FIDE has published the new world ranking list. Since hardly any tournaments were played in January and the Tata Steel tournament was not taken into account for the February list, there are virtually no changes at the top. Magnus Carlsen continues to be the world's number one with a huge margin, Alireza Firouzja is in second place and the only other player with a rating of +2800.
The Indian Grandmaster Lalith Babu won the "Vergani Cup" in the Italian Adriatic resort of Cattolica which finished on Sunday. With 7.0/9 Lalith shared first place with Hans Moke Niemann (USA), Vitaliy Bernadskiy (Ukraine) and Nurgyul Salimova (Bulgaria), but he had the best tiebreak and therefore won the tournament and the first prize of €2,500. | Photos: Rupali Mullick
In the second week of December Nigel Short caught Corona though he was vaccinated twice. Short's infection was so severe that he had to go hospital, but it did not stop the English Grandmaster from playing at the 6th Vergani Cup in Cattolica, Italy, at the beginning of the year. However, he needed some help from chess goddess Caissa when the tournament began. But Short did not forget his duties as a chess ambassador. | Photos: Circolo Scacchistico Forlivese, Rupali Mullick
During the World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi a number of other tournaments are played in Dubai. One of them is the Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Rapid and Blitz Cup, in which 24 players from 22 countries took part. The winner of the Rapid Cup, a nine round Swiss, was Russian Grandmaster Vladimir Fedoseev. | Photos: Tournament Page
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Vergani Cup
The chess festival in Vergani took place from January 3 to January 7 and was played over-the-board. Before entering the tournament, all participants had to present a PCR test, which could be no more than three days old. The festival offered three open tournaments for players of various strengths. The A-Open attracted 50 participants, including several grandmasters and a number of ambitious young players such as the US American Hans Moke Niemann (17), the Dane Jonas Buhl Bjerre (16), and Daniel Dardha (15) from Belgium.
The tournament was hosted by the local Hotel Palladium. The prize fund was not too impressive, but the picturesque surroundings and the picturesque town surely motivated some players to participate. And maybe they just felt like playing chess over-the-board again.