre, 35.Nc3 Re5 36.Rxe5 Qxe5 37.Rd5! Qf6 38.Rf5, targeting the f7 pawn. Black is helpless.
For the German delegation, the tournament went pretty well. After two thirds she was closed on the upper ranks to find — with one exception: Matthias Bluebaum started poorly (2/4) and even had to look up to his father Karl-Ernst (Elo 2253) playing on a higher board.
The Semi-Slav with 5.g3 offers White a simple but dangerous weapon to fight one of Black's most popular options against 1.d4. Rather than emphasizing on the loads of theory, the 60 min DVD thoroughly explains typical plans for White to develop his pieces effectively while keeping an eye on tactical traps.
Karl-Ernst Bluebaum (back right) was ahead of his 400-Elo stronger son Matthias
Alexander Donchenko missed with 5/6 in a superior position the jump to 6/7. He lost first the thread, then the game (see below) and ended finally with 6/9 in the "pocket money" prize group.
Dimitrij Kollars should be even less satisfied, as he scored 5/8 but lost the last round without a fight. He was in good company, however, with the prodigious new GM Praggnanandhaa among those in the 5/9 score group after he "castled" to finish the tournament — an indication of just how strong the RTU Open has become.
Kreisl, from Austria, scored his second GM-norm after pragmatically taking a short draw with white in the ninth round to finish with a performance of 2629.
On this DVD, Victor Bologan shows how to successfully combat the Pirc, Alekhine and Scandinavian Defences with a complete opening repertoire. As ever, Bologan recommends the main lines.
Conrad SchormannConrad Schormann, skilled newspaper editor, runs an agency for editing and communication in Überlingen, at Lake Constance. But he lacks time to play chess which is partly due to the fact that he very much likes to write about it, for Chessbase, in the Reddit chess forum, or for his chess teaching blog Perlen vom Bodensee...
London System Powerbase 2026 is a database and contains in all 11 285 games from Mega 2026 and the Correspondence Database 2026, of which 282 are annotated.
The London System Powerbook 2026 is based on more than 410 000 games or game fragments from different opening moves and ECO codes; what they all have in common is that White plays d4 and Bf4 but does not play c4.
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.
€9.90
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