Page 4 - Annotated Games News Today

The World Senior Chess Championship 2023 took place in Terrasini, Italy, with a championship for players age 50+, 65+, and a combined women’s section with prizes both for players 50+ and 65+. At the time of writing, no official photos for the event are available. 

Overview The 2023 FIDE Grand Swiss and Women’s Grand Swiss concluded on Sunday, November 5, after 11 rounds of competition in Douglas, Isle of Man. The result was a double-“V” victory for India, with GM Vidit Gujraithi and IM Vaishali Rameshbabu winning the Open and Women’s tournaments respectively, each with scores of 8½/11.

US Chess has a new champion, and it is WGM Anjelina Belakovskaia. She won the inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Championship with a score of 4½/5. Winning the tournament did not come without its share of drama, as a heart-stopping final round provided all the excitement one would expect from a national championship.  

Day two of the 2023 U.S. Women’s Senior Championship displayed some spirited fighting chess from the participants. Of the 18 games played over the first two days, there have only been two draws. WGM Anjelina Belakovskaia leads the field with the only perfect score at 3/3, with WIM Beatriz Marinello close behind as the only player with 2½/3.  

Editor's Note: This article will updated shortly with photos from the first day of the event.

The 2023 FIDE Grand Swiss and Women’s Grand Swiss are heading into their final weekend in Douglas, Isle of Man. The 11-round tournaments are not only some of the strongest Swiss System (rather than Round Robin or knockout tournaments, as are common in high-level invitationals) events of the year, but also critical for the 2024 Candidates and Women’s Candidates tournaments to be held in April in Toronto, ON.  

Greetings chess friends! I beg your indulgence for this month’s column; I am just now finishing up the manuscript for a book that is to be released next year (details later!), and this month’s column is an idea I have had for some time, and for which I have many recent games (including several of my own) to work with. This allows me to make use of some recent post-game analyses. So, without further ado, I offer you my testimony on behalf of the Queen’s Gambit Declined!

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Nothing compares to the excitement of the final round. The audience loves the adrenaline, and the raised stakes can aggravate the pressure but also serve as a motivator for the players: a final boost to the finish. Round 11 of the 2023 U.S. Championships certainly lived up to the excitement, with the live cameras capturing nail-biting moments that could have been in a movie.

The penultimate round of the 2023 U.S. Championships saw a drastic shift in the course of events. In the Open, GM Fabiano Caruana completed his fantastic run with a classical victory over the youngest participant, GM Abhimanyu Mishra.