10/17/2019 – The World Junior Championships 2019 is so rich with chess content, it is becoming extremely difficult to write a report that would cover everything! In spite of having just 94 boards (47 in open and 47 in girls) there is high quality chess taking place on almost 70% of these games. After two rounds we have nine boys in the lead with 2.0/2 in the open section and eleven girls in the lead with 2.0/2 in the girls section. In this article we bring some of the most interesting and instructive moments of the second round. We not only have the pictures, analysis, and interviews but also a special section called highlights of the day which gives you the glimpse of what happened in just 12 minutes! | Photo: Niklesh Jain
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Endings with rook and minor piece against rook and minor piece occur very frequently, even more often than rook endings, yet there's not much literature on them. This endgame DVD fills this gap. The four different material constellations rook and knight vs rook and knight, rooks and opposite coloured (and same coloured ) bishops and rook and bishop vs rook and knight are dealt with. In view of the different material constellations Karsten Mueller explains many guidelines like e.g. "With knights even a small initiative weighs heavily".
The Big Database 2025 contains more than 11 million games from 1475 to 2024.
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The Bravado of the Juniors
The wonderful thing about juniors is that their dreams are limitless. For them, the rating is just a number. Untouched by the unforgiving teacher called experience, these players bring to the table what not many event of the elite GMs can! And that's the reason why following the World Junior Championships is extremely exciting. You have players who have the talent in them to rule the chess world in the years to come, but they also have the youthful exuberance to try out new stuff which the 2750+ GMs will not!
Open section
Black has just pushed his pawn to b5. White is a couple of pawns down. Yes, White has some compensation because the f7 point is weak, but give this position to any elite player and he would use his sense of objectivity and try to find the best resources to hold the position. Give such a position to an "inexperienced" junior and he will try his best to use his bishop and rook to launch a mating attack against the black king!
Checkmate. That's the aim of the game. There are numerous ways to checkmate the enemy king, but there are common patterns that recur over and over again, and having these at our mental fingertips is essential for when we want to finish the game.
And guess what? Sometimes it works! The Black king is completely caged in!
14-year-old Aaryan Varshney is one of the leaders after round two | Photo: Niklesh Jain
On the top board, the game between Dmitrij Kollars and Dambasuren Batsuren ended in a draw | Photo: Niklesh Jain
After a draw at World Youth 2019, Shant beat Aditya at World Junior | Photo: Niklesh Jain
Shant played his queen to c6 attacking the rook on a8. The natural move here was to play 11...♝a6. Aditya was perhaps afraid of 12.♘c7, but after 12...♝xf1 13.♘xa8 ♝xg2 14.♖g1 ♝e4 Black has excellent compensation and a fine position. In the above diagram, Black moved his rook to b8 and after ♘xa7, Shant was just a pawn up, and he comfortably converted it into a win.
The Semi-Slav (1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6) can arise via various move orders, has decided World Championships, and is one of Black's most fascinating replies to 1 d4. Magnus Carlsen's second, Grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen explains in detail what this opening is all about.
Bharath Subramaniyam: IM at the age of just 11 years and 8 months — the next big thing from Indian chess? | Photo: Niklesh Jain
FM Claus Dieter Meyer has put under the microscope a comprehensive fund of topical and timeless games / fragments. On video Hamburg GM Dr. Karsten Müller has outlined corner points of Meyer's work and created 14 tests plus 10 interactive test sets.
White has a completely dominating position here out of the opening. Bharath took the pawn on h7 here which turned out to be an error. Instead, find the best way to win.
He could have gone for the spectacular 17.♖xe6!+ After 17...♛xe6 18.♖e1 Black gets two rooks for the queen but the resulting position after 18...♛xe1 19.♘xe1 0-0-0 20.♘f3 ♝e7 21.g3 is in White's favour. With so many weaknesses in Black's camp, White is winning in this position because his queen and knights are much better than Black's rooks and bishops!
Bharath was unable to find the above mini-combination and eventually lost the game.
Praggnanandhaa was pitted against Israeli IM Or Bronstein in round 2 | Photo: Niklesh Jain
After winning the World under-18 Youth, Praggnanandhaa is on a high. But at the same time, it is never easy to play 22 rounds of gruelling chess. As Pragg said after the game, "Yes, I am a bit tired, but I sleep more during the day and it helps me." For now, the youngster seems to have enough energy as he played a fine game to beat Bronstein from the white side of the Sicilian Najdorf.
When choosing an opening repertoire, there are days when you want to play for a win with Black, when you want to bear down on your opponent’s position with a potentially crushing attack. The Najdorf is perfect for just such occasions. Strategy, combinations, attack and defence, sacrifices and marvellous manoeuvres — exciting chess is all about the Najdorf!
A wonderful thing to note about Praggnanandhaa's game was his preparation. Until move number 18 (where he went ♘b5!?) he was prepared!
Bronstein got no real chances in the game and although Praggnanandhaa could have shown better technique in some instances, the win was never in doubt.
The final moments of Pragg's victory and also interview with the youngster
Spanish GM Santosh Miguel Ruiz showed the power of two bishops as well as a common attacking theme — rook lift! | Photo: Niklesh Jain
Aimed at players below 2200, the idea of the series is to provide a basic grounding on a variety of subjects, which will assist general all-round improvement. On ‘First Steps in Attack’, Andrew Martin treats the viewer to a selection of classic attacking games and lays out a foundation course in the art of attack. Key thinking points reinforce the analysis and the games.
White to move. What would you do?
Say I where to ask you, "Which is my most passive piece right now?" The answer would be a resounidng — Rook on a1. How do I get it into the game? ♖c1? or move the queen and ♖d1? Well, much better is to go ♖a3! and the rook will swing over to the kingside and launch a powerful attack against the black king! White won in nice attacking style.
GM Karthikeyan Murali, two-time National champion of India played a very nice game against Nitish Belurkar
For nicer lines, check out the video:
The position is composed by Karthikeyan and the variations are quite deep. Hence, we recommend you to put on your thinking cap on to try to figure out the details.
Aronyak Ghosh played excellent chess to beat India's Triple Crown champion Aravindh Chithambaram | Photo: Amruta Mokal
Aram Hakobyan on board five was held to a draw by Zhandos Agmanov of Kazakhstan | Photo: Niklesh Jain
One of the latest IMs of India, Anuj Shrivatri, held Harsha Bharathakoti to a draw | Photo: Niklesh Jain
Viktor Gazik (2546) lost to IM Ganzorig Amartuvshin (2391) | Photo: Niklesh Jain
Youngster Leon Mendonca held Sergei Lobanov to a draw in round two | Photo: Niklesh Jain
Open standings after round 2
Girls section
In the girls section we have eleven leaders after round two on 2.0/2. We had quite a big upset on the first board itself when second seed Stavroula Tsolakidou lost to the youngster from India Mrudul Dehankar.
11.♘f4 was coming up and hence Mrudul went for the move 10...♜g8. Her point was that now 11.♘f4 can be met with 11...♝g6 and after 12.♘xg6 or ♗xg6 she could take back with the h-pawn. However, Stavroula surprised her opponent with 11.♗xh7 after 10...♜g8. Mrudul also went on to the attack with 11...♝xf3 and after the rook was taken on g8, the knight was picked up on e2.
The fireworks continued with 13.♖xf6 and although White won a pawn after 13...gxf6 14.♕xf6, Black's play was easier, as her king was much safer. Mrudul won a nice game.
The final moments of Mrudul's game along with her post-game analysis
On the second board Nurgyul Salimova was held to a draw by Oliwia Kiolbasa | Photo: Niklesh Jain
Aakanksha Hagawane managed to hold Bibisara Assaubayeva to a draw | Photo: Niklesh Jain
Thalia Cerventes managed to beat Margarita Potapova in an extremely complex game where the fortune changed hands on many occasions | Photo: Niklesh Jain
One of the shortest games of the round of the Berdnyk vs Nilssen | Photo: Niklesh Jain
The game between Saloni Sapale and Gabriela Antova is a good example of how a theoretically winning game (as per the engine) is not always winning! | Photo: Niklesh Jain
Practically it could be very difficult to play the best moves.
After a draw in the first round, Zhu Jiner lost her second round game | Photo: Niklesh Jain
The top seed has had quite a rough start to the event.
Girls standings after round 2
Round 2 Highlights
Highlights of round two by WIM-elect Amruta Mokal
A special thanks to WIM Angela Frank Jain for her game analysis
Sagar ShahSagar is an International Master from India with two GM norms. He loves to cover chess tournaments, as that helps him understand and improve at the game he loves so much. He is the co-founder and CEO of ChessBase India, the biggest chess news portal in the country. His YouTube channel has over a million subscribers, and to date close to a billion views. ChessBase India is the sole distributor of ChessBase products in India and seven adjoining countries, where the software is available at a 60% discount. compared to International prices.
Throughout the video course, Sasikran shows various examples from his career to explain sacrifices for initiative, an attack, a better pawn structure and much more.
In this insightful video course, Grandmaster David Navara shares practical advice on when to calculate deeply in a position — and just as importantly, when not to.
The Trompowsky is especially suited for faster time controls as you don‘t have to memorise endless lines of theory, and you push your opponent out of their comfort zone after your second move.
Trompowsky Powerbook 2025 is based on 53,000 computer games from the engine room of playchess.com as well as 49,000 games from Mega and correspondence chess.
Trompowsky Powerbase 2025 is a database and contains a total of 8727 games from Mega 2025 and the Correspondence Database 2024, of which 316 are annotated.
2025 European Championship with a German double victory and analyses by Bluebaum, Svane, Rodshtein, Yuffa, Navara and many more. Opening videos by Engel, King and Marin. Training sections “The Fortress”, “The Trap” and “Fundamental Endgame Knowledge" etc.
Powerbook based on more than 618 000 games in which White already sidesteps the main variations of the Sicilian on move 2.
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