8/17/2018 – The chess action continues in Saint Louis. After the Rapid & Blitz tournament and before the Sinquefield Cup, Team Randy and Team Rex came back for another version of the ‘Ultimate Moves’ event. The Sinquefields led their Grandmaster-packed teams in a fun exhibition match that was eventually won by Randy’s squad. Magnus Carlsen was already in the premises and was part of the winning team. V. SARAVANAN reports | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes
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.
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.
€36.90
Light-hearted competitiveness
Having witnessed an unhealthy number of 145 games over 5 days, and before the exciting Sinquefield Cup starts on Saturday the 18th, the Saint Louis Chess Club had a breather of fresh air and laughter in the form of a fun event — ‘Ultimate Moves’. It also marked the day when World Champion Magnus Carlsen arrived at the venue, energetic and smiling, with his characteristic sense of humour and confidence in tow, while the large bunch of Grand Chess Tour players probably were already bored of each other after the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz.
Scarcely any world champion has managed to captivate chess lovers to the extent Carlsen has. The enormously talented Norwegian hasn't been systematically trained within the structures of a major chess-playing nation such as Russia, the Ukraine or China.
Magnus Carlsen arrives at Saint Louis, fit, confident and enjoying himself | Photo: V. Saravanan
‘Ultimate Moves’ has the same format every year – the sponsor Rex Sinquefield and his son Randy fight each other in a combined game by dividing the Grandmasters into their own teams. Rex and Randy always start the game and then the players switch after every five moves. A time control of five minutes for the whole game per team with five seconds gain per move is used.
Ultimate Moves — Randy Sinquefield versus Rex Sinquefield | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes
For the record, Rex Sinquefield’s team had Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Peter Svidler, Wesley So, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Sergey Karjakin, while Randy Sinquefield had Magnus Carlsen, Vishy Anand, Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Grischuk, Leinier Dominguez and Levon Aronian.
The match ended in favour of Team Randy with a 3½ : 2½ score.
Most of the time, the Grandmasters get unconventional — even dubious — positions out of the openings, and what follows is a delightful game of chess and fun. Everyone is encouraged to trash-talk against the opposite team, so the comments and trolling gets much more enjoyable than the moves themselves.
To enjoy the whole fun, we have to go through the entire video along with all the games:
To avoid them or to play them, you have to know them. In two Volumes we see gambits such as Frankenstein-Dracula Gambit, the Cochrane Gambit, the Belgrade Gambit, the King's Gambit, Marshall Gambit, the Scotch Gambit, the Jänisch Gambit and many more.
Game 2: Team Randy vs. Team Rex
Position after 39...Bf6
By rotation, Randy Sinquefield had once again occupied the table here and he missed the immediate win with 40.Qf7. He continued instead with 40.Qg4?? and exited the board, giving way to Magnus Carlsen who took the seat. Rex Sinquefield took quite some time, thought well, and counter-blundered with 40…Qe5, which was met with the holler “Nooo!” from his own teammates, while the opponent team members started laughing.
Rex blunders into mate in one to the amusement of his just arrived opponent Magnus, and the reactions from around had to be seen to be believed | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes
Carlsen could not contain himself and gestured to his imminent opponent to take his seat to suffer the mate in one - Shakhriyar Mamedyarov! | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes
Carlsen brought the house down when he sat down to play an offbeat Sicilian transposing out of 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bc4 in the fourth game:
After 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6! leads to the so-called "Accelerated Dragon Defense". On this DVD the Russian grandmaster and top women player Nadezhda Kosintseva reveals the secrets of her favourite opening.
Game 4: Team Randy vs. Team Rex
Position after 7...0-0
Asked about the position, a chuckling Magnus said, “I have played (this) against Anish (Giri), he played 3...Nf6 4.d3 g6 5.e5 dxe5 6.Nxe5 e6 7.Qf3 and he was already losing a pawn”, fondly (!) remembering his mutual Twitter troll Anish Giri, inviting loud laughter across the aisle. Of course, he was referring to a blitz game he played against Anish Giri at the 2016 Paris Grand Chess Tour.
Magnus Carlsen recalls his winning a pawn from Anish Giri, provoking laughter all around
But my moment of thrill with Magnus came on the fifth game, when Team Randy seemed to have acquired a flawed opening setup from the opening. When the World Champion sat on the board across Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, he seemed to be in a spot of bother:
At the airport, in the hotel or at home on your couch: with the new ChessBase you always have access to the whole ChessBase world: the new ChessBase video library, tactics server, opening training App, the live database with eight million games, Let’s Check and web access to playchess.com
Game 5: Team Rex vs. Team Randy
Position after 8.Qa4
Magnus took a look at the position for a few seconds and unleashed 8…a6 9.Qc4 b5!?, as it took quite some time to work out 10.Qxc6 Bd7 11.Qb7 Rb8 12.Qxa6 Ra8 as a draw! Well, the World Champion had arrived indeed…
Without doubt, the best trash-talker among the lot was Levon Aronian, who delighted the audience with his wit | Photo: V. Saravanan
And someone who thoroughly enjoyed himself was Wesley So, the relative 'kid' on the block | Photo: V. Saravanan
Without a doubt, everyone let their hair down and enjoyed themselves…
Sergey Karjakin | Photo: V. Saravanan
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov | Photo: V. Saravanan
Hikaru Nakamura | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes
Team spirit | Photo: V. Saravanan
But the problem with chess players is that they will get serious with their chess, often…
Venkatachalam SaravananSaravanan is an IM from Chennai, the southern-most state of Tamil Nadu, India. He has been an active chess player in the Indian circuit, turning complete chess professional in 2012, actively playing and being a second to strong Indian players. He has been consistently writing on chess since late 1980s and is a correspondent to national newspapers and news channels.
The Trompowsky is especially suited for faster time controls as you don‘t have to memorise endless lines of theory, and you push your opponent out of their comfort zone after your second move.
Trompowsky Powerbook 2025 is based on 53,000 computer games from the engine room of playchess.com as well as 49,000 games from Mega and correspondence chess.
Trompowsky Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 8727 games from Mega 2025 and the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 316 are annotated.
2025 European Championship with a German double victory and analyses by Bluebaum, Svane, Rodshtein, Yuffa, Navara and many more. Opening videos by Engel, King and Marin. Training sections “The Fortress”, “The Trap” and “Fundamental Endgame Knowledge" etc.
2nd Move Anti-Sicilian Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 12090 games from Mega 2025 or the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 874 are annotated.
€9.90
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.
