The Week in Chess

The May Day Bank Holiday weekend in the UK sees the final three rounds of the 4NCL, as it traditional. Manx Liberty are two points clear of Wood Green and have a much superior board count but they do meet in the final round 11 on Monday.

Update: after round 9 on Saturday the lead has been reduced to 1 point Manx Liberty were held 4-4 by the Sharks 1 and Wood Green beat Barnet Knights A.

There are a number of international opens that continue over the weekend the Baku Open 28th April to Tuesday 6th May where Aleksandar Indjic is the top seed and Mahammad Muradli is the early leader with 4/4. The Sunway Formentera Open takes place at a leisurely pace of one game a day 29th April to Friday 9th May. Sergey A. Fedorchuk is the top seed, Valentin Dragnev and Thomas Bauer were the early leaders. Gupta Sankalp leads the Ljubljana Chess Festival which finishes on Sunday.

The Sardinia World Open takes place Sun 27th Apr to Sat 3rd May 2025. Daniel Dardha, Leon Luke Mendonca and SL Narayanan are the top seeds but the event is notable for the participation of Christopher Woojin Yoo who many were under the impression had been banned worldwide for a year after his disqualification from the US Championships following an assault. I'm entirely unclear as to whether the US Chess Federation could only ban him in the US, or if they just didn't fill in the right paperwork to extend the ban via FIDE. Yoo leads the event with 6.5/7 (and indeed went on to win with 7.5/9 check my Sardinia event page for games and results).

There are a couple of team events that also finish this weekend. The Chinese Teams in Zhangjiakou finishes on Saturday morning and the Russian Team Championship on Monday.

The Malahide Millennium Tournament takes advantage of the Bank Holiday and FM Oleg Artemenko is currently the top seed. The Dutch Open rapid take place on Saturday 3rd with Benjamin Bok as the top seed. Finally the Montenegro Premier League takes place 1st to 9th May Alexandr Predke is the highest rated player.