8/15/2024 – Ian Nepomniachtchi (pictured), Alireza Firouzja and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave all scored 3/6 points on Wednesday and remained atop the standings of the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz Tournament. Going into the blitz, 9 out of 10 players in the field have realistic chances of winning the title - R Praggnanandhaa has been struggling in the event and is now a whole 7 points behind the co-leaders. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
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 COACH - Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before. FRITZ is more than just a chess engine – it’s a training revolution! Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.
The Hyper-Accelerated Dragon is fast, from the very first moves, your bishop heads to g7, seizes the long diagonal, and turns into the most feared piece on the board.
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Nepo, Firouzja and MVL top the standings
More than half the games played on Wednesday finished decisively at the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament. However, there were no big changes in the standings, as most players finished the day with a 50-percent score. The exceptions were Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura - who obtained a +1 - and R Praggnanandhaa, who finished with -2.
These results left Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alireza Firouzja and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave tied for first place with 11 points each. Levon Aronian remains in sole fourth place 1 point behind, while five other players have 8 or 9 points to their names. With 18 rounds of blitz to go, this means anything could still happen in Saint Louis. The one player who is having a mix of bad form and bad luck is Pragg - but we all expect him to recover in the final two days of action.
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.
Regarding the race for Grand Chess Tour points, things are looking good for Firouzja, who entered the event in second place in the tour standings, only behind Fabiano Caruana, who won both the Superbet Classic in Romania and the SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz in Croatia.
Alireza Firouzja | Photo: Lennart Ootes
The round-9 encounter between Firouzja and Aronian saw both kings remaining uncastled out of a French Defence. Aronian got a clear advantage in the tricky middlegame, but made a crucial mistake on move 30.
Black's active pieces and safer king (which was transferred to g8 'manually') grant him a major advantage. Aronian's 30...Bc6, however, was not the way to go here.
The path to victory begins with 30...Rxc2+, trading White's one active rook, and after 31.Kxc2 Ra8 32.Qb7 Ba4+ 33.Kd3 Rb8 34.Qa7 Rb3+ Black would have managed to bring his rook and bishop tandem to the attack while White is only defending with the knight.
Instead, after the text, it was White who traded rooks with 31.Rxc4, gaining one key tempo to bring his other rook to the defence - i.e. 31...dxc4 32.Rc1 Rb2+ 33.Rc2, and Black has lost most of the momentum he had a few moves ago.
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.
YOUR PERSONAL CHESS COACH - Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.
Most players don’t lack the urge to attack, they just strike at the wrong moment, and GM Sipke Ernst shows you which signals tell you to go for the king and which tell you to choose another plan.
How grandmasters win without fireworks: GM Jan Markos shows you 11 very practical tips from "How to play in a lost position" to "Be patient like Carlsen" that will improve your tournament chess.
The Nimzo-Indian has stood the test of time for over a century: Still a top choice for elite players today, from Magnus Carlsen to Praggnanandhaa, it remains one of Black's most reliable ways to fight for real chances against 1.d4 2.c4 3.Nc3.
1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Bb4!? is an opening idea well worth considering. Black immediately threatens to double the pawns on c3 in the style of the Trompowski or Sicilian Grand Prix attack.
Italian Game Powerbase 2026 is a database and contains 8571 top class games from Mega 2026 and the Correspondence Database 2026, of which 479 are annotated.
€9.90
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