Page 2 - Annotated Games News Today

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Editor's note: This story first appeared in the February 2024 issue of Chess Life Magazine. Consider becoming a US Chess member for more content like this — access to digital editions of both Chess Life and Chess Life Kids is a member benefit, and you can receive print editions of both magazines for a small add-on fee.

The 2024 Champions Chess Tour kicked off earlier this week with the return of the Chessable Masters. The first of four major online invitationals — consisting of play-ins, qualifiers, and double-elimination matches across three divisions — featured over 200 players eventually sorted into groups of eight, 16, and 32 (for Divisions I, II, and III, respectively) over the course of eight days of action.

13-year-old Andy Woodward earned his third and final GM norm in Saudi Arabia with his 6/9 performance at the Jeddah Chess Festival’s Young Masters invitational Round Robin. Woodward finished in a three-way tie for second place, a half-point behind IM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus (who beat Woodward in the first round).

Editor's note: This story first appeared in the January 2024 issue of Chess Life Magazine. Consider becoming a US Chess member for more content like this — access to digital editions of both Chess Life and Chess Life Kids is a member benefit, and you can receive print editions of both magazines for a small add-on fee.

For the first time in a long time, the 2024 Pan-American Intercollegiate Championships saw a first-time champion take top honors. After six rounds from January 4 through 7 in McAllen, Texas, University of Missouri-A won with a dazzling 5½/6 score ahead of University of Texas at Dallas (UTD)-A, which finished clear second on 5/6.  

A number of high-profile tournaments took place around Christmastime both domestically and internationally. Between the holidays and coverage of FIDE's rapid and blitz world championships, it's time to catch up on some of the biggest names and news items from the previous month.  

Hello chess friends! This month’s column was inspired by a reader! Matthew Brodhead sent in his game against John Cissik, and analyzing his game gave me the idea for this month’s column. GM Savielly Tartakower (whom I love to quote!) once said that any opening is good enough to play if its reputation is bad enough. What he meant was that once a line gets a reputation as a loser, it becomes fodder for those who are willing to work to find improvements and use them to gain points in competitio...

The 2023 North American Junior U20 Championships were held from December 19 through 23 in Dulles, Virginia. Organized by Capital Area Chess with approval of US Chess, Confederation of Chess for America (CCA), and FIDE, the nine-round tournaments (Open and Girls) crowned outright winners in each section.

The final two rounds of the 2023 K-12 Grade Level Championships in Orlando, Florida, this past weekend lived up to expectations as players of equal levels clashed head to head in over 2,400 games. On the top boards, there were over two dozen games in the final round in which both players were rated over 2000. But, as we know, it’s not the rating that determines the winner, and so it is now (after the tournament) that we can finally reveal the National Champions of each grade.