Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov won their round-7 classical encounters to climb to shared third place at the Norway Chess Tournament. Magnus Carlsen lost in Armageddon against Aryan Tari, but is still leading the standings table, albeit only by a half point second-placed Vishy Anand won the sudden-death decider against Teimour Radjabov on Tuesday. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
Ding Liren won the Chessable Masters after beating 16-year-old Praggnanandhaa in the final match’s tiebreaks. The Chinese had won the first set on Wednesday, but saw his opponent bouncing back in the second 4-game mini-match. A clear rating favourite, Ding defeated his prodigious rival in the deciding blitz tiebreaker.
Incredibly for those of us who were first drawn to the game by the excitement and spectacle of the time, this year marks the 50th anniversary a full half-century of Bobby Fischer's epic run to the world chess title, culminating in the on- and off-board drama of Bobby's defeat of star-crossed Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Less than two weeks after winning the Capablanca Memorial, Hans Niemann claimed outright victory at the TePe Sigeman & Co tournament in Malmö. Niemann scored 5/7 points to finish a full point ahead of a three-player chasing pack, which consisted of Michael Adams, Nils Grandelius and Arjun Erigaisi. | Photo: Lars OA Hedlund