8/14/2024 – The second day of rapid chess at the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament finished with three players tied atop the standings with 8/12 points. Alireza Firouzja and Ian Nepomniachtchi caught up with former leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave after each scoring a win and two draws on Tuesday. Levon Aronian stands in sole fourth place, 1 point behind the co-leaders. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
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.!
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In this video course, Grandmaster Ivan Sokolov explores the fascinating world of Dutch and Grünfelkd structures with colours reversed.
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Nepo, Firouzja and Caruana with plus scores
Three players finished day 2 of the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz with plus scores. Two of them are now sharing first place with former sole leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave - i.e. Alireza Firouzja and Ian Nepomniachtchi - while defending champion Fabiano Caruana recovered from a tough first day of action and is now one of four players standing 3 points behind the co-leaders with a -1 score (5/8).
There was plenty of fighting chess on Tuesday, but only 4 out of 9 games ended decisively. Firouzja obtained 2 out of the 4 wins, while Nepomniachtchi and Caruana scored 1 win each.
One of the most entertaining games was seen in round 5, when Nodirbek Abdusattorov failed to make the most of an extra queen in his encounter with white against Caruana.
White has to deal both with the passers on the c and e-files and with a potential perpetual check. The one winning move here is 70.Qf2, since:
70...c1Q fails to 71.Qf4+
70...Kd1 fails to 71.Qc3 and after 71...Qh1+ the only winning move is 72.Kg3 (72.Kg5 is bad due to 72...Qc1+ with a crucial check)
Abdusattorov played 70.Qxc2+ instead, and after 70...Kxc2 71.Qxe2+ Kc3 72.Kg5 Caruana escaped with a draw by giving a perpetual check.
In this video course, experts including Dorian Rogozenco, Mihail Marin, Karsten Müller and Oliver Reeh, examine the games of Boris Spassky. Let them show you which openings Spassky chose to play, where his strength in middlegames were and much more.
72...Qd8+ 73.Kf4 Qd4+ 74.Kg5 Qd8+, etcetera. And the contenders soon signed a draw.
Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Fabiano Caruana trying to deal with a position featuring three queens on the board | Photo: Lennart Ootes
After ending day 1 with a 50-percent score, Firouzja collected wins in both his games with white on Tuesday. In round 4, he got the better of Hikaru Nakamura, who faltered decisively in an ending with rooks and bishops of opposite colours.
This position would remain balanced after 33...bxa6 34.bxa6 Bb5 35.Ra1 Rd7, and there is no obvious way to break through for either side.
However, after Nakamura erred with 33...b6 White gets the upper hand by playing 34.Rc7 Bxb5 35.Rxa7 Ra3 36.Ra8+
After 36...Kf7 37.a7 the a-pawn will eventually win the day for White. Firouzja went on to show good technique until getting an important 54-move victory.
Three more rounds of rapid chess will be played on Wednesday, while the two final days of action will see the participants battling it out in a blitz double round-robin.
Still trying to figure out the intricacies of the tricky endgame - Hikaru Nakamura | Photo: Lennart Ootes
Levon Aronian having a look at the tournament trophy | Photo: Lennart Ootes
In this video course, GM Surya Ganguly joins IM Sagar Shah and drawing from his colossal experience, shares some uncommon endgame wisdom. The material mostly features positions with rook against rook and a pawn, and starts by covering the fundamentals.
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.
In this course, you’ll learn how to take the initiative against the London and prevent White from comfortably playing their usual system by playing 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 Nh5.
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.
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