Three out of four quarter-finals favoured the lower-rated contender in Division I of the Chessable Masters. Denis Lazavik beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Jose Martinez beat Ian Nepomniachtchi and Vladimir Fedoseev beat Alireza Firouzja. The one match that ended with the rating favourite remaining in the winners’ bracket was Magnus Carlsen v. Wesley So, as Carlsen obtained a 2½-1½ victory. | Photo: chess.com / Thomas Tischio
GM Bartosz Soćko and WFM Michalina Rudzińska are the 2023 Polish chess champions. Michalina successfully defended her title from last year, while Bartosz won his third national chess crown. The open event was a 16-player knockout tournament, which attracted the best Polish players, except for Jan-Krzysztof Duda. The women’s event was a 10-player single round-robin. | Photos: Polush Chess Federation
The series of open national competitions for the World Solving Cup 2022/23 continued this month, with events in Poland and the Netherlands. Kacper Piorun won the Polish competition, while Nikos Sidiropoulos (Greece) was the winner in the Dutch event. In Poland, eight minutes decided the winner; in the Netherlands, one subtle endgame study made the difference.
The very competitive European Chess Championships will take place in March, with the open event set to start on March 3 in Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia. We take a brief look at the 23 years of history of the championships, which are traditionally taken very seriously by ambitious players, whose main objective often is to get a ticket to the FIDE World Cup. | Pictured: 2022 European champion Matthias Bluebaum
The International Solving Contest (ISC), traditionally held on the last Sunday of January, has marked the beginning of solving seasons for almost two decades. It’s a hybrid competition, with the same groups of chess problems and endgames distributed around the world to be solved at the same time. This year, it attracted 601 solvers from […]