The Week in Chess

The German Chess Championships in Munich finish tomorrow, already Vincent Keymer has secured first place alone, today he was held to only his second draw by Rasmus Svane but a half point was all he needed. Keymer has 7/8 and in the final round Keymer has white against Alexander Donchenko, I think it possible he'll push for yet another win. In the women's event Dinara Wagner and Hanna Marie Klek lead the rest of the field by a point on 6/9.

Tan Zhongyi started the 30th Sigeman & Co tournament with two losses and had the black pieces against Richard Rapport in round 3, but she turned all this around to win in 58 moves. Rapport's mistake came right at the end in a very sharp endgame, his chances of winning had gone but he failed to find the way to hold. Nils Grandelius beat Vasyl Ivanchuk with the black pieces in 50 moves, he got a large advantage after 29.c7? but a couple of errors before first time control meant he lost the advantage. Had Ivanchuk found 38.Rg1 or 38.Bd5 he would have been equal but instead he played 38.Re1? and then 42.Re4? and went on to lose. I give both these games with light notes below. The other two games were drawn so 13 year old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, Javokhir Sindarov and Nils Grandelius lead on 2/3.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave defeated Hikaru Nakamura 1.5-0.5 in the Losers final of the Chess.com Classic. MVL goes on to meet Magnus Carlsen in the Grand Final, he'll have to beat him in that and a reset final to win the event.

Grischuk, Nepomniachtchi and Artemiev lead the Karpov Cup - 50 years later Rapid with 4/6 with three rounds to go tomorrow.

Aleksandar Indjic and Anish Giri lead the Sharjah Masters on 5/6 after beating Dai Changren and Parham Maghsoodloo respectively.

The French Interclubs Top 16 got underway with names such as Harikrishna, Esipenko, Van Wely and Kamsky playing the first round.

Hans Niemann has announced on social media a return exhibition match against Daniil Dubov which I believe is in Moscow again, 27th to 28th May 2025.