8/2/2023 – Round 1 is over at the World Cup in Baku. A total of 33 matches (24 in the open and 9 in the women’s section) were decided in rapid and blitz tiebreaks. Now that the first round has been completed, all the players who received byes — the rating favourites — will join the fray on Wednesday. Magnus Carlsen will face Levan Pantsulaia (Georgia, 2564), while Ju Wenjun will face Eva Repkova (Slovakia, 2312). | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage
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.
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.
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.
€169.90
Shooting for the stars
Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi are four of the fifty players who will begin their runs at the FIDE World Cup in Baku. Out of the four, only Nakamura will face a contender who advanced in round 1 without needing tiebreaks.
The open section saw 24 matches going to rapid and blitz tiebreaks in the first round, and 16 of those were decided in the first pair of rapid games (25+10 time control). The longest match of the round saw Aydin Suleymanli (Azerbaijan, 2586) and Xu Yinglun (China, 2531) drawing nine games in a row, before the Azerbaijani finally managed to break the deadlock and thus secure a spot in the next round — where he will face Iranian star Parham Maghsoodloo.
In this Fritztrainer: “Attack like a Super GM” with Gukesh we touch upon all aspects of his play, with special emphasis on how you can become a better attacking player.
In contrast, Vahap Sanal (Turkey, 2585) and Zdenko Kozul (Croatia, 2532) played eight decisive games in a row, with the 2-time Turkish champion finally emerging victorious in the blitz (5+3 time control).
Vahap Sanal and Zdenko Kozul | Photo: chess.com / Maria Emelianova
The top pairings for round 2:
Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2835) vs. Levan Pantsulaia (Georgia, 2564)
Hikaru Nakamura (United States, 2787) vs. Karthik Venkhataraman (India, 2565)
Fabiano Caruana (United States, 2782) vs. Mikheil Mchedlishvili (Georgia, 2561)
Ian Nepomniachtchi (FIDE, 2779) vs. Vugar Asadli (Azerbaijan, 2567)
Smirin does it again
After bouncing back in style from his game-1 defeat against Santiago Ávila, Ilia Smirin showed yet another nice finish in the fifth game of the tiebreaks.
The exciting match saw the fighting contenders drawing both 25-minute games and exchanging wins with white in the 10-minute encounters.
And then came the Israeli’s brilliant finish.
Smirin vs. Ávila - Tiebreak game #1
30.Rg6 threatens mate on h6, while 30...fxg6 fails to 31.fxg6#. Ávila simply resigned, but failed to bounce back in the next encounter — it had been Smirin who twice scored in must-win situations to keep the match going.
Mastering these tactical motifs is essential to deepen your understanding of the game and become a better player. After all, you neither want to overlook the given chances by your opponent, nor blunder yourself!
The experienced grandmaster will face Kirill Shevchenko in the second round. See below IM Robert Ris’ excellent analysis of Smirin’s classical win from Monday:
Women’s: Only one match goes to 10-minute tiebreakers
No tiebreaker in the women’s section reached the blitz phase, with 8 out of the 9 matches being decided in the first pair of rapid encounters.
The one match that needed the contenders to play four games was the confrontation between Pauline Guichard (France, 2384) and Assel Serikbay (Kazakhstan, 2139). A 2-time French champion, Guichard prevailed over her lower-rated opponent in the end.
The top pairings for round 2:
Ju Wenjun (China, 2564) vs. Eva Repkova (Slovakia, 2312)
Aleksandra Goryachkina (FIDE, 2557) vs. Lisandra Ordaz (Cuba, 2318)
Humpy Koneru (India, 2553) vs. Priyankka Nutakki (India, 2293)
Kateryna Lagno (FIDE, 2552) vs. Mary Ann Gomes (India, 2326)
The Jobava London System is a minor form of the London System. White tries to play Lf4 quickly followed by Nc3.
Deysi Cori (Peru, 2369) advanced to round 2 despite losing the first classical game against Julia Alboredo (Brasil, 2208) | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage
Karina Cyfka (Poland, 2356) twice beat Melissa Castrillón (Colombia, 2235) in rapid to make it through to the second round | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage
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.
How do you play the Queen's Gambit Accepted? Does White have promising variations or can Black construct a water-tight repertoire? The Powerbook provides the answers based on 300 000 games, most of them played by engines.
The Queen's Gambit Accepted Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 11827 games from Mega 2025 and the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 240 are annotated.
Rossolimo-Moscow Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 10950 games from Mega 2025 and the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 612 are annotated.
The greater part of the material on which the Rossolimo/Moscow Powerbook 2025 is based comes from the engine room of playchess.com: 263.000 games. This imposing amount is supplemented by some 50 000 games from Mega and from Correspondence Chess.
Focus on the Sicilian: Opening videos on the Najdorf Variation with 6.h3 e5 7.Nb3 (Luis Engel) and the Taimanov Variation with 7.Qf3 (Nico Zwirs). ‘Lucky bag’ with 38 analyses by Anish Giri, Surya Ganguly, Abhijeet Gupta, Yannick Pelletier and many more.
€14.90
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.
