The capital city of Iceland is a popular place among chess players. Reykjavik gave home to one of the strongest open tournaments of the year, the Reykjavik Open, this time from the 29th of March to the 4th of April. The nine-round Swiss system had a time control of 90 Read more…
The Women’s Candidates Final between Tan Zhongyi and Lei Tingjie determined who will challenge the reigning Women’s World Champion Ju Wenjun in July. Both players could enjoy the home field, as the event was in Chongqing, China. The six-game match gave us a lot of fighting chess with decisive games. Read more…
The Saint Louis Chess Club gave home to the American Cup from the 16th to the 26th of March. American Cup has an unusual format, an eight-player double-elimination bracket. It allows each competitor to be eliminated twice, and it has twice as many rounds as a single elimination. The defeated players Read more…
Alejandro Ramirez is a 34-years old Costa Rican-American grandmaster, coach and commentator and was recently accused by eight women of sexually assaulting them in an article published by The Wall Street Journal. It all started when WGM Jennifer Shade (two-time United States women’s champion, author and commentator, who worked alongside Ramirez Read more…
Walsrode gave home to The Chessemy Open, which was held from the 4th to the 12th of March. The nine-round swiss system tournament has a decent prize fund of €6500. The players had to have a rating higher than 1800, which resulted in a strong tournament. 86 participants with 4 grandmasters Read more…
The annual Chess Open Graz, held from the 18th to the 24th of February, broke the participation record with almost 370 participants, which came from 37 nations. I took part in this tournament, but unfortunately, after quite poor results, I quit the tournament after five rounds. Despite the bad chess Read more…
The second stage of the Women’s Grand Prix 2023 was played from the 1st to the 13th of February in Munich, Germany. The Women’s FIDE Grand Prix Series 2022-2023 comprises four tournaments: 1. – Astana, September 2022 2. – Munich, February 2023 3. – India, March 2023 4. – Bydgoszcz, Read more…
The Tata Steel Chess Tournament took place from 13th to 29th January 2023 in Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands. The format was a 14-player round-robin and the time control was 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for 20 moves, then 15 minutes for the rest of Read more…
Vugar Gashimov Memorial was held in Baku, Azerbaijan from the 17th to the 24th of December. This tournament is dedicated to the dear memory of Azerbaijan’s genius chess player, European champion, and international grandmaster Vugar Gashimov. He was known for his attacking style and was one of the highest-rated chess Read more…
Last weekend, from the 16th to the 18th of December, the European Rapid and Blitz Chess Championship was held in a polish town called Katowice. There was one tournament but separated prizes for the Open and Women. The total prize fund was €44000. The European Blitz Chess Championship The European Read more…