Maxime Lagarde News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

A brainchild of Chokri Saidi, a French-Tunisian entrepreneur, the Djerba Chess Festival aims to combine chess, friendship, culture and tourism on the beautiful island of Djerba, the largest island off the coast of North Africa — which is also known as the ‘island of dreams’. Furthermore, Saidi has gone a step further in his chess organizing pursuits and, from this year, he is also organizing the prestigious Jeddah International Youth Chess Festival. Diana Mihajlova informs.

The Caplin Masters, part of the Hastings International Chess Congress, came to an end on Friday with a triumph for Abhijeet Gupta. The 34-year-old Indian grandmaster was the only one of 100+ participants in the event to achieve a score of 7½/9, thus getting outright victory. Pengxiang Zhang from China (7/9) came second. Behind Zhang, a group of nine players finished with 6½/9 points each. | Photo: Official website

GM Gergely Szabo's fabulous sacrificial win at February's Romanian championship tournament was tipped early on as a candidate for "game of the year."

After two rounds in the open section of the European Team Championship, six teams are sharing first place with 4/4 match points: Germany, France, the Netherlands, Serbia, Poland and Israel. Among the six teams standing a match point behind is Austria, who stunned Norway despite Valentin Dragnev failing to make the most of an advantageous position over Magnus Carlsen. In the women’s section, Azerbaijan, France, Poland, Spain and Serbia are sharing the lead, with Spain joining the leading pack after beating the top seeds from Georgia. | Photo: German Chess Federation

With a last-round-win Czech Grandmaster Jiri Stocek won the 26. Open International Bavarian Championships ahead of GM Maxime Lagarde from France. Both players finished with 7.5/9, but Stocek had the better tiebreak. German International Master Roven Vogel won bronze and made his third and final GM-norm. | Photos: Sandra Schmidt