A sole leader emerged for the first time in the open section of the Grand Swiss, as Andrey Esipenko beat Marc’Andria Maurizzi to become the only player to reach a 3½/4 score. A 17-player chasing pack stands a half point behind, with Hikaru Nakamura, Alireza Firouzja and Hans Niemann among those who joined this group by winning on Saturday. In the women’s section, Anna Muzychuk could not convert her advantage in the co-leaders’ clash with Tan Zhongyi. | Photo: Anna Shtourman
As expected, hard-fought, exciting games were the norm on the opening day at the Grand Swiss tournaments on the Isle of Man. In the open, 32 players started with wins, including top seed Fabiano Caruana, Richard Rapport (pictured) and Levon Aronian. In the women’s event, meanwhile, 15 participants scored full points, with none of the top three seeds getting more than a draw. | Photo: Anna Shtourman
The 2021 African Continental Championships were held on May 17-28 at the Crossroads Hotel in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. The top players from the continent fought to get one of the fours spots granted to participate in the upcoming World Cup. Egyptian grandmasters Ahmed Adly, Amin Bassem, Fawzy Adham and Hesham Abdelrahman finished atop the standings. Diana Mihajlova reports from the ‘warm heart of Africa’
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Arab-African Online Individual Chess Championship 2021
Recently we have reported on the Africa Online Individual Championship https://en.chessbase.com/post/africa-online-individual-chess-championship-2021 Now, a title African-Arab Online Individual Championship might sound slightly confusing. Such a Championship indeed took place from 25th to 27th February, 2021. It was a brain child of the President of the Arab Chess Federation, Mr Saud bin Abdul Aziz Al Mualla who was also Head of the Championship’s Organising Committee. On his initiative, prompted by the current trend of online competitions, the African Chess Confederation and the Arab Chess Federation ‘merged’, for this occasion, so that players from both federations had the opportunity to compete. The goal was achieved by the starling number of participants: more than 1600!