12/24/2025 – The 12th Sunway Sitges Chess Festival concluded with a closely contested open tournament in the Catalonian seaside town. After ten rounds, first place was shared before a blitz play-off decided the title, while an additional knockout determined third place. Iranian GM Mahdi Gholami Orimi emerged as overall winner, ahead of Spanish GM Josep Manuel López, with French GM Jules Moussard completing the podium. | Photo: David Llada / Sunway Sitges Chess Festival (2024)
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In this video course experts examine the games of Steinitz. Let them show you which openings Steinitz chose, where his strength in middlegames were, how he outplayed his opponents in the endgame & you’ll get a glimpse of his tactical abilities!
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Gholami beats López in final playoff
The 12th edition of the Sunway Sitges Chess Festival concluded on Monday in Sitges, once again combining high-level competition with the relaxed coastal setting for which the event has become known. The main open tournament was played as a 10-round Swiss and attracted a field of 242 players representing 42 federations. Among them were 16 GMs and 25 IMs, underlining the event's strong international profile.
After ten rounds of play, first place was shared on points by two players, both finishing on 8/10. Iranian GM Mahdi Gholami Orimi, seeded seventh, and Spanish GM Josep Manuel López, the ninth seed, emerged at the top of the standings.
Going into the final round, Gholami was the sole leader on 7½ points, with a large, eight-player chasing group only half a point behind.
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In the decisive tenth round, Gholami opted for a solid approach with the white pieces and drew against top seed SL Narayanan, ensuring at least a share of first place. Among the eight players still in contention, only López managed to convert his chances, scoring a win with white against China's fifth seed Li Di to join Gholami at the top.
Tournament regulations required a two-game blitz play-off between Gholami and López to determine the overall winner. Gholami took the initiative by winning the first game with the black pieces, and then secured the title by holding a draw with white in the second encounter. This result crowned him champion of the 2025 Sunway Sitges Chess Tournament.
A separate blitz knockout was organised to decide third place. Eight players tied from third to tenth in the final standings on 7½/10 qualified for this playoff. French GM Jules Moussard, the tournament's third seed, navigated the blitz stage successfully and claimed the bronze medal to complete the podium.
After 10 intense rounds, the champion of the tournament had to be decided in a playoff, that also decided 3rd place among 6 players tied with half a point less than the 2 leaders. Amazing setup as usual thanks to #SunwaySitges team! pic.twitter.com/HYX6lD20Ze
Master your middlegame with the complete strategy series – now available as a bundle at a reduced price. Take your chance to save and improve! Master your middlegame with the complete strategy series – now available as a bundle at a reduced price. Take your chance to save and improve!
Let us learn together how to find the best spot for the queen in the early middlegame, how to navigate this piece around the board, how to time the queen attack, how to decide whether to exchange it or not, and much more!
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.
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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