The Week in Chess

Total Chess Pilot 2026 - Games and Results

Mark Crowther — Tue Nov 10 15:35:00 2026

The Total Chess Pilot tournament takes place in Budapest Tue 10th Nov to Sat 21st Nov 2026. Three stages. A preliminary blitz, group stages and then a final knockout stage. Games will take place across a multiplicity of time controls and weighted results. (Blitz: 3 min + 2 sec per move, starting from move 1 Rapid: 15 min + 10 sec per move, starting from move 1 Fast Classic: 45 min + 30 sec per move, starting from move 1)

Players: Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Vincent Keymer, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Arjun Erigaisi, Anish Giri, Alireza Firouzja, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Quang Liem Le, Richard Rapport, Levon Aronian, Hans Moke Niemann, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Jorden van Foreest, Haik M. Martirosyan, Vladislav Artemiev, Abhimanyu Mishra, Andrew Hong, Bibisara Assaubayeva, Rameshbabu Vaishali.

89th Tata Steel 2027 - Games and Results

Mark Crowther — Tue Nov 10 15:28:00 2026

The 89th Tata Steel Chess tournament takes place in Wijk aan Zee Fri 15th Jan to Sun 31st Jan 2027.

Masters: Vincent Keymer, Arjun Erigaisi, Anish Giri, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, Dommaraju Gukesh, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Javokhir Sindarov, Hans Niemann, Vladimir Fedoseev, Jorden van Foreest, Aravindh Chithambaram, Matthias Bluebaum, Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, Thai Dai Van Nguyen.

Challengers: Velimir Ivic, Erwin l'Ami, Aydin Suleymanli, Marc'Andria Maurizzi, Andy Woodward, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Daniil Yuffa, Max Warmerdam, Faustino Oro, Bibisara Assaubayeva, Carissa Yip, Lu Miaoyi, Vedant Panesar, Eline Roebers.

English Open Championships 2026 - Games and Results

Mark Crowther — Mon Nov 2 13:23:00 2026

The English Open Championships 2026 took place Sat 24th October to Sun 1st November 2026. English Open 2026: Gawain Maroroa Jones won with 7½/9 a point clear of Michael Adams, Brandon Gi Clarke and Daniel W Gormally on 6½. English Women's 2026: Elmira Mirzoeva won with 7½/9 a point clear of Anusha Subramanian on 6½.

Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown 2026 - Games and results

Mark Crowther — Fri Oct 30 13:53:00 2026

The Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown took place Tue 27th Oct 2026 to 29th Oct 2026. The idea of the event was to have increasing scores from day 1 to day 3 so that the scoring is volatile and likely there will be something to play for right to the end. Javokhir Sindarov won the event with a draw in the final round, if Praggnanandhaa had won he would have taken the event. That said the players finished in exactly the order they would have finished with standard scoring.

Mortifyingly I had the wrong scores in the final standings although the right results. It seems that contrary to logic it was 1pt for a draw on the final day not 1.5pts.

41st European Club Cup 2026 - Games and Results

Mark Crowther — Fri Oct 23 19:33:00 2026

The 41st European Club Cup took place in Budva, Montenegro Sat 17th Oct to Fri 23rd Oct 2026.

In the Open top seeds Bayegan Pendik Chess Sports Club (Giri, Erdogmus, Tabatabaei, Rapport, Mamedyarov) just edged out Novy Bor Chess Club (Yakubboev, Sarin, Harikrishna, Anton) to take the title. Rishon LeZion A (Gelfand) finished 3rd. Second seeds SuperChess Romania (Abdusattorov, Van Foreest) finished fourth. Richard Pert scored a result of a lifetime starting with 6/6 before unfortunately losing in the final round.

In the Women's event top seeds Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo (Goryachkina, Koneru, Tsolakidou, Paehtz, Cramling) won ahead of Gambit Bonnevoie (Ushenina, Kulon, Danielian, Maltsevskaya, Khalafova) and Sirmium Sremska Mitrovica (Shuvalova, Garifullina, Salimova, Injac, Balabayeva). It was the phenomenon that is Bodhana Sivanandan who took the headlines, her 5.5/7 at the age of 11 makes her the youngest female to become an IM breaking Judit Polgar's long standing record and 7th youngest IM over all. It wasn't really a surprise, she was already playing to well above IM level.

US Chess Championships 2026 - Games and results

Mark Crowther — Thu Oct 22 22:12:00 2026

The US Chess Championships took place in Saint Louis Fri 9th Oct to Wed 21st Oct 2026. Wesley So won his fourth title after a tie-break win against defending champion Fabiano Caruana (winner the last four years 2022-25 champion). So had led by a point from Caruana going into the final round but lost to tail-ender Sam Sevian. The women's event was of great interest too with debutant Rachael Li winning on her first time out, half a point clear of Alice Lee.

46th World Chess Olympiad 2026 - Games and Results

Mark Crowther — Sat Oct 3 11:02:00 2026

The 46th World Chess Olympiad took place Wed 16th to Sun 27th Sep 2026 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The USA, India and hosts Uzbekistan are the top three seeds, India, Georgia, Kazakhstan and China are the top women's seeds.

The hosts Uzbekistan took the gold medal ahead of India and Germany. In the women's event China won ahead of Kazakhstan and India. All the games are available for download including my own corrections, I chose not to display files of this size.

3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities 2026 - Games and Results

Mark Crowther — Thu Sep 17 20:10:00 2026

The 3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities took place Fri 11th to Thu 17th Sep 2026. Poland beat Cuba in Round 5 to take the lead which they retained to the end, Cuba took the Silver medal and Uzbekistan 1 the Bronze.

Clutch Chess: The Legends 2026 - Games and results

Mark Crowther — Sun Sep 13 22:09:00 2026

Clutch Chess: The Legends was a match between Garry Kasparov and Veselin Topalov held over three days at the Saint Louis Chess Club. The games were Chess960. There were two time controls: Rapid (Games 1, 2, 5, 6, 9 and 10) 25+10spm and Blitz (3, 4, 7, 8, 11 and 12) 5m+3spm. The Clutch Chess is all about the scoring; day one has a normal score, day 2 has double day 1 and day 3 is triple day one, the idea being that there is a building excitement. There was also bonus money, up to $24,000 that rolled over to the final two games if there was a draw. I cannot currently display Chess960 games, Topalov won the match 16-8, The rapid portion saw Topalov win a rapid game on day one and Kasparov on day 3, the rest were drawn. Topalov won 5 of the 6 blitz games only losing one, on the first day.

Tech Mahindra Global Chess League 2026 - Games and results

Mark Crowther — Sun Sep 13 17:24:00 2026

The Tech Mahindra Global Chess League took place in Bengaluru, India 5th-13th September 2026. 6 Teams played over 10 rounds in rapid (10m+2spm) chess. The winners were Ganges Grandmasters with Ian Nepomniachtchi as the Legend and Levon Aronian as their board 2. Magnus Carlsen's Alpine APL Pipers finished second after losing the final. Nepomniachtchi was allowed to escape a lost position against Magnus Carlsen and turned it round for a win. FYERS American Gambits finished in 3rd after beating CheQ Mumba Masters.

Legends and Prodigies II 2026 - Games and results

Mark Crowther — Sun Sep 13 17:20:00 2026

The second Legends and Prodigies tournament took place in Madrid Mon 7th to Sat 12th Sep 2026. David Anton Guijarro was a convincing winner with a score of 7.5/10 a point and a half clear of Jose Eduardo Martinez Alcantara, prodogy Faustino Oro finished on 5.5 points. Francisco Fiorito won the B-tournament with 7/9.

European Senior Team Championship 2026 - Games and results

Mark Crowther — Fri Sep 4 19:21:00 2026

The European Senior Team Championship 2026 took place Thu 27th August to Fri 4th September 2026. In the +50 event final Standings: 1st England 1, 17pts. 2nd Italy, 16pts. 3rd-4th Netherlands were just ahead of Slovakia on tie-break after they both scored 13pts. In the +65 final 1st Slovenia who overtook England on tie-break after winning their final round 4-0 against SG Riehen Switzerland, both teams scored 16pts and they were a point clear of Italy.

Season Four of the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League - Start

Mark Crowther — Fri Sep 4 12:55:00 2026

The 2026 Tech Mahindra Global Chess League runs Sat 5th-13th Sept in Bengaluru, India. It uses a rapid time control of 20 minutes plus 2 seconds a move. Magnus Carlsen, Alireza Firouzja and Viswanathan Anand star. League: 6 teams 10 matches, the top two finishers play for the title, the next two for 3rd-4th.

TCh-ESP 1st Div 2026 - Games and results

Mark Crowther — Thu Sep 3 18:43:00 2026

The Spanish CECLUB 1st Div took place Thu 27th August to Wed 2nd September 2026. Club Ajedrez Solvay headed by Vasyl Ivanchuk won the title.

Final Standings: 1st Club Ajedrez Solvay, 14.0 points. 2nd Andreu Paterna, 9.0. 3rd Platja Daro Club Escacs, 8.0. 4th Ciudad Naranco, 7.0. 5th-7th Granada Sidn-civica-nazaries-trevenque, Club Ajedrez Sestao and Gros Xake Taldea, 6.0. 8th Ca Fundacion La Caja, 0.0. 8 teams.

Green Hills Resort Masters 2026 - Games and results

Mark Crowther — Mon Aug 31 11:00:00 2026

The Green Hills Resort Masters took place 30th-31st August in the Bostanlyk district which is 75km from Tashkent. The event was one day of rapid and one of blitz, the rapid games counted double.

Nodirbek Yakubboev was something of a surprise winner, in the rapid he scored 6/7, which converted to 12 points, 3 points clear of the field going into the second day of blitz. In spite of finishing only 6th of 8 in the blitz he just hung on to win by half a point from Nodirbek Abdusattorov who beat him in their individual blitz game. Vladislav Artemiev finished in third place and Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus finished in fourth; Shakhriyar Mamedyarov had a terrible couple of days finishing last in the rapid and 7th in the blitz.

Sofia Cup 2026 - Games and results

Mark Crowther — Sun Aug 30 16:05:00 2026

The Sofia Cup, also known as the Balkan Rapid and Blitz Championships took place 29th to 30th August 2026. Players: Alireza Firouzja Rauf Mamedov, Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli, Vojtech Plat, Leon Livaic, Sanan Sjugirov, Ediz Gurel, Ivan Cheparinov etc.

Rauf Mamedov won the rapid event on tie-break from Alireza Firouzja and Dimitris Alexakis after all finished on 7.5/9. Firouzja was the clear winner of the blitz with 9.5/11 half a point clear of Ediz Gurel and Mamedov .

Grand Chess Tour Finals 2026 - Games and results

Mark Crowther — Sat Aug 29 18:17:00 2026

The Grand Chess Tour Finals took place in Saint Louis 22nd to 27th August 2026. This was the final event of the tour and a total prize fund of $450,000, was distributed as follows: $200,000 for first place, $125,000 for second, $75,000 for third, and $50,000 for fourth. The top four players with the best results during the tour were in finishing order: No. 1 Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Seed No. 2 Wesley So, Seed No. 3 Fabiano Caruana, and Seed No. 4 Vincent Keymer.

In the semi-finals Praggnanandhaa beat Vincent Keymer comfortably, winning one of the two classical games and then both rapid games, Keymer won the blitz section but it didn't matter. Fabiano Caruana overcame Wesley So in a close match until the blitz. In the final Caruana led Praggnanandhaa after the Classical games but lost both of the rapid games. The match was tied a couple of games into the blitz but then Praggnanandhaa ran away with it. Very similarly in the 3rd - 4th playoff the match was tied early on in the final blitz but Wesley So won the blitz section 8-0 against Vincent Keymer and that was that, Keymer might be invited back, the other three qualified for next year's tour with these results.

6th Cairns Cup 2026 - Games and Results

Mark Crowther — Sun Aug 23 10:37:00 2026

The 6th Cairns Cup 2026 took place Mon 10th to Fri 21st August 2026. Tan Zhongyi won with 6½/9 half a point clear of Alice Lee on 6. She earned her first GM norm in the 2026 Cairns Cup at the age of 16.

13th Sinquefield Cup 2026 - Games and Results

Mark Crowther — Thu Aug 20 06:44:00 2026

The 13th Sinquefield Cup took place 10th to 20th August 2026. Players: Fabiano Caruana, Javokhir Sindarov, Vincent Keymer, Wesley So, Anish Giri, Praggnanandhaa R, Jorden Van Foreest, Maxime Vachier-lagrave, Levon Aronian and Samuel Sevian.

Wesley So took first place from Praggnanandhaa after winning a tie-break match. The players scored 5.5/9 to share first place and then drew two 10 minutes plus 5 seconds a move rapid game, a final Armageddon game was required, Wesley had the black pieces and draw odds, the game finished at King vs King and thus so had the draw he needed.

Carlsen wins the Chess event in the Esports World Cup - Final

Mark Crowther — Sat Aug 15 18:42:00 2026

Magnus Carlsen convincingly won the lucrative chess final of the Esports World Cup which is being held in Paris, France. The event as a whole has 25 tournaments held over 24 different games and takes place July 6th to August 23rd, a period of 48 days. The claimed total prize fund for the entire event is US$75 million, the total for the chess was $1.5m with $250,000 for the winner, $190,000 for second, $145,000 for third place, and $115,000 fourth place. It might truly be said that the only really serious thing about the chess tournament in the Esports World Cup is the prize money.

The players also sign up to be part of teams such as Team Liquid, Team Vitality, Karmine Corp, Ninjas in Pyjamas, who are legends in their own right. Games played alongside the chess include Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Counter-Strike 2, EA Sports FC 26, PUBG and Fortnite.