Thanks to dedicated individuals who follow their own heart’s pursuits, ancient chess variants are still alive today. An overwhelming number of enthusiasts and associations throughout the world cultivate old variants and other board games. Among them is Greg Myers, founder of the ‘Tamerlane Chess Club’ in Jamestown, New York.
A remarkable penultimate round at the Sinquefield Cup saw Ian Nepomniachtchi, Fabiano Caruana and Alireza Firouzja scoring full points to climb to shared first place with 4½ points each. For Caruana, however, it is all but impossible to win the event, as he will not play in Sunday’s final round, when he was supposed to face Magnus Carlsen. In the one draw of the day, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov managed to escape with a half point from an inferior position against Leinier Dominguez. | Photo: Grand Chess Tour / Lennart Ootes
Fighting chess was the rule rather than the exception in round 10 of the Candidates Tournament. All the players except Ian Nepomniachtchi, naturally chose fighting lines, attempting to win at all costs, as the event is coming to an end and first place is all that matters. In the end, Ding Liren and Hikaru Nakamura won and caught up with Fabiano Caruana in shared second place, as the latter overplayed his hand and was defeated by Jan-Krzysztof Duda. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage
Jan-Krzysztof Duda won the Superbet Rapid & Blitz tournament in Warsaw. The Polish star collected 6½/9 points on the final day of action to overcome long-time sole leader Vishy Anand in the standings table. Anand tied in second place with Levon Aronian, who scored 13½/18 points in the blitz section and thus climbed to first place in the blitz world ranking. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
Two players have a 1-point lead in their respective pools going into round 3 of the FIDE Grand Prix preliminaries in Belgrade. Anish Giri and Vidit Gujrathi kicked off the event with back-to-back wins and are the sole leaders in pools B and C. In pool A, Sam Shankland joined Dmitry Andreikin in the lead thanks to a win over Alexander Grischuk. In pool D, both games were drawn for a second consecutive day. | Photos: Mark Livshitz