6/13/2019 – Two players won with White in round eleven of the 2019 Women's Candidates in Kazan. Valentina Gunina bounced back from two straight losses with a win over Nana Dzagnidze, while Tan Zhongyi defeated former women's world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk. Aleksandra Goryackina and Kateryna Lagno drew their games against the Muzychuk sisters, which means Goryachkina still has a lead of 2½ points, now with only three rounds to go. | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili
Tata Steel 2023: Analyses by Giri, Van Foreest, Praggnanandhaa, Donchenko and many more. "Special" on Anthony Miles. Kasimdzhanov, Marin and Zwirs show new opening ideas from Wijk in the video. 11 opening articles with repertoire ideas and much more!
Winning starts with what you know The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
Biel 2024 Chess Festival with analyses by Le Quang Liem, Donchenko, Bjerre and others. Sokolov, King and Zwirs show new opening ideas in the video. 10 repertoire articles from the Dutch to King's Indian and much more.
€21.90
Only a miracle...
The next challenger for the World Championship is all but decided with three rounds to go of the Candidates Tournament in Russia. Aleksandra Goryachkina is the only undefeated player left in Kazan and, after having won more than half her games (6 out of 11), only a catastrophe would prevent her from becoming Ju Wenjun's next rival for the crown. On Thursday, the two decisive results involved all four players from the bottom half of the standings table.
If we do not take into account the leader's amazing run, the event has been rather balanced, with only one and a half points separating Kateryna Lagno (second place, 6 points) from those sharing sixth to eighth places (Gunina, Kosteniuk and Dzagnidze, 4½ points). This also worked in Goryachkina's favour, whose steadily strong performance is particularly useful given the length of the event.
20-year-old Aleksandra Goryachkina has plenty of reasons to smile | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili
Tan Zhongyi 1:0 Kosteniuk: Not careful enough
Alexandra Kosteniuk's woes continued in the capital of Tatarstan, as she lost her fourth game of the tournament — she had the black pieces in all four occasions. The Russian played a Nimzo-Indian Defence against Tan Zhongyi, who developed her pieces naturally and was given a chance to attack her opponent's kingside right after the opening stage had concluded:
Rustam Kasimdzhanov, the FIDE World Champion in 2004, has been extremely successful with the Nimzo-Indian with 4.Qc2 with White and with Black. In over 4 hours of video, Rustam Kasimdzhanov explains all the important ideas, strategies and tricks helped by sample games in which the white side is represented, e.g., by Kasparov, Anand, Kramnik and Ivanchuk as well as the author himself.
Tan Zhongyi vs. Kosteniuk
Position after 14.e5
With both bishops and the queen dominating diagonals that point towards Black's king, playing 14...g6 needs a lot of consideration. Kosteniuk, however, advanced her g-pawn after thinking for about five minutes, opening up serious attacking chances for White. The game continued 15.♗f4 f6, and Black's kingside pawn structure is inviting White to go all-in with her battery on the b1-h7 diagonal:
Position after 15...f6
Tan Zhongyi invested fifteen minutes before going for the winning 16.♗xg6, and after 16...f5 17.♗h5 ♞f6 18.exf6 ♛xf4 White has all the dynamic trumps in the position. A couple of moves later, the Chinese even got to show off with a nice bishop move. This was the position after 19.♕d3 ♜fd8:
Position after 19...Rfd8
Tan's 20.♗e8 is the kind of move one finds in a tactics book. Black cannot capture with 20...♜xe8 due to 21.♕xd7 ♛h6 22.f7+, etc.
Kosteniuk kept on fighting until move 32, but her position was quite hopeless all along. This was Tan Zhongyi's third win of the tournament.
Tan Zhongyi will face the leader in round eleven | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili
Post-game interview with Alexandra Kosteniuk
Gunina 1:0 Dzagnidze: A roller-coaster ride
Two of the most fighting players in the women's circuit played a game full of ups and downs on Thursday. Until move 12, they followed an encounter from the Norway Chess Blitz opener from two years ago, in which Kramnik defeated Harikrihsna with Black. Right out of the opening, Gunina sacrificed a pawn, getting good dynamic chances, but faltered quickly afterwards. Nana missed a chance to get a considerable material advantage on move 21:
Essentially, the English Opening usually leads to reversed positions in which the first player enjoys the extra tempo. Then why not meet this 1.c4 move with 1…e5 and play the reversed Sicilian? In this 60 Minutes video, you will find a complete repertoire for Black based on the move 1…e5 against White’s most popular approach - the Reversed Dragon setup. Bulgarian GM Dejan Bojkov uses very recent top GM games to highlight the trends in the line and to explain the ideas behind Black’s development.
Gunina vs. Dzagnidze
Position after 21.Qxe2
Almost instantly, Nana played 21...♜e8, allowing White to free her pieces with 22.♕b5 ♝c6 (in case of 22...♜xe1 23.♖xe1 ♛xd2, there is 24.♖e8+ ♜xe8 25.♕xe8+ and the white knight helps the queen from g5) 23.♕b4.
After missing this chance, Dzagnidze slowly gave up her advantage, and eventually the tables turned completely, as on move 68 the players went into an endgame with rook + three pawns v rook + knight which could only be won by White. Nana did not stop fighting, but she was completely lost by move 95 (!).
Position after 94...Rd5
The game continued 95.♖f7+ ♚g8 96.h6 and Black is doomed.
We seldom see Valentina Gunina playing a boring game | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili
Game analysis by Valentina Gunina and Elisabeth Paehtz
Goryachkina and Lagno draw the Muzychuk sisters
The players at the top of the standings played White against the Muzychuk sisters. Aleksandra Goryachkina had an advantageous position against Anna but preferred to let things peter out into a 30-move draw. Meanwhile, Kateryna Lagno faced Mariya's Sicilian and, although White had a better-looking structure, Black defended accurately until reaching a draw in a rook endgame with one pawn per side.
In the post-game interview, Anastasiya Karlovich asked Kateryna Lagno what was her opinion about the format used in Norway. Kateryna responded:
I don't understand the point, you know, when the pieces are falling and that somehow [counts] in someone's favour — well, you should do something about it, because when you have about five seconds and your pieces are down... [...] The format is interesting, but you should improve [some things].
Anastasiya Karlovich interviewing Anna Muzychuk | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili
The "Mega" is the database every serious chessplayer needs. The database contains 7.6 million games from 1500 to 2018, in highest quality standard, full of top level analyses and completely classified.
Commentary provided by GM Evgeny Miroshnichenko and IM Elisabeth Paehtz
42.Ng4!±42.Rxb2Rxb243.Rd1Qa7...Bh6! is the strong threat.44.Nf1
44...Bh6!45.Qh445.Qxh6Qxf2+45...Kg745...Rc2And now ...Kg7 would win.46.Re1Kg746.Ra1Qxa1Better is46...Qf747.Qg3Qf647.Qe7+=The position is equal.Kg848.Qe6+Kf849.Qc8+!Ke750.Qc7+!Ke851.Qc8+!Ke752.Qc7+!Kf653.Qxd6+Kg554.Qe7+Kh555.g3!Bg556.Qxh7+Bh657.Qe7Bg558.Qh7+Bh659.Qe7Bg560.Qh7+Accuracy: White = 48%, Black = 55%.½–½
Antonio PereiraAntonio is a freelance writer and a philologist. He is mainly interested in the links between chess and culture, primarily literature. In chess games, he skews towards endgames and positional play.
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.
Experts examine the games of Max Euwe. Let them show you which openings Euwe chose to play, where his strength in middlegames were, which tactical abilities he had or how he outplayed his opponents in the endgame.
This interactive video course of over 8 hours, provides an in-depth exploration of the Pirc Defence, a favoured opening for people looking to play for the win with the black pieces.
Pirc Defence Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 10027 games from Mega 2025 or the Correspondence Database 2024; of these 874 are annotated.
The Pirc Defence Powerbook 2025 consists for a greater part of engine games (168 000), to which has been added high value material from Mega and the Correspondence Database (115 000).
The free app from ChessBase! ChessBase Mobile has everything you need as a chess player on the go:
access your chess data in cloud databases - and 13 million games.
€0.00
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.