Tan Zhongyi became the early leader after beating Lei Tingjie in round 1 of the Women’s Candidates Tournament. Playing black, Tan showed proficient technique to convert her extra pawn into a full point in a rook and bishop endgame. The three remaining games ended drawn. | Photo: FIDE / Michal Walusza
Ju Wenjun, in the Masters, and Eline Roebers, in the Challengers, obtained remarkable wins over much higher-rated opponents in round 5 of the Tata Steel Chess Festival. Ju defeated an overly ambitious Alireza Firouzja, while Roebers patiently made the most of a positional advantage in her game against top seed Hans Niemann. Firouzja’s loss allowed Anish Giri to go into round 6 with a full-point lead, while Erwin l’Ami is the sole leader in the Challengers. | Photo: Tata Steel Chess Tournament / Jurriaan Hoefsmit
Hello chess friends! This month’s column was inspired by a reader! Matthew Brodhead sent in his game against John Cissik, and analyzing his game gave me the idea for this month’s column. GM Savielly Tartakower (whom I love to quote!) once said that any opening is good enough to play if its reputation is bad enough. What he meant was that once a line gets a reputation as a loser, it becomes fodder for those who are willing to work to find improvements and use them to gain points in competition.
The Caro Kann Defence is a much-played opening today, with which Black often makes life difficult for White after 1.e4. In his ChessBase course "Weapons against the Caro-Kann, 1 and 2", English GM Daniel Fernandez shows how White can successfully combat this defence. Christian Höthe took a look at the course.