12/28/2022 – Magnus Carlsen won his fourth World Rapid Championship title by scoring 10 points in 13 rounds at the open tournament in Almaty. Vincent Keymer and Fabiano Caruana completed the podium. Meanwhile, Tan Zhongyi grabbed the gold medal among the women, with Dinara Saduakassova and Savitha Shri finishing second and third respectively. | Find the final standings and all available games here. A full pictorial report will be published later today. | Photo: FIDE / Lennart Ootes
new: Fritz 20
Your personal chess trainer. Your toughest opponent. Your strongest ally. FRITZ 20 is more than just a chess engine – it is a training revolution for ambitious players and professionals. Whether you are taking your first steps into the world of serious chess training, or already playing at tournament level, FRITZ 20 will help you train more efficiently, intelligently and individually than ever before.
Your personal chess trainer. Your toughest opponent. Your strongest ally. FRITZ 20 is more than just a chess engine – it is a training revolution for ambitious players and professionals. Whether you are taking your first steps into the world of serious chess training, or already playing at tournament level, FRITZ 20 will help you train more efficiently, intelligently and individually than ever before.
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.
€49.90
Keymer keeps up the pace
Magnus Carlsen entered the final day of action at the World Rapid Championship in Almaty with a half-point lead over Vincent Keymer and Vladimir Fedoseev. Right off the bat, Carlsen widened the gap atop the standings by beating Keymer in their direct encounter, as Fedoseev also lost, against Fabiano Caruana.
At that point, it seemed like going into cruise control mode would be enough for the favourite to take the title, but a loss against Vladislav Artemiev in round 11 meant the fight for first was very much alive still.
In the penultimate round, Carlsen drew Caruana, who came from climbing up the standings, while co-leader Artemiev drew a 90-move game against Fedoseev. The two draws allowed Keymer to join them in first place, as after losing to Carlsen he had remarkably defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi and Vidit Gujrathi consecutively.
In the final round, Carlsen was the only co-leader that claimed a full point, as he beat Parham Maghsoodloo to clinch his fourth World Rapid Championship title. Artemiev lost to Caruana, while Keymer drew Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with the black pieces. In the end, Keymer took home the silver medal and Caruana grabbed bronze.
An exciting finale in the women’s championship saw Tan Zhongyi beating Dinara Saduakassova in blitz tiebreaks to claim her first world title in this category. Both players finished the tournament undefeated (prior to the tiebreaks), with Tan winning on demand in round 11 to catch the Kazhak star atop the standings.
Four players finished a half point behind Tan and Saduakassova, but it was 15-year-old Indian prodigy Savith Shri who took home the bronze medal, as she scored a crucial victory with black over Qianyun Gong in the penultimate round.
Aleksandra Goryachkina, Zhansaya Abdumalik and Humpy Koneru obtained as many points as the youngster, but fell short of reaching the podium due to their inferior tiebreak scores.
The World Rapid Championship are Swiss opens (13 rounds in the open and 11 rounds in the women’s) with a time control of 15 minutes for the entire game, plus a 10-second increment starting from move one. A tie for first place will be decided by two 3+2 blitz games. If still tied, more 3+2 games will be played until finding a winner.
In this DVD, Erwin l'Ami guides you through the fascinating Benko Gambit. As early as move three Black starts a fight for the initiative, a strategy that has proved to be successful in countless amateur and master level games.
Commentary by Peter Leko & Jan Gustafsson
Commentary by GM Alexander Shabalov and WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili
In this course, you’ll learn how to take the initiative against the London and prevent White from comfortably playing their usual system by playing 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 Nh5.
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.
€9.90
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