11/22/2023 – Every now and then, Svitlana talks about a new opening. This time, it is the suspicious Budapest Gambit. To Arne's disappointment - if you play the opening correctly, some variants seem to move to a very calm middle- and endgame, rather than setting the board on fire. It might be interesting to get to know the Gambit a bit better because it is actually quite sound.

11/16/2023 – Three more games to go, and the score between humans vs. Fritz 19 is now 1.5 to 1.5, after Robert Ris conquered the aggressive bull. Svitlana Demchenko's opponent is the turtle, an endgame aficionado. This animal is considered one of the more challenging Fritz 19 characters, and difficult to break. In the Sicilian Kan Variation, the Canadian WIM cannot really advance, until a material imbalance shows up out of nowhere! But things aren't getting easier ...

10/29/2023 – Svitlana is taking us through the Panov Attack against the Caro-Kann Defence. The aggressive opening turns out to be an ambitious variation, full of attacking potential, if you can live with an isolated queen pawn. The basics are well explained, and should motivate you to look a bit deeper into this surprising Caro-Kann counter.

10/16/2023 – One of the strongest national chess tournaments is still running, and it looks as if Fabiano Caruana can win the US Championship trophy in 2023. Svitlana found some exciting tactics and invites everybody to guess the correct, or best move. Especially the women's section was not shying back!

10/9/2023 – Svitlana Demchenko celebrated her 20th birthday recently, marking this year's World Junior Championship in Mexico as her final appearance. She enjoyed the tournament atmosphere, and met many chess friends. In this episode, she shows us a well-prepared Italian Game.

9/14/2023 – Fabiano Caruana had to face the underdog Nijat Abasov in the match for third place at the Baku World Cup. In round 8.2, the US player made a fairly unknown move in the Four Knights Sicilian, by moving the bishop to f4. Svitlana offers insights into various variations arising from this opening. The endgame provides valuable lessons as well!

9/8/2023 – In 2004, Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Leko played a match for the World Championship. After a nail-biting series of games, the match ended in a 7-7 draw, with Kramnik retaining his title by winning the 14th game on demand. But Svitlana shows us one of the two wins by Leko (who, incidentally, is celebrating his birthday today!) - a fascinating game with an interesting side story.

8/21/2023 – In today's episode, Honorata shows us how an attack is set for success if all pieces work together. Emanuel Lasker's game was considered one of the most beautiful attacks in chess history, and you are about to find out why. We want to point out that Svitlana Demchenko also made an episode about this sacrifice, which we added to our links — so you can watch two experts analysing the same game!

8/18/2023 – In July, Svitlana participated in the open section of the 2023 Canadian Junior Chess Championship, and faced some tough opponents. Impressively, she managed to reach the overall third place and added one more trophy to her collection. In addition, she will travel to Mexico for the World Junior Championship!

8/12/2023 – During the FIDE World Cup, Magnus Carlsen and Humpy Koneru fought back brilliantly, and moved to the tiebreaks instead of taking the next flight home. How do world-class players actually manage to achieve such great comebacks? Svitlana shows us the three golden rules of how you can strike back in a "must-win" situation!

8/5/2023 – The FIDE World Cup is up and running. Svitlana took her time to find some of the most exciting tactics of the first rounds. For us, it is the challenge to not only find "one move" solutions, but actually think about the path to get to the actual tactics!

7/14/2023 – In today's episode, Honorata shows us one of the most spectacular positional exchange sacrifices, played by Tigran Petrosian. In this famous game against Samuel Reshevsky, "Iron Tigran" made a slight mistake in the middlegame, and White's bishop pair was about to cause havoc. But Petrosian found a spectacular move, which most of you probably know already.

7/12/2023 – Momentarily, Ju Wenjun is fighting for the title against Lei Tingjie, Who just took the lead! Svitlana found one of Wenjun's most beautiful games against Kateryna Lagno, which was a big part of her winning the Women's World Championship in 2018. In the Sicilian Rossolimo, The Chinese GM played for the initiative, and found a convincing attack against Lagno, which is worth replaying.

7/4/2023 – Svitlana recently played in the Canadian Transnational Tournament, where almost every opponent had a couple of hundred rating points more than her. Awonder Liang, Lazaro Bruzon, and Alexandr Lenderman were among the players in the tournament. The WIM was still able to show some smart moves, and even beat an IM with the Jobava-London. And due to this opening choice, Svitlana started a nice attack, which had some beautiful tactics.

6/14/2023 – Everybody knows one of the most famous chess games ever played, right? Interestingly, Svitlana just recently discovered Anderssen's Immortal game against Kiseritzky! Looking at this game is similar to reading a great book, or watching a fantastic movie over and over again. It never gets old, it is extraordinary, and it is entertaining! But if you also belong to those who never heard of this game before, this is a big treat for you.

6/8/2023 – The Alekhine (1.e4 Nf6) is a rare guest in general and especially at a high-level. During the pandemic, however, this daring opening has been employed on several occasions, notably by the World Champion Magnus Carlsen. A faster time-control and perhaps the unusual atmosphere created by online games probably helped some players unleash, from time to time, a marginal opening to surprise their opponents.

6/7/2023 – You probably have discovered the good news already - Svitlana made a new Fritztrainer: The Leningrad Dutch Defence! The Dutch Defence is a stable counter to the common opening moves 1.d4, c4 or Nf3. The Leningrad variation is particularly fun to play. Svitlana knows the opening by heart, as she played it herself for many years, and recently was close to a win against an IM (who is about to reach 2500) with this very opening.

6/1/2023 – From her weekly video series "Svitlana's Smart Moves" we already know what a good teacher Svitlana Demchenko is. She is well prepared, can give clear and understandable instructions, which makes it easier for her students to understand and learn from her, and she is excellent at explaining complex chess concepts in an understandable way, which makes the learning process more enjoyable! Her latest Fritztrainer consists of a whopping 10 hours of great instructional advice on how to play the Leningrad Dutch Defence!

5/30/2023 – The modern defence is another systematically easy to learn hypermodern opening, giving the king a safe place, and implementing a hidden centre attack, as the game continues. Svitlana shows us the basic plans, and gives us the right moves to play. In the game example, we can see how powerful the move 1. .. g6 can be!

5/14/2023 – In this video, Svitlana puts you to the test by dissecting three splendid game examples. So, sharpen your strategic thinking and prepare to dive into the world of clever tactics and mind-bending manoeuvres because it is all about creativity! Let the games begin!

4/29/2023 – Svitlana is finally back, and brought us one of her games of the Canadian Women's Closed, which she won! In the example, she played against the Giuoco Piano with Black, and presents us plenty of opening ideas, plans, and strategies, on how to win against this opening with the Black pieces. You need to watch to the end because the last tactic which decided the game is brilliant!

3/17/2023 – Svitlana shows us the basics of the open and closed Catalan. This opening is often played by some world class players, like Magnus Carlsen, or Vladimir Kramnik. It can either get sharp, or super positional. The model game was played by Alekhine, and the most powerful weapon of the Catalan, the bishop on g2, is exchanged rather quickly. But there are more threats, than only the bishop!

3/10/2023 – World Women's day was on 8th of March, and Svitlana took the opportunity to show us three incredible games by the Polgar sisters. Sofia, Susan, and Judit are the greatest influencers of Svitlana's love for chess, and The Canadian WIM was lucky enough to meet Susan Polgar in 2018, as we can see in the pictures of this article.

3/4/2023 – The last time Svitlana played chess, was summer 2022. The Canadian club championship of Svitlana's chess club was another chance to finally move the pieces on the board again. The Canadian WIM is studying most of her time now, but this doesn't mean that she got worse in chess. It seems, the opposite was the case, and Svitlana won a round before the tournament ended! We take a look at two of her games.