Page 2 - Peter Leko News Today

The 2024 Chess Olympiad will be held in Budapest from 10 to 23 September. By their very nature, Chess Olympiads are chess festivals that bring together nations, amateurs, professionals, men and women. Hungary is a country with a long and rich chess tradition and the Chess Olympiad 2024 promises to be a chess highlight of 2024.

Work in progress to insert chess on the IOIG list   If everything goes well, there is a high possibility for the inclusion of chess on the list of sporting ...

Nijat Abasov, the 69th seed in the open section of the FIDE World Cup, has all but secured a spot in the next edition of the Candidates Tournament, as he beat Vidit Gujrathi with white to knock him out of the event. Since Magnus Carlsen, his next opponent, also reached the semifinals and is very likely to skip the Candidates, the Azerbaijani will not even need to finish among the top-3 to reach the 8-player World Championship qualifier. Fabiano Caruana also advanced to the semifinals, while Prag...

Six players have already reached the round-of-16 in the open section of the FIDE World Cup, including Fabiano Caruana, who beat Ray Robson, and Alexey Sarana, who knocked out sixth seed Wesley So. The remaining ten spots will be decided in Friday’s tiebreaks, with Magnus Carlsen reaching that stage after bouncing back in his match against Vincent Keymer. In the women’s section, three players secured their spots in quarterfinals: Aleksandra Goryachkina, Tan Zhongyi and Polina Shuvalova. | Pho...

Vincent Keymer beat Magnus Carlsen for the first time in his career and now only needs a draw on Thursday to knock the world number one out of the World Cup. The other big upset of the day saw Alexey Sarana brilliantly defeating Wesley So with the black pieces. In the women’s section, 7 out of 8 games finished drawn. Bella Khotenashvili scored the one win of the day, as she beat third seed Humpy Koneru. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage

The Prague Chess Festival kicked off on Wednesday. Both the Masters and the Challengers saw four draws and a decisive game each. In the Masters, top seed Wang Hao was defeated by German star Vincent Keymer, who got a superior endgame out of a sharp, theoretical variation, and converted it proficiently. In the Challengers, 13-year-old Czech FM Vaclav Finek beat Indian GM Akash G with the white pieces. | Photo: Petr Vrabec

The fifth edition of the Prague Chess Festival will take place on June 21-30 at the Don Giovanni Hotel in the Czech capital. The Masters Tournament is a 10-player single round-robin with Wang Hao, Sam Shankland and defending champion Pentala Harikrishna (pictured) as the top seeds. The lineup also includes German star Vincent Keymer and David Navara who, like Shankland, has been invited to all five editions of the Masters. | Photo: Vladimír Jagr

The knockout phase of the ChessKid Cup is taking place on May 22-26. Three Divisions (with 8, 16 and 32 players respectively) are being played concurrently. Each knockout tournament includes winners’ and losers’ brackets. Alireza Firouzja, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana are the top seeds in Division I. | Follow the games live with expert commentary starting at 17.00 CEST (11.00 EDT, 20.30 IST)

Grandmaster András Adorján died yesterday after a long illness. He was the runner-up at the 1969 World Junior Championship behind Anatoly Karpov, and reached the quarterfinals of the Candidates Matches in the 1979-1981 World Championship cycle. As a coach, he worked with Garry Kasparov and Peter Leko, among others. András Adorján was 73 years old. | Photo: Dutch National Archive

The penultimate classical game of the World Championship match finished in a 39-move draw. Ding Liren got good chances to go for the win with the black pieces, failed to handle them well, and ended up needing to play accurately to hold the draw. This was Ian Nepomniachtchi’s last game with white in the classical portion of the match. Game 14 will be played on Saturday. | Photo: FIDE / Anna Shtourman