Torre Attack News Today

As expected, hard-fought, exciting games were the norm on the opening day at the Grand Swiss tournaments on the Isle of Man. In the open, 32 players started with wins, including top seed Fabiano Caruana, Richard Rapport (pictured) and Levon Aronian. In the women’s event, meanwhile, 15 participants scored full points, with none of the top three seeds getting more than a draw. | Photo: Anna Shtourman

Two players from the top 10 rating-wise in Baku were eliminated in the tiebreaks of round 3 at the open section of the World Cup. Nijat Abasov knocked out Anish Giri, while Jaime Santos left Teimour Radjabov out of contention. Meanwhile, the lowest-rated player still going is Turkish GM Vahap Sanal, who got the better of Anton Korobov on Monday. In the women’s section, the one upset of the day saw Teodora Injac from Serbia knocking out Alexandra Kosteniuk. | Photo: chess.com / Maria Emelianova

Ris is an International Master from The Netherlands, who is popular on his Fast & Furious shows on the PlayChess server. There he explains sharp opening lines are useful for a wider audience. The courses we are recommending feature a black repertoire against 1.d4, 1.Nf3 and 1.c4, with lines that are easy to learn and not difficult to remember, but also pose White serious challenges. This week you can save twenty Euros and get the full package for just €39.90!

Employing impressive technique in the second game, Lei Tingjie relentlessly jumped back into the match at the Women’s Candidates Final in Chongqing. After nearly six hours of play and seventy gruelling moves, with everything pointing towards a draw, a last-minute mistake by Tan Zhongyi in severe time trouble put the 1-1 result on the scoreboard. | Photos: FIDE

The second game of the Women’s Candidates semifinal in Khiva between Aleksandra Goryachkina and Tan Zhongyi ended in a draw. As in game one, the Queen’s Gambit Declined appeared on the board, this time with Tan Zhongyi marshalling the white pieces. The Chinese player did not gain any advantage and the game ended in a draw on move 40. | Photo: Timur Sattarov/ FIDE

At the European Youth Rapid and Blitz Championships, the German players had a great performance. Tykhon Cherniaiev won two gold medals, Luisa Bashylina one gold and one silver. Ruben Köllner and Tobias Kölle also won gold, while Marius Fromm took home a silver medal. | Photos: Dorian Rogozenco

The Magistral de León is a traditional event, which will see its 35th edition taking place this weekend at the City Auditorium of the Northwestern Spanish city of León. The main event of the festival is the 4-player rapid-chess knockout tournament with Vishy Anand, Boris Gelfand, Andrey Esipenko and Jaime Santos.

Thanks to a remarkable final-round victory, Amin Tabatabaei grabbed clear first place at the third edition of the Stepan Avagyan Memorial. The Iranian GM entered the final round sharing first place with Shant Sargsyan. The co-leaders had two players standing a half point back — namely Haik Martirosyan and Alexander Donchenko. The four players were paired up against each other. In the end, Martirosyan beat Sargsyan and Tabatabaei beat Donchenko. | Photos: Official website

The final round (ten) of the Battle of the Sexes match-tournament, held at Gibraltar, saw the men’s team win by 6½-3½ to finish overall winners by 53-47. The winners on the final day were Bobby Cheng, who beat Jovi Houska; Ravi Haria, who beat Olga Girya; and Bilel Bellahcene, who defeated Marie Sebag (her only loss of the event). Balazs Csonka drew his game with Marsel Efroimski and this was enough to secure his second grandmaster norm.

At the halfway mark in the 1969 World Championship between Petrosian and Spassky, the match score was level. Petrosian only needed to draw the match to retain his title, and with his super-solid Petroff it looked like he was going to wrap things up. But in game 17 and 19 Petrosian suddenly switched to Sicilian, losing calamitously. John Saunders retraces the course of the match that decided who would defend the title against Fischer three years later.