There are four nice chess events starting this week.

The first is the final FIDE Women's Grand Prix in Grosslobming, Austria Tue 6th May to Fri 16th May 2025. Anna Muzychuk, Tan Zhongyi and Zhu Jiner are fighting over two Candidates places, Aleksandra Goryachkina leads the series but is not playing this event, she will be very unlucky to miss out, that will happen only if Muzychuk and Tan take the first two places.

The Superbet Romania Chess Classic takes place Wed 7th to Sat 17th May 2025 Players: World Champion Gukesh, Caruana, Firouzja, Abdusattorov, Wesley So, Levon Aronian, MVL, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Praggnanandhaa, Bogdan-Daniel Deac.

On the same day the Asian Individual Championships start, they take place Wed 7th to Thu 15th May 2025. Leading players: Nihal Sarin, Tabatabaei, Yakubboev, Karthikeyan and Vokhidov.

Then on Friday, an event that is no longer what it was, but which still gives me goosebumps, the 58th Capablanca Memorial takes place Fri 9th to Mon 19th May 2025. The elite section seems to be five instead of the normal six players, a double round robin with: Volodar Murzin, Jonas Buhl, Bjerre, Evgeny Romanov, Arseniy Nesterov and Carlos Daniel Albornoz Cabrera.

General Chess Stories 2025

Mark Crowther (Fri May 2 14:38:00 2025)