Samarkand's Disability Olympiad Echoes Belgrade's First Steps
The third FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities opened in Samarkand with 41 teams beginning play in Round 1, and the ceremonial first move fell to…
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Topalov's Clutch Chess Lead Echoes His Old Kasparov Duels
Garry Kasparov has spent much of his post-retirement career being the one who makes other legends sweat. On the first day of the 2026 Clutch Chess: The…
Samarkand Links Ancient Ivory Pieces to a Modern Milestone
Uzbekistan has spent the last several years turning itself into one of chess's busiest hosts, and this week it added a genuine first. The 3rd FIDE Chess…
Salesforce's FIDE Deal Is a Software Sale With a Chessboard Attached
FIDE just landed the kind of sponsor that most sports federations spend years chasing, and the announcement is worth reading past the press-release enthusiasm.…
FIDE's Education Summit Follows a Familiar Institutional Playbook
FIDE is folding another standalone event into the calendar of the 46th Chess Olympiad. On 24 September 2026, the federation will hold the FIDE Summit on Chess…
GCL's Lead Swings Back to the Gambits on Day 5
The Global Chess League table has a habit of flipping on its head every couple of days, and Wednesday in Bengaluru was no exception. FYERS American Gambits…
A Second's Difference: GCL's Prodigy Board Controversy
The Global Chess League table flipped again on Day 4 in Bengaluru, but the number everyone was talking about afterward was a single second on a chess clock.…
FIDE's New Athletes Commission Echoes the IOC's Playbook
FIDE has opened the call for candidates for the upcoming elections to its Athletes Commission, a body meant to give players a formal seat at the table when the…
South Africa Dominates Africa's August Chess Rankings
South Africa supplied most of the biggest fields on the African chess calendar in August 2026, though the single largest turnout came from a women's…
GCL's Wild Day 3: Gambits Fall, Pipers Seize the Lead
Three days into Global Chess League Season 4, the top of the table has already been turned upside down. Monday's round produced the kind of results that make…
Nigel Short's Last Continent Is Antarctica
Nigel Short has spent more than four decades collecting chess milestones, but until now, one gap remained on his personal map. This Antarctic summer, six…
Brazil Dominates South America's Biggest August Fields
August in South America produced 801 tracked tournaments. Ranked by registered players, Brazil's grassroots rapid scene claimed most of the top spots, with…
Carlsen Returns, But GCL Day One Belongs to Sindarov
Magnus Carlsen walked back into the Global Chess League on Saturday for the first time in a year, and by the end of the night his team, the Alpine APL Pipers,…
Carlsen's Escape Extends Old Nepomniachtchi Pattern
Magnus Carlsen needed an escape act to keep his Global Chess League team perfect, and the man on the other side of the board was the opponent who has given him…
Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi Meet Again, but This Time Board Six Matters More Than They Do
The last time Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi sat across a board with real stakes attached, it ended with a five-hour, 136-move slog in Dubai that broke…
Deekshitha's Record Gain Shows How Fast the FIDE Rating List Can Move
The September FIDE rating list carries the usual reshuffling at the top. Wesley So is back in the world top 5 for the first time in nearly four years, off a…
The Torch Passes Again: Sindarov's Win Over Anand Echoes a Familiar Chess Story
Javokhir Sindarov's opening day at the 2026 Tech Mahindra Global Chess League produced one of those results that chess fans have seen before, just with the…
Duck Chess Pays in Bragging Rights More Than Dollars, and That's the Point
Edward Khachatryan of Israel needed to beat defending champion IM Nhat Minh To twice in one day to become the 2026 Duck Chess Champion, and he did exactly…
Mexico and Canada Led North America's Chess Calendar in August 2026
August's tournament calendar in North America tracked 162 events across the continent, though only a portion of them came with reported player counts. Of…
India Used To Have One World-Class Player. Now It Has A Bench.
For most of the last three decades, Indian chess meant one name. Viswanathan Anand carried the country's ambitions almost single-handedly from the early 1990s…
Renato Terry's Bullet Arena Dominance Echoes Titled Tuesday's Nakamura Era
Eighteen. That's how many 3+0 Thursday titles IM Renato Terry has now collected after his 9.5/11 performance in the day's final event, a number that starts to…
Faustino Oro and the Ever-Shrinking Youngest-GM Record
Faustino Oro's confirmation as a grandmaster at 12 doesn't break the all-time record for youngest GM ever. That mark still belongs to American Abhimanyu…
India's Rapid Boom Dominates Asia's Biggest Tournaments in August 2026
August 2026 was a big month for grassroots chess across Asia. Ranking tournaments by registered players tells a clear story: India's district- and state-level…
Why Carlsen and Caruana Signing On Matters More Than the Format
The headline from Budapest is the format: a pilot event blending fast classical, rapid, and blitz into something called "Total Chess." But the more telling…
Who Actually Profits From .chess? Unpacking the FIDE–World Chess Domain Deal
Buried in the celebratory language about chess finally getting "its own place on the internet" is a straightforward commercial arrangement worth examining:…
The Business Case for GCL Season 4: Why Bengaluru, Twice, Makes Financial Sense
Global Chess League returning to India for a second straight season, this time in Bengaluru, is not really a chess decision. It is a market decision, and the…
Why Kramnik's Legal Defeat Over the Naroditsky Article Matters More Than It Looks
An Amsterdam court has thrown out Vladimir Kramnik's lawsuit against New In Chess, ruling that the Dutch magazine's article accusing the former world champion…
Barcelona's Sants Open and a Romanian Rapid Lead Europe's August Field
August's tournament calendar in Europe was topped, by registration numbers at least, by a rapid event in Transylvania rather than one of the continent's…
Hans Niemann's Return to the Chess.com Broadcast Comes With a Trophy Attached
Hans Niemann has never done anything the easy way, and his latest Titled Tuesday win fits the pattern perfectly. On September 1, he snatched the title away…
Nakamura's 65th Bullet Brawl Win Is the Latest Chapter in a Two-Decade Bullet Reign
Hikaru Nakamura picked up his 65th career Bullet Brawl title on Saturday, his 16th of 2026 alone, scoring 51/65 for 170 points and finishing 23 points clear of…
Why Kasparov vs. Topalov in Chess960 Feels Like Unfinished Business
Garry Kasparov and Veselin Topalov are set to meet again, this time at the Saint Louis Chess Club for Clutch Chess: The Legends, a $144,000 Chess960 match…
Behind FIDE's Dry Meeting Minutes: A Federation Wrestling With Its Own Politics
Most FIDE Council meeting reports read like tax filings: a list of numbered resolutions, terse and bloodless. But the minutes from the 2nd FIDE Council Meeting…
How Anna Muzychuk Went From Boycotting Saudi Arabia to Booking a Spot in Saint-Tropez
Bibisara Assaubayeva and Anna Muzychuk have punched their tickets to the 2026 WR Women's Chess Tour Grand Final by winning the tour's European leg in…
Perth Hosts International Field as Oceania's September Calendar Leans Local
Oceania's tournament calendar for September 2026 is modest in size but heavy on Australian club activity, with 14 tournaments tracked across the continent.…
Caruana's Italian Job: An Old Opening Finds New Teeth in the Grand Chess Tour Finals
Fabiano Caruana didn't need a novelty from the computer age to take the first game of his 2026 Grand Chess Tour Finals title match against Praggnanandhaa…
September's African Chess Calendar: Egypt and Algeria Lead a Grassroots Month
September 2026 brings 13 tracked tournaments across the African continent, a spread that runs from Cairo's rapid scene to a spring weekend in the Eastern Cape.…
How an Estonian IM's Double Upset in Mozambique Became a National Story
Mai Narva doesn't often make international news outside chess circles, but this week she made front pages back home. Estonia's national broadcaster ERR ran a…
The 'Curse of the Draw' Follows the Grand Chess Tour to St. Louis
Day one of the 2026 Grand Chess Tour Finals gave St. Louis exactly the kind of chess that makes commentators tear their hair out: two fights, two full points…
Brazil's Youth Circuits Dominate a Packed September Calendar in South America
September 2026 brings 223 tracked tournaments across South America, and the data we have paints a continent where Brazil's regional scholastic and rapid…
Eastern Asia's Youngest Players Just Wrote Another Chapter in the Region's Chess Pipeline
The rapid portion of the Eastern Asia Youth Chess Championship 2026 has wrapped up, with new champions crowned across six separate age categories. According to…
September 2026 in North American Chess: Mexico's Independencia Circuit Leads a Packed Calendar
North America's chess calendar for September 2026 runs to 117 tracked tournaments, and the biggest cluster by registration numbers belongs to a single…
Vereslav Eingorn and the Odesa Chess Lineage He Leaves Behind
FIDE announced this week that Vereslav Eingorn, the Ukrainian grandmaster, coach and author, has died at 69. He was born on 23 November 1956 in Odesa, then…
FIDE's Youth Championships Get New Numbers: What the U7-U17 Shift Really Means
FIDE and the Spanish Chess Federation have opened registration for the FIDE World Youth Chess Championships, inviting national federations to send players in…
September 2026 in Asian Chess: India Dominates a Crowded Calendar
Asia's tournament calendar for September 2026 runs to 263 tracked events, and the numbers we do have point to India as the continent's clear engine room this…
Sindarov's Round-Seven Win Echoes His Candidates Surge as Tan Survives a Near-Collapse
The 2026 Sinquefield Cup and Cairns Cup are entering the stretch run in St. Louis, and round seven produced one decisive game in each event, plus a near-miss…
Peru's Saco Oliveros Academy Turns a School Chess Title Into a Statement of Method
The American Continental Stage of the FIDE ISCF World Schools Team Championship 2026 wrapped up at the DoubleTree by Hilton Cariari in San José, and the team…
September 2026 in European Chess: Craiova Leads a Crowded Continental Calendar
Europe's tournament calendar keeps rolling into autumn, with 392 events tracked across the continent for September 2026. The list spans everything from…
Carlsen's Perfect Paris Run Shows Where Chess Money Is Actually Growing
Magnus Carlsen didn't just win the Chess Esports World Cup in Paris again, he did it without dropping a single game across the entire event. In the final, he…
What a $400 First Prize Says About Bullet Chess's Economics
Jeffery Xiong successfully defended his Bullet Brawl title on Saturday, taking home the $400 first prize after a tense finish that saw him post 162 points and…