Second season of FIDE Chessable Academy starts on Chessable Classroom
The FIDE Chessable Academy, the initiative of Chessable, the world’s leading chess E-learning platform, in partnership with FIDE, resumed on Saturday, 5 March 2022. The FIDE Trainers’ Commission (TRG) initially implemented a three-year junior educational program in summer 2021, when 265 most talented and promising young players between the ages of 8 to 16, representing 100 national federations, attended the program from July till December 2021. The new semester will be held from March to May 2022. And it attracted even more talented young players. 415 participants from 88 countries will learn and improve their chess working with the strongest trainers, including grandmasters Mikhail Kobalia, R. B.Ramesh, Evgeniy Najer, Farrukh Amonatov, Yu Shaoteng, Mikhail Gurevich, Alexey Kuzmin, Nigel Short, Alonso Zapata, Ilya Smirin and many others.. The introductory classes were held today in 10 Groups in English, Russian and Spanish languages and featured FIDE Managing Director Dana Reizniece-Ozola, Chief Executive Officer of Chessable Geert van der Velde, FIDE Executive Director Victor Bologan and other officials. FIDE Managing Director Dana Reizniece-Ozola: “Let me welcome you on behalf of FIDE! The fact that you are here means that you are not only among the most talented children in your country, but also you have worked a lot. I am a chess player myself, and I know that there’s no easy way to the top of the mountain. You have to work very hard, that is why I respect you so much! I hope you will have a great experience here. Just remember that every regular boring day, you are preparing yourself for the one extraordinary one. And my special greetings to girls! Now we have the Year of the Woman in Chess in FIDE and we want to emphasize how smart female chess players are what a strong part of the chess community they are. I have a dream that one day it will be a lady sitting at the board at the World Chess Championship match! Try hard to make my dream come true!” Chief Executive Officer of Chessable Geert van der Velde: “I am really proud that we have over 400 kids this season joining from almost 90 different countries and federations. That is a really broad spectrum of kids joining this year. You guys are obviously some of the strongest players already. Some of you actually are grandmasters, but it is still fantastic. One of the things that we envisioned when we built the Chessable Classroom was to create a live video learning environment where people can gather around the chessboard. One of the nice things that this board is interactive; I hope you will have a lot of fun with it. This is the second season of the Chessable FIDE Academy. We are still working on improving the product every single time, so you might see some new features released over the next couple of months. If you have any ideas for us on how to improve our product, we are very happy to hear your suggestions.” FIDE Executive Director Victor Bologan: “We had very good successful in-person meetings with pupils from the first season in Dubai during the World Championship match. It was a great experience. I remember myself when I was a kid; for me, those meetings, lessons and seminars with grandmasters and world champions were very inspirational. So I hope that these lectures with famous trainers will also help you. That’s why FIDE is very happy to support these courses and thanks Chessable for this great opportunity. I think it is a very good synergy of knowledge, tools, experience and platform. From the FIDE’s side, we do have a very good interaction with almost 200 national chess federations in the world. It’s a huge scale, and I understand we have the best of the best. We are aiming for good attendance, so don’t miss classes, even if sometimes you feel it is boring. It will surely positively impact your performance and chess skills. Good luck to all of you!” During three months of training, a panel expert representing FIDE and Chessable will oversee the participants’ progress, provide assignments, and work together to evaluate the young talents. Students will also get access to numerous free chess learning materials from Chessable. The players, showing the best performance during the training, will have a chance to attend the offline training with top grandmasters. About Chessable Chessable is the world’s leading chess E-learning platform and the largest digital chess library in the world. Chessable’s mission is to make learning chess as fun and efficient as possible. It has published interactive video courses by a wide range of presenters and authors, including many of the world’s top players, such as current World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen. The company was co-founded in 2015 by David Kramaley and International Master John Bartholomew. Chessable’s team consists of expert content creators, scientists, developers and chess grandmasters all working together to create the best chess learning platform in the world.
FIDE Grand Prix Belgrade: Round 4 Recap
A day of draws in the FIDE Grand Prix Belgrade organized by World Chess as Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is the only one to score a victory, producing a first decisive game in Pool D The fourth round of the second leg of the FIDE Grand Prix was mostly calm as seven out of eight games ended in a draw. The only one to win was the World Blitz champion and seasoned top-class player, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (MVL), who scored an important victory in Pool D, breaking a three-round long cycle of draws in that group. In the overall results, Anish Giri is doing best with 3/5, leading Pool B, followed by five GMs on 2.5 points: Andreikin and Shankland (leaders in Pool A), Rapport and Gujrathi (leaders in Pool C) and MVL, who leads in Pool D. Pool A: The game between Dmitry Andreikin and Alexander Grischuk was the first to finish after an hour and 15 minutes of play. The two played a well-researched line in the Grunfeld Defence, and the game followed a familiar theoretical path leading to a draw. As Grischuk said – “Dmitry only checked if I knew the theory and it turns out I do”. Dmitry Andreikin noted that he was happy with a draw given the overall standings as he prepares for the key duel in the group – the Round 5 encounter with the other leader of Pool A, Sam Shankland. Alexander Grischuk was more direct: “I can now buy a [plane] ticket, as it’s guaranteed I won’t reach the playoffs”. In the other game in this group, Sam Shankland drew with Etienne Bacrot. White got a better position out of the opening but did not manage to coordinate his pieces and allowed Black to regroup. By move 14th White’s advantage melted. Then it was Etienne’s turn to misstep – his rook made a long voyage to b4, but it was just a waste of time. Sam achieved a virtually won position but failed to find 34.e5! He went for Black’s a-pawn, hoping to advance his a-runner, but Bacrot also had a pawn on c5, which played an important role in his defensive setup. In the end, the Frenchman gave up his knight for White’s a-runner to collect Shankland’s pawns on the kingside to secure a draw. Pool B: Nikita Vitiugov split a point with Pentala Harikrishna. In the Anti-Marshal, the two quickly achieved a balanced position. Although it was not without venom, neither side had any serious chances. Both opponents made very logical moves, and a draw came as a natural outcome. Amin M. Tabatabaei and Anish Giri drew their round four game as well. The Rossolimo attack of the Sicilian was played, and both sides wanted to force the other out of their preparation, but neither succeeded. After Black played 11…b5, Tabatabaei spent 15 minutes thinking about his response, but he didn’t manage to find anything sharp. Giri easily equalized, and the game moved towards calmer waters. After massive exchanges, the position transpired to a rook endgame, and the two agreed to split a point on the move 31. Pool C: Vladimir Fedoseev was eager to catch up with Richard Rapport, but the latter opted for a very solid Petroff Defense. The two followed a critical line in which the Hungarian introduced a novelty recommended by chess engines. After exchanges on the queenside, Vladimir managed to win a pawn, but Richard had two strong bishops as compensation. The position was even, and the two agreed to split a point on the move 42. Alexei Shirov and Vidit Santosh Gujrathi played the longest game of the round (five and a half hours) before deciding to call it even. In the Open Variation Ruy Lopez, the opponents tested a very old line first played by the fifth World Champion Max Euwe in a couple of games back in 1920. The encounter played more than a century later did not change the evaluation of the position as safe for Black. The opponents ended up in a roughly equal endgame in which Shirov tested the precision of his opponent but to no avail. The game was drawn on move 57. Pool D: Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Yu Yangyi drew their game. In the Ragozin Defence, Black solved all the opening problems and reached equality. Things shifted after White’s move 21.Rb2, allowing Black to get an edge after seemingly illogical knight exchange on d4. However, Yu either missed or underestimated a very strong move 22…b5 creating a protected b5-passer. As played, White avoided the worst, and after mutual annihilation of the weak pawns, the opponents split a point on the move 30. The duel between Alexandr Predke and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was the first one to produce a decisive outcome in Pool D after four rounds. Vachier-Lagrave played a less common line in his trademarked Najdorf. In a sharp game where both players forced each other out of preparation, Predke was the first one to err, venturing upon a breakthrough in the center that did not work out for him. The following middlegame was a typical complicated Scicilan battle: Maxime allowed White to exert pressure on the e-file, aiming for the uncastled king, but at the same time, he had enough resources to launch a counter-attack on the queenside. It was all going Black’s way in this critical portion of the game as the Frenchman completely outplayed his opponent. On move 30 White had to give up an exchange, and the rest was a smooth sail for MVL. The Frenchman is now the leader of Group D. Round 5 Saturday is a rest day at the FIDE Grand Prix. Round five will be played on Sunday, 6th March, from 3 PM local (CET) time. The pairings for the fifth round are as follows: Pool A: Sam Shankland (2704) vs Dmitry Andreikin (2724)Etienne Bacrot (2635) vs Alexander Grischuk (2758) Pool B: Amin M. Tabatabaei (2623) vs Nikita Vitiugov (2726)Anish Giri (2771) vs Pentala Harikrishna (2716) Pool C: Alexei Shirov (2691) vs Vladimir Fedoseev (2704)Vidit Santosh Gujrathi