The Week in Chess

Chess News from throughout the World
  1. The GRENKE Chess Classic is a double round robin tournament played at an accelerated 45 minutes plus 10 seconds a move time control. Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren, MVL, Richard Rapport, Vincent Keymer and Daniel Fridman play two rounds a day 26th to 31st March 2024. Then on April 1st there is a final set of tie-break matches 1st vs 2nd, 3rd vs 4th and 5th vs 6th to decide the exact final placings.
  2. The American Cup took place Tue 12th to Thu 21st Mar in Saint Louis. The format was a knock-out tournament with double elimination. A mixture of Classical first and then rapid games are played followed by tie-breaks if required. Open event: Caruana, So, Dominguez, Aronian, Shankland, Robson, Sevian and Oparin. Women's: Krush, Lee, Tokhirjonova, Zatonskih, Paikidze, Abrahamyan, Jennifer Yu, Zoey Tang. Levon Aronian was unbeaten throughout and defeated Wesley So 2.5-1.5 in the Grand Final. Alice Lee won the women's event, she lost to Irina Krush in the original final, beat her in the Grand Final and then won the final two blitz games in the Grand Final reset.
  3. The Reykjavik Open took place 15th to 21st March 2024. Leading players: Bogdan-Daniel Deac, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Xiangyu Xu, Jules Moussard, Matthieu Cornette, Paulius Pultinevicius etc. Top seed Bogdan-Daniel Deac won with 7.5/9 half a point clear of the field.
  4. The 5th Shenzhen Longgang Chess Masters takes place 29th February to 7th March 2024. Players: Anish Giri, Arjun Erigaisi, Yu Yangyi, Vladislav Artemiev, Daniil Dubov, Bu Xiangzhi, Ma Qun and Xu Xiangyu.
  5. The 6th Prague International Chess Festival takes place Mon 26th Feb (opening ceremony) to Thu 7th Mar 2024. There are two strong Round Robin tournaments. The Masters with Abdusattorov, Praggnanandhaa, Vidit, Gukesh, Keymer, Rapport, Maghsoodloo, Navara, Bartel and Thai Dai Van Nguyen. The Challengers isn't too shabby either with Korobov, L'Ami, Santos Latasa, Rodshtein etc. There are other events such as the Futures, Open, Rapids, Chess960 and many amateur groups too.
  6. The Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess GOAT Challenge takes place Fri 9th to 16th Feb 2024. Rapid Round Robin followed by a Knockout at Standard time controls. This is Fischer Random, Chess960, Shuffle Chess by another name. Players: Magnus Carlsen, Alireza Firouzja, Fabiano Caruana, D Gukesh, Levon Aronian, Vincent Keymer, Ding Liren and Nodirbek Abdusattorov. I don't have the ability to display Chess960 but will try and produce a downloadable file each day. Truthfully I've never found Chess960 at all interesting.
  7. The Chessable Masters took place Fri 2nd to Wed 7th Feb 2024, the format was double elimination. Magnus Carlsen, Wesley So, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Denis Lazavik, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Jose Eduardo Martinez Alcantara, Vladimir Fedoseev and Alireza Firouzja all competed for the title in Division 1. Carlsen ended up winning the event after beating Denis Lazavik in the winners final and then in the Grand Final he lost to Alireza Firouzja, this meant both Carlsen and Firouzja had lost one match so a final match was played to decide who won, Carlsen did, 2-0. Vincent Keymer beat Levon Aronian in the Division 2 final and has qualified for the next main event, Alexey Sarana beat Alexander Grischuk in the Division 3 final and will play in Division 2 next time.