Ohanyan Wins Atyrau Masters on Buchholz After Tie With Jiang, 15
Armenian GM Emin Ohanyan won the Atyrau Masters after finishing level on 7/9 with 15-year-old Chinese IM Jiang Haochen. The tiebreak decided it: Ohanyan's…
Asia
49 stories
Atyrau Masters: Two Seeds Fall, Anand and Ahmad Lead on 3/3
The Atyrau Masters, the third stage of the Kazakhstan Chess Cup, lost its two highest-rated players within two rounds. Vietnamese GM Nguyen Duc Hoa (2405) beat…
Bengbu's 198-Player Classical Tops Asia's November Calendar
Asia has 168 tournaments tracked for November 2026, and the classical events at the top of the list are spread from eastern China to western India to the…
Yu Yangyi Beats Ding Liren in Armageddon to Win Shenzhen
Yu Yangyi won the Shenzhen Nanshan International Chess Masters 2026 by beating Ding Liren in an Armageddon game with the white pieces, after a final that could…
Fifteen Chess Tourists, Eight Days and One Bronze Medal for Monika
Most Olympiad coverage stays inside the playing hall. This ChessBase travel diary by Axel Eger steps outside it, following a group of fifteen amateur players…
Adams Plays 3.Bc4 Against the Sicilian, and Nobody Laughs
In round six of the Samarkand Olympiad, Michael Adams beat Etienne Bacrot in a game that began 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bc4. That is a setup theoreticians long…
Tokayev Receives Turlov, Who Pitches Kazakh Chess as a Model
Kazakhstan's head of state has formally welcomed the new head of world chess. According to a FIDE press release carried by ChessBase, President Kassym-Jomart…
Speelman Hunts Samarkand's Miniatures, 40 Games in 25 Moves
Every Olympiad produces a few thousand games, and the ones that get remembered are usually the long, grinding fights. In his latest Agony column for ChessBase,…
Chennai's CM Trophy Draws 1,935 Players, Asia's Biggest in September
One-day rapid events in Tamil Nadu produced the largest fields in Asia in September. CHENNAI District - CM TROPHY 2026 - School Boys topped the list with 1,935…
Sindarov Within Two Points of Caruana After Samarkand
The first FIDE list since the Samarkand Olympiad, reviewed by ChessBase, reshuffles the middle of the top ten while leaving the very top untouched. Magnus…
The Anti-Motivator and the Silent Killer: Inside Uzbekistan's Gold-Medal Team
After the closing ceremony in Samarkand, Uzbekistan's five gold medalists sat down with ChessBase India's Sagar Shah, and the resulting interview is less a…
Madaminov's Unbeaten 5.5/7 Seals Uzbekistan's Second Gold
Uzbekistan won the Open section of the 2026 Chess Olympiad on home soil in Samarkand, beating Ukraine 2.5-1.5 in the final round to claim the country's second…
Uzbekistan Crowned as Samarkand Olympiad Closes in Fireworks
Two weeks of chess in Samarkand ended the way only a Central Asian host nation could close it: with medals, national anthems, opera, and finally fireworks and…
FIDE Hands Out Its First Excellence Awards in Samarkand
Chess has always ranked its players down to the decimal point, but it has never had a proper night out to thank everyone else who keeps the sport running. That…
Uzbekistan's Lead Holds as Ding Liren Blunders in Round 10
The penultimate round in Samarkand did what penultimate rounds are supposed to do: it separated genuine medal contenders from teams just hanging on. Uzbekistan…
Uzbekistan Retakes the Lead as So Stuns Sindarov
A day earlier, Germany had ended Uzbekistan's perfect 7/7 start and looked ready to make a real run at gold. Round nine flipped the script entirely. Uzbekistan…
Germany Ends Uzbekistan's 7/7 Run in Samarkand
Uzbekistan had won every match so far at the 46th Chess Olympiad, and it took a full family effort to stop them. Germany beat the tournament leaders 2.5-1.5 in…
Uzbekistan Pulls Two Matches Clear as Praggnanandhaa Delivers a Mating Net
Uzbekistan is still perfect. The hosts beat China 3-1 in Round 7 of the 46th Chess Olympiad to reach seven match wins from seven, and Chess.com's own tally…
A Rest Day Built on 900 Years of Samarkand's Layers
Chess Olympiads are built around thousands of games played across two long weeks, but organizers always carve out one day for players to put the pieces down.…
Yakubboev's Knight Fork Sends Uzbekistan Into Sole Lead
Six rounds into the 46th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, one blunder on board three turned a tense, evenly matched contest into the moment that shaped the whole…
Germany Stuns Top-Seeded USA as Uzbekistan Routs Hungary
Round 5 in Samarkand, the last before the Olympiad's rest day, delivered exactly the kind of chaos organizers probably didn't want on a day that opened with…
Eight Teams Still Perfect After Four Rounds in Samarkand
Four rounds into the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, the field of unbeaten teams has finally started to thin. In the Open section, FIDE reported that China, host…
Argentina's 28th Seed Shocks Ukraine at Samarkand
Round three of the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand was supposed to be about the favorites stretching their legs. Instead, the Women's section produced two results…
El Salvador Stuns Cuba as Gukesh Slips Below 2700
Round two of the 46th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand mostly went to script, but one result stood well outside it. El Salvador, seeded 94th in the field, beat…
Liang's Shock Loss and Montenegro's Draw Rattle Samarkand
Round two of the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand was supposed to be a settling-in day, with the top seeds simply protecting the points they'd banked in round one.…
Poland's Rollercoaster Ends in Gold at Samarkand
Poland went from a round-one loss to an undefeated title run, claiming gold at the 3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities in Samarkand. The…
Erigaisi Falls, but India's Bench Holds at Samarkand
The 46th Chess Olympiad opened in Samarkand with 207 teams in the Open section and 191 in the Women's, and Round 1 played out exactly the way a Swiss-system…
Poland's 4-0 Rout Puts It Alone Atop Samarkand
Poland no longer has to share the top of the table. Going into the penultimate round of the 3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities in Samarkand,…
Anand Admits the Cracks Behind Samarkand's Record Olympiad
Every Olympiad opening press conference is supposed to be a victory lap before a ball has been played. Samarkand's version, held ahead of the 46th FIDE Chess…
Cuba's Unbeaten Run Ends as Poland and Czechia Share the Lead
Cuba's run at the top of the 3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities is over. Round 5 in Samarkand handed Cuba its first match defeat of the…
India's October Grassroots Rush Fills Asia's Calendar
Asia's October slate runs to 181 tracked tournaments, and once again India supplies most of the volume and nearly all of the biggest fields. The month opens…
Cuba Stays Perfect as the Disability Olympiad Nearly Doubles
Cuba is the only team left with a perfect record at the 3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities, and it got there the hard way. On Monday in…
Samarkand's 400 Teams Break Budapest's Record by 20
Every two years the Olympiad tries to top itself, and Samarkand has managed it by a wide margin. The 46th FIDE Chess Olympiad, running from September 16…
Samarkand's Deaf Champion Coached Its Future Star
Three teams now sit alone at the top of the 3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities in Samarkand, but the standings are only half the story coming…
Carlsen-Nepomniachtchi Renew Rivalry, This Time for a Team Trophy
Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi are set to face off yet again, and this time it will not be for a world championship. GM Magnus Carlsen's Alpine APL…
Samarkand's Disability Olympiad Hits a Record 40 Teams
Round 2 of the 3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities produced a cluster of lopsided scorelines in Samarkand, and by the end of the day eight…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…