The first day of the preliminary rapid stage in the Freestyle G.O.A.T. Challenge saw Vincent Keymer emerging as sole leader with 3½/4 points. To reach this score, the German star defeated Ding Liren, Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian, while his one draw was signed in his game against Magnus Carlsen. Gukesh D and Nodirbek Abdusattorov are sharing second place a half point back.
ChessBase Magazine offers a window to the world of professional chess and it also provides arsenal for the tournament player. CBM #204 contains 1226 games (26 annotated), 9 opening surveys, lectures and exercises for training. Annotators include Peter Heine Nielsen, Alireza Firouzja, Romain Edouard and Anish Giri, to mention a few. The icing on the cake is the Judit Polgar Special, a tribute to the former child prodigy who crossed swords with the best of them all, from Kasparov to Carlsen. Our columnist Nagesh Havanur takes a look and muses on the performance of the champion and the challenger in the coming match for the world crown.