Tata Steel Chess 2025 Round 1 Pairings, Gukesh faces Giri

87th Tata Steel 2025 1

Mark Crowther (Fri Jan 17 21:02:00 2025)

The 87th Tata Steel Chess tournament starts on Saturday 18th January at 2pm local time. The pairings have been made and they are:

Masters Round 1 pairings: Pentala Harikrishna - Arjun Erigaisi, Praggnanandhaa - Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Leon Luke Mendonca - Vincent Keymer, Max Warmerdam - Alexey Sarana, Wei Yi - Fabiano Caruana, Jorden van Foreest - Vladimir Fedoseev, Gukesh D - Anish Giri.

Challengers Round 1 pairings: Divya Deshmukh - Nodirbek Yakubboev, Thai Dai van Nguyen - Arthur Pijpers Aydin Suleymanli - Benjamin Bok, Ediz Gurel - Irina Bulmaga, Erwin l'Ami - Frederik Svane, Faustino Oro - Rameshbabu Vaishali, Miaoyi Lu - Kazybek Nogerbek.

• 87th Tata Steel 2025

87th Tata Steel 2025

87th Tata Steel 2025 Games and Results

Mark Crowther (Fri Jan 17 20:59:00 2025)

The 87th Tata Steel tournament takes place 17th January to 2nd February 2025.

World Chess Champion Gukesh Dommaraju plays his first chess since beating Ding Liren for the title. World number two Fabiano Caruana is the top rated played followed by number four Erigaisi Arjun, five Gukesh, six Nodirbek Abdusattorov and number 9 and defending champion Wei Yei. Also playing (in no particular order) Pentala Harikrishna (a last minute replacement for Santosh Vidit), Praggnanandhaa, Leon Luke Mendonca, Vincent Keymer, Max Warmerdam, Alexey Sarana, Jorden van Foreest, Vladimir Fedoseev and last but definitely not least Anish Giri.

The Challengers is yet again an interesting mix of players and strengths: Thai Dai van Nguyen is the top seed. Divya Deshmukh, Nodirbek Yakubboev, Arthur Pijpers, Aydin Suleymanli, Benjamin Bok, Ediz Gurel, Irina Bulmaga, Erwin l'Ami, Frederik Svane, Faustino Oro, Rameshbabu Vaishali, Miaoyi Lu and Kazybek Nogerbek.

I will have daily reports and live coverage. Play starts at 2pm local time, 1pm GMT. There will be a 15 minute delay for all broadcasts.

• Tata Steel Chess 2025 Round 1 Pairings, Gukesh faces Giri

World Rapid & Blitz Championship 2024

World Rapid & Blitz Championship 2024 Games and Results

Mark Crowther (Sun Dec 29 20:31:00 2024)

The World Rapid & Blitz Championship took place on Wall Street in New York 26th to 31st December 2024. Carlsen, Caruana, MVL, Wei Yi, Nepomniachtchi, Aronian, Firouzja, Nakamura, Abdusattorov, Duda, Wesley So etc. In the women's event Ju Wenjun, Lei Tingjie, Tan Zhongyi, Kosteniuk etc.

Magnus Carlsen was defaulted in round 9 of the rapid when he didn't change his clothes after being informed they broke the regulations. He stated this was likely his final FIDE event, he would not play the blitz. This seemed very final from Carlsen but then on the rest day a blurred photo emerged of him talking to Viswanthan Anand (I'm guessing there's maybe a story that someone made sure there was a photo) and after some flex in the regulations Carlsen will play the blitz in which he is one of the favourites. Two points occur to me, firstly this isn't over in the sense that FIDE and Carlsen have points of tension over the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam and the Esports World Cup that aren't going to go away, but secondly I highly doubt Carlsen would be playing the blitz without FIDE having Anand for him to talk to, and being able to do this kind of thing is entirely what should qualify a person to be FIDE President somewhere down the line.

The rapid title was taken by 18 year old and 59th seed Volodar Murzin. Whilst the victory can't be described as anything other than a surprise he has been a force in rapid and blitz chess for many years and scored a very respectable 8/15 in this event in 2019. The key moment in his victory was where he hustled Praggnanandhaa to defeat via an objectively lost position in round 12, his only Alexander Grischuk drew quickly in the final round leaving Murzin the task, to which he was equal, of drawing with Karen H. Grigoryan for the title.

Humpy Koneru won the women's rapid title for the second time, she was the 10th seed. In spite of being India's number one women's player she can be seen as a bit of an outsider due to her fractious relationship with the Indian Chess Federation. She is always an interesting player to follow as she has a solid positional style which she scores well with.

The final blitz had a Swiss section on the 30th and a knockout on the 31st for the medals among the top players. Ju Wenjun won the women's title. Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi agreed to draw their match after 7 games. Nepomniachtchi came from 2-0 down to take the match into a tie-break. Whether you think the players should have been able to agree to share the title is going to be a matter of opinion and it's been a divisive move. I believe you should stick to regulations and rewrite them afterwards if they turn out to be misguided. Clearly, at least in December 2024, this isn't the way. I was very much surprised at the open ended nature of "play until there is a decisive result" as written in the regs for the tie-break and I doubt this will happen again. I'm open to this format being repeated but many of the ordinary players who make this the event it is want a return to a straight Swiss. They pay to play in the event, without much hope of prizes, but they don't want to pay for an extra day (including accommodation) they almost certainly won't be playing any chess on and would prefer the extra rounds.

Champions Chess Tour Finals 2024

Champions Chess Tour Finals 2024 Games and Results

Mark Crowther (Sun Dec 22 14:18:00 2024)

The Champions Chess Tour Finals took place Dec 17, 2024 – Dec 21, 2024 in Oslo, Norway over the board rather than via a server. 8 players compete: Magnus Carlsen, Alireza Firouzja, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Wesley So, Denis Lazavik, Vincent Keymer and Levon Aronian. The event starts with a Round Robin mini-match stage, these are two games matches with an Armageddon (times decided by bidding), if tied. There was then a final chance in the Survival Stage for players placed 3rd-6th in the Round Robin. Ian Nepomniachtchi beat Denis Lazavik in the Winners final to take one place. MVL beat Vincent Keymer and then Lazavik who had a second chance, in the Losers final. This meant the semifinal lineup was decided as Magnus Carlsen vs MVL (Carlsen got to choose his semifinal opponent after winning the RR) and Alireza Firouzja vs Ian Nepomniachtchi. Magnus Carlsen won the event defeating MVL 3.5-1.5 in the Semifinal and Nepomniachtchi 4-1 (winning the first two games) in the final. Nepomniachtchi had defeated Firouzja 3.5-0.5 in the other semifinal. It's going to be very interesting to see how Carlsen does in the World Rapid and Blitz in just under a week in New York, he seems practically unplayable at fast time controls right now. Read more ....

14th XTX Markets London Chess Classic 2024

14th XTX Markets London Chess Classic 2024 Games and Results

Mark Crowther (Sat Dec 21 21:45:00 2024)

The 14th London Chess Classic sponsored by XTX Markets took place in the Emirates Stadium Fri 29th Nov to Sat 7th Dec 2024. The field of the Elite round robin was Gawain Jones, Michael Adams, Santosh Vidit, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Nikita Vitiugov, Andrew Hong, Ju Wenjun and Shreyas Royal play. Raunak Sadhwani and Ilya Smirin are the top seeds in the Masters, a 9 round open.

Gawain Jones scored a fine victory with an undefeated 5/7, his round one win against Michael Adams seems especially important in retrospect, Adams tied with Vidit, Vitiugov and Mamedyarov on 4 points in second place. On the final day Alireza Firouzja won the Superblitz final by a point from MVL in what was a very strong field. Read more ....

FIDE World Chess Championship 2024

FIDE World Chess Championship 2024 Games and Results

Mark Crowther (Mon Dec 16 12:01:00 2024)

The FIDE World Chess Championship took place in Singapore Mon 25th Nov to Fri 13th Dec 2024. Defending champion was 32 year old Ding Liren who won the title against Ian Nepomniachtchi in April 2023. The Challenger was 18 year old Gukesh Dommaraju who won the right to play the match after winning the Candidates tournament earlier in the year.

Much was made of the poor form of Ding Liren who had admitted to depression but he played better than anyone had any right to expect. Ding won the first game but the match was soon level again after Gukesh won game 3.

There were then seven draws in a row before Gukesh won a fluctuating struggle in game 11 where Ding stood well before losing the advantage and eventually blundering the position away in time trouble. Ding then won probably the best game of the match when he completely outplayed Gukesh in game 12. Game 13 was drawn before the final decisive game 14. Ding had white in the final game, didn't get an advantage and in fact then chose to play into a very drawish but inferior endgame. Of course he should have held this endgame and the blunder he made that allowed Gukesh to win was really very simple but I think the whole way he tried to secure the draw was psychologically wrong and I wasn't impressed even as I expected the game to be drawn. Gukesh has had a tremendous year, clumninating in this win. He finishes the year rated at number 5 in the world, he will be able to afford the kind of team only a world champion can afford from now on, the capture of the number one spot in the rating list will no doubt be the next target. He is the youngest ever world champion at 18 and there's clear room for improvement, some of the weaker parts of his game were exposed a bit in this match, but even just playing this match probably improved Gukesh as a player. My feeling is that Ding won't be too disappointed. He did put up a very decent defence of his title, far better than most predicted. The way it finished was a bit odd but was more a product of the sustained pressure of the match than that single moment, also he did have some lucky escapes in other games. The title clearly didn't suit Ding and honestly we need a better champion for the game as a matter of urgency now. Ding said he's likely to follow the Carlsen model of less classical and more rapid and blitz, I think that's a bit of a pity but hopefully we'll see him back to his best.

• Gukesh is the new World Chess Champion after Ding makes an extraordinarily simple blunder
• Ding survives a serious scare in World Championship Game 13
• Ding scores a crushing win against Gukesh to level the World Championship match at 6-6
• Ding blunders in a game of extraordinary mutual tension - World Championship Game 11

Freestyle Chess Match: Carlsen vs. Caruana 2024

Freestyle Chess Match: Carlsen vs. Caruana 2024 Games and Results

Mark Crowther (Thu Nov 21 14:29:00 2024)

The Freestyle Chess Match Carlsen vs. Caruana took place Wed 20th Nov to Fri 22nd Nov 2024 in Singapore. There was an opening hand and brain event before a two game 90m+30spm match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana in Chess960 which is being rebranded for this series as Freestyle Chess. Carlsen won the first game rather quickly and the second game was drawn. Read more ....