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
Shortly after recovering from Covid, GM Nigel Short is back at the board in a tournament in Italy. He survived a lost position against a 14-year-old 1900-player whose phone went off. Meanwhile, top seed GM Anton Korobov has been showing some nice chess. How to watch?You can follow the games of the Vergani.
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