The Champions Showdown The Kings was a three day event where 6 players play three matches of three games at different time controls, one blitz 3m+2spm, one rapid 15m+10spm and finally one fast classical 60m+15spm. The players earned so much money per game depending on the result. Fabiano Caruana won the most with $51,625.

The 7th Prague International Chess Festival takes place Wed 26th Feb to Fri 7th Mar 2025. The main event is the Masters with Chithambaram VR. Aravindh, R Praggnanandhaa, Vincent Keymer, David Navara, Le Quang Liem, Anish Giri, Sam Shankland, Thai Dai Van Nguyen, Ediz Gurel and Wei Yi. The Challengers is also very strong and there's a Futures group and a number of opens.

Boris Vasilievich Spassky was born in Leningrad January 30th 1937 and has died in Moscow February 27th 2025 at the age of 88. The former World Chess Champion played two championship matches against Tigran Petrosian, winning the second one in 1969 to become the 10th holder of the title. Spassky lost his only defence against Bobby Fischer in a match in Reykjavik in 1972. This match gave him worldwide fame in the midst […]

The Djerba Chess Festival took place 16th to 23rd February 2025. Marc'Andria Maurizzi ran away with the masters event scoring 7.5/9 a point and a half clear of Daniel Dardha. The open was won by Paul Velten on tie-break from Bator Sambuev, they too scored 7.5/9. Daniel Dardha edged out 11 year old Faustino Oro (who finished last in the masters) on tie-break in the blitz after both scored 8/9.

The Chessable Masters took place Tue 18th Feb to Fri 21st Feb 2025. Players: Grischuk, Firouzja, Esipenko, Giri, Erigaisi, Caruana, Nakamura, Nepomniachtchi, Duda, Carlsen, Praggnanandhaa, Sevian, Artemiev, Wei Yi, Wesley So and Yu Yangyi. 10 minutes per game. Double Elimination KO. Magnus Carlsen made very light work of winning the event beating Hikaru Nakamura in the Winners and Grand Final, there was no need for a final reset final.

The Monaco FIDE Women's Grand Prix takes place Mon 17th Feb to Fri 28th Feb 2025. Players: Zhongyi Tan, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Humpy Koneru, Kateryna Lagno, Bibisara Assaubayeva, Harika Dronavalli, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Sarasadat Khademalsharieh, Elisabeth Paehtz and Batkhuyag Munguntuul.

The Freestyle Grand Slam Weissenhaus was the first in a series of events aimed at promoting the chess variant also known as Chess960, 9LX or Fischer Random Chess. The event is financed by German entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner and backed by former World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen. The remaining events of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour are: Paris April 8–15, New York July 17–24 New Delhi September 17–24 and Cape Town December […]

Praggnanandhaa won the 87th Tata Steel Chess tournament for his most impressive result of his career so far. The path to victory was not at all smooth and he had to show great determination on the final day. Praggnanandhaa shared the lead with World Champion Gukesh and I don't think anyone predicted both players would go down to a defeat. Gukesh was well beaten by a resurgent Arjun Erigaisi who said his confidence […]

The twelfth round of the Tata Steel Masters saw the top three all involved in dramatic games. At the end of the day Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh share the lead on 8.5/12 and Nodirbek Abdusattorov is now on 7.5 points after losing. If they are tied tomorrow there will be a blitz tie-break match after the round. First of all Praggnanandhaa won a short game against Alexey Sarana whose solid undefeated start is a […]