Leon Luke News Today

While the World Championship match of the 2024-2025 cycle is supposed to take place at the end of the year, players are already fighting for a spot in the 2026 Candidates Tournament. As per the updated regulations, two places will be granted to the winners of the 2024 and 2025 FIDE Circuits (one per year). Currently, Nodirbek Abdusattorov is atop the leaderboard after winning the TePe Sigeman & Co. Tournament. A few top GMs, including Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri, have shared complaints re...

The Queen's Indian Defense is one of the most solid defenses against 1.d4. From a rock-solid position, the black player can pursue many ideas and plans without having to worry about coming under quick pressure. In this video course, the young Indian Grandmaster Leon Mendonca presents the most solid black responses in various variations.

Alireza Firouzja became the first sole leader in this year’s Tata Steel Masters after beating Parham Maghsoodloo with white in the second round — the Frenchman is the only player who started the event with back-to-back victories. Gukesh D. and Max Warmerdam also grabbed wins on Sunday. Meanwhile, in the Challengers, five players are sharing first place with 1½/2 points. | Photo: Tata Steel Chess Tournament / Lennart Ootes

The much-anticipated Tata Steel Masters kicked off on Saturday in Wijk aan Zee. A lively first round saw four players scoring full points, all with the black pieces — Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri and Wei Yi are sharing the lead after the first day of action. The Challengers also saw four players grabbing wins right off the bat. | Photo: Tata Steel Chess Tournament / Lenart Ootes

On Thursday, the strong Isbank Turkish Super League, Turkey’s team championship, came to an end in Ankara. The Turkish Airline Sports Club topped the standings. The best player on board one was Dommaraju Gukesh, who climbed to eleventh place in the live elite ratings list and became the youngest-ever player to cross the 2750-mark. | Photos: Turkish Chess Federation

The second edition of the Chessable Sunway Formentera Open took place on 18-28 April 2023 in Spain. Vladimir Fedoseev was one of four players who finished on a 7/10 score, leading the standings. The Russian GM won the rapid playoff to claim the tournament’s title. Karthik Venkataraman and Leon Luke Mendonca finished in second and third place, respectively. | Photo: Sunway Chess

Bobby Fischer is certainly the most famous of the Pisces chess players. But other top players include Bent Larsen, Veselin Topalov, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Teimour Radjabov, Hou Yifan, Anna Muzychuk and David Bronstein. Those who are Pisces can sometimes be as brilliant as Albert Einstein. With the Pisces-born, the circle of the twelve signs of the zodiac has come full circle, making this our final instalment.| Photo: Pixabay

€19.95 Everything still to fight for Praggnanandhaa took the sole lead in round 9 of the Polgar Challenge on Friday, when Nodirbek Abdusattorov — the then shared leader — lost to Leon Luke Mendonca. The Indian prodigy has remained alone atop the standings ever since, but that does not mean everything is decided in the first event of the Julius Baer Challengers Tour. To the contrary, we can expect a very exciting final day, as four players stand well within range to catch ...