Robert Ris' Fast and Furious: Nakamura vs Firouzja - who knows the Italian better?

2/27/2025 – In his new Fast & Furious show, Robert Ris takes an in-depth look at a fascinating theoretical battle between Alireza Firouzja and Hikaru Nakamura. Last week they added three more games to their theoretical discussion in the Italian Opening, battling it out in a line that Hikaru used against Alireza at last year's Candidates - and since then a few more games have been played in this variation. | Fast & Furious is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can <a href="https://account.chessbase.com/en/create-account" target="_blank">register a Premium account here</a>.

Robert Ris' Fast and Furious: Mamedyarov!

2/14/2025 – In his new Fast & Furious episode, Robert Ris presents a game, in which Shakhriyar Mamedyarov sacrificed his queen and showed how he likes to play against 1.b3. | Fast & Furious is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can <a href="https://account.chessbase.com/en/create-account" target="_blank">register a Premium account here</a>.

60m The Two Knights

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.