Nakamura Wins a Seventh Straight Bullet Brawl With 178 Points
GM Hikaru Nakamura has now won seven Bullet Brawls in a row. On Saturday he scored 178 points to win the latest edition, finishing ahead of 218 titled players…
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Sindarov's Seconds: Abdusattorov, Vidonyak and Likely Madaminov
The World Championship match between Gukesh Dommaraju and Javokhir Sindarov runs from 24 November to 12 December in Cologny, near Geneva, over 14 games at the…
Total Chess Rating Puts Carlsen at 2830, 51 Points Clear
Total Chess has proposed a Total Chess Rating, a single figure that folds a player's classical, rapid and blitz FIDE ratings into one number on the familiar…
Uzbekistan Tops the Olympiad Route to the 2027 World Cup
FIDE has published the final allocation of 2027 World Cup and Women's World Cup places earned at the Samarkand Olympiad. After the continental transfers, 83…
Maghsoodloo Takes Freestyle Friday on 9/11 Among 112 Masters
GM Parham Maghsoodloo won the latest Freestyle Friday with 9/11, and the result moves him a step closer to qualifying for the 2027 FIDE Freestyle Chess World…
How Chess Fights Cheating, Online and Over the Board
Engines now play far better than any human, and they run on a phone. That makes cheating a problem with no final fix. Online platforms and FIDE both work on it…
Chess960 Explained: Why Freestyle Shuffles the Pieces
Chess960 keeps every rule of chess except the starting position. The pieces on the back rank are shuffled before each game, and the pawns stay where they are.…
How Swiss Tournaments Pair Players and Break Ties
Most open chess tournaments, from local weekenders to the Chess Olympiad, use the Swiss system. It was first used in Zürich in 1895 and lets a big field…
Classical, Rapid, Blitz: How Chess Time Controls Work
Every serious chess game is played against a clock, and the amount of time on it decides what kind of chess it is. FIDE splits games into three categories,…
How a Chess Player Becomes a Grandmaster
Chess titles are awarded by FIDE for life. Once a player earns one, it stays, even if their rating later drops. The highest is grandmaster, first awarded to 27…
What a Chess Rating Actually Measures
A chess rating is a prediction, not a score. It estimates how a player will do against another rated player, and it moves after every rated game depending on…
Bluebaum Wins the Freestyle Friday Opener on 9 Points
GM Matthias Bluebaum opened the new Freestyle Friday season on October 2 by winning the tournament outright with nine points. Three players followed on 8.5/11:…
How a Player Earns a Shot at the World Chess Title
The world champion doesn't pick a challenger. The challenger has to come through a two-year qualifying cycle run by FIDE, ending at the Candidates Tournament,…
FIDE Assembly Backs Chess960 Ratings and a Qatar-Georgia 2030 Pick
The FIDE General Assembly met on 26-27 September in Samarkand, alongside the 46th Olympiad and the FIDE Congress. FIDE's summary of the main decisions covers a…
Kasparov Reportedly Warned He Was a Target of Russian-Linked Plot
Garry Kasparov was told by U.S. authorities this summer that he was the target of a plot to kill him, and was placed under special protection, according to a…
Timur Turlov on Chess as a Business: Sponsors, IDs, Olympics
In an interview with American Chess Magazine, conducted by video link in early August before the vote and republished by ChessBase, Timur Turlov described…
Wesley So Starts 7/7 and Wins Titled Tuesday Outright
GM Wesley So won Titled Tuesday on September 29, starting 7/7 and finishing on 9.5 points. It was his first victory in the weekly event this year. The finish…
Timur Turlov Elected FIDE President, Ending a 30-Year Russian Run
Chess has a new president, and the vote wasn't close in the end even though it took two rounds to get there. Timur Turlov was elected the eighth President of…
Carlsen Edges Nakamura on Tiebreaks in 3+0 Thursday
They aren't playing in the ongoing Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, but that didn't stop GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Hikaru Nakamura from showing up for the debut…
ChessMom Doubles Up as Samarkand Sets a New Record
The 46th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand has already made history for its sheer scale, with a confirmed 205 open teams and 189 women's teams once Angola finally…
Commonwealth Chess Bets on Chessveda for Its Digital Future
The Commonwealth Chess Association has found itself a digital partner, and it picked the moment carefully. On the sidelines of the 46th Chess Olympiad in…
Seirawan Chess Gets Its Own Championship, Sept 30-Oct 2
Chess.com has put a number and a date on its newest variant event. The Chess.com Seirawan Chess Championship runs from September 30 to October 2, with a $2,500…
Chess.com Bets $15,000 a Month on Esports Fandom
Chess.com is trying to borrow a page from esports fandom to grow its own player base. The site has announced a new recurring event called the Chess Club…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…