Close matches

The quarterfinals of the Women's Speed Chess Championship kicked off with two exciting matches. Polina Shuvalova defeated Hou Yifan in tiebreaks after winning the fourth and final bullet game on time (in a losing position). Later in the day, Vaishali Rameshbabu knocked out Alexandra Kosteniuk after scoring three consecutive wins in the final encounters of the bullet section to get an overall 9-8 victory.

In both cases, the eventual winner had lost against the exact same opponents in the previous edition of the event, as noted by Dani Sharon on X. Last year, Hou and Kosteniuk - two former women's world champions - had defeated Shuvalova and Vaishali by 13½-7½ and 13-8 scores respectively.

Attack & Master Advanced Tactics and Calculations like a Super Grandmaster

Two Super Grandmasters from India explain the ins & outs of Attack, Tactics an Calculations in these two video courses.

The two remaining quarterfinal matches will take place on Tuesday: Ju Wenjun v. Alice Lee will start at 15.30 CEST, while Kateryna Lagno v. Valentina Gunina will kick off at 18.00 CEST. The semifinals and final will be played on Wednesday and Thursday, a day before the start of the Speed Chess Championship main event - featuring the much anticipated Magnus Carlsen v. Hans Niemann match in Paris.

Hou's king hunt

3-minute game

All games - Quarterfinals

Live webcast

How to play the Sicilian Defence!

The continuous stream of new ideas in the Sicilian makes 1..c5 the most popular answer to 1.e4. On this DVD I do give an introduction to the most important Sicilian systems.

Master Class Vol.16 - Judit Polgar

In this video course, experts (Pelletier, Marin, Müller and Reeh) examine the games of Judit Polgar. Let them show you which openings Polgar chose to play, where her strength in middlegames were, or how she outplayed her opponents in the endgame.

Links

• Official website
• Carlsen to face Niemann next month in Paris
• Throwback Thursday: Hou Yifan becomes world champion at 16