News Articles · News · 2022

Short News

• Khademalsharieh defects to Spain – 30 Dec 2022

  Magnus Carlsen’s double victory at the World Rapid and Blitz Championship in Almaty wasn’t the news many media picked up but the Iranian Sara Khademalsharieh playing without the hijab (head scarf) prescribed by the Iran Chess Federation to protest against the Iranian regime’s killing of demonstrants, even though FIDE avoided to show or mention her. Khademalsharieh will not return to Iran for the time being but go to Spain, where she arrived safely.

• Iván Faragó (1946–2022) – 24 Dec 2022

  The Hungarian grandmaster who in his prime won silver with the Hungarian team in four international team events and became Hungarian champion in 1986 has passed away in Budapest.

• Not all crypto sponsorship dried up – 24 Dec 2022

  Defying the sector’s crisis, crypto companies are partnering with FIDE and with Youtuber Agadmator.

• PMG asked to delist – 19 Dec 2022

  The Play Magnus Group that has been bought up for $75 million in cash and shares by Chess.com has asked the Oslo Stock Exchange to delist its shares from the Euronext Growth market.

• E-sport success in Paris – 19 Dec 2022

  The French streamer Kevin Bordi organised a hybrid tournament at E-Spot, a Parisian E-sport centre, with 120 participants competing via Chess.com. Étienne Bacrot won. A record of the livestream is here.

• Filatov re-elected – 18 Dec 2022

  The Chess Federation of Russia has re-elected Andrej Filatov, a billionaire transport entrepreneur, as President with 58 out of 67 votes. The other candidate was Sergey Karjakin.

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  100 millionth member – 16 Dec 2022

  During the semifinal of the Speed Chess Championship won by Magnus Carlsen who faces Hikaru Nakamura in Sunday’s final, Chess.com counted its 100 millionth member.

• No candidates places for GCT – 16 Dec 2022

  FIDE has published the pathways to the Candidates Tournament 2024 without mentioning the Grand Chess Tour which suggests that the prior agreement has fallen through. The top three finishers of the World Cup (instead of two), the two top of the Grand Swiss and the loser of the next world championship match will be joined by the player with the best five results from a newly established FIDE Circuit of open tournaments throughout 2023. The reintroduction of a spot for the highest rated player leaves the door open to Magnus Carlsen.

• Erigaisi lands €1,4 million sponsor – 13 Dec 2022

  Quantbox, a high-frequency trading company, has signed a long term sponsorship contract with Arjun Erigaisi worth 124 million rupees, the equivalent of €1,4 million. The 19-year-old is trained by Rustam Kasimdzhanov and has been tipped by Fabiano Caruana to become the second Indian to cross 2800.

• Chess boxing sets viewer record – 12 Dec 2022

  With more than 315,000 concurrent viewers on the Youtube channel of streamer Ludwig, the Mogul Chess Boxing Championship held in Los Angeles in front of several thousand live spectators set a new record for a single stream, while the peak 613,000 viewers at the World Championship 2021 was combined from several streams.

• All-Chinese Women World Championship – 10 Dec 2022

  Tan Zhongyi defeated the Russian rating favourite Alexandra Goryachkina in the semifinal of the Women Candidates Tournament and will face her compatriot Lei Tinjie in the final set for March to decide the challenger of Ju Wenjun.

• Survey leads to mixed conclusions – 07 Dec 2022

  The Polish market research agency Neurohm and Michal Karnakiewicz in cooperation with the Play Magnus Group conducted an online survey in which 2057 chess players, mostly from Poland, took part and that led them to conclude that chess fans read less and prefer online over live play more than previously thought.

• Carlsen and Chess.com demand dismissal – 03 Dec 2022

  The lawyers of World Champion Magnus Carlsen and Chess.com have formally asked the Eastern Missouri District Court to dismiss the 100-million-dollar lawsuit brought on behalf of Hans Niemann. By now 57 files are publicly listed in the court proceedings.

• Erdogmus tries youngest GM record – 02 Dec 2022

  The world’s youngest IM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, rated 2453 at 11 years, has gotten leave from school and initial support from the Turkish Chess Federation to try and become the world’s youngest grandmaster in history. He has until October 2023 to chase the record, held by Abhimanyu Mishra, starting his run at the Sunway Open Sitges after a Chessable training camp in Barcelona.

• Chess picks up on TikTok – 02 Dec 2022

  Streamer Levy Rozman aka GothamChess reports millions of views for his short videos on TikTok.

• 200k for opens – 30 Nov 2022

  FIDE extends its aid programme for open tournaments from €180,000 in 2022 to €200,000 in 2023. Applications are due by 31 December.

• Chess track offered by Finnish school – 29 Nov 2022

  The Vammala Upper Secondary School in Western Finland will introduce a chess specialization, following Norwegian examples, from the school year 2024/25.

• Chess museum opens in Klagenfurt – 28 Nov 2022

  A former grocery store hosts the Mali Schachmuseum that will open its doors this Thursday in Klagenfurt, Austria. The permanent exhibition consists of chess sets from all over the world. Sister museums are planned in Hungary, Dubai and elsewhere.

• Goh runs Singapore Federation – 28 Nov 2022

  GM Kevin Goh is the new CEO of the Singapore Chess Federation. He was never a professional player and gave up a top job in finance. He spoke about his plans with Chessbase India.

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  Chess photo most popular Instagram post ever – 26 Nov 2022

  Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo over a chess game, captured by star photographer Annie Leibovitz for a Louis Vuitton campaign (“Victory is a state of mind”) has been liked 78 million times within six days on Instagram on the four respective accounts combined, making it the most popular post on that social network so far.

• Hybrid Cities postponed – 25 Nov 2022

  The First European Cities Championship, to be held hybridly at arbiter-supervised venues, is postponed to 29 January 2023.

• Schulz leads School Chess Foundation – 25 Nov 2022

  Jörg Schulz, the former general secretary of the German Youth Chess Association, is the new chairman of the German School Chess Foundation.

• Players polled about 45 minute control – 24 Nov 2022

  The 45 minutes + 10 seconds/move modus that is experimentally used at the World Teams Championship in Jerusalem is being evaluated by means of a players’ poll, FIDE General Director Emil Sutovsky told ChessTech. The first experience at the Women World Teams 2021 was mixed. No experiments at other FIDE championships are planned right now.

• Play Magnus Academy launched – 23 Nov 2022

  Play Magnus has launched its new app Play Magnus Academy full of mini games and puzzles, available from $/€7 per month.

• Chessbase won’t have Stockfish for a year – 21 Nov 2022

  Stockfish’s complaint about licensing infringements in Fat Fritz 2 against Chessbase has been settled in a court in Munich. Chessbase admitted not to have complied with the GNU Public License and will not distribute any products with Stockfish software until 7 November 2023. No damages are paid, both parties cover their legal costs, and are preparing a joint press release. The full settlement is available in English.

• Carlsen wins Tour Final – 21 Nov 2022

  After winning the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour with a tournament to go, Magnus Carlsen also won the Tour Final that was held in San Francisco with a round to go, netting $242,000 this season. Wesley So came second, third was Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who won $162,500 on the tour, while Praggnanandhaa collected $129,000.

• Tour features Chessarama – 16 Nov 2022

  The Meltwater Champions Chess Tour has announced a partnership with Minimol Games, a Brazilian studio that develops chess-based games and quizzes for distribution on Steam. Their biggest project Chessarama is to launch in spring 2023.

• Arbiters head commissions – 16 Nov 2022

  FIDE has finally published the make-up of its commissions until 2026. Among the promoted people are top arbiters like Stéphane Escafre (Rules Commission), Laurent Freyd (Planning and Development), Anastasya Sorokina (Women), Ivan Sorovy (Arbiters). Yuri Garrett, who we recently interviewed, heads Fair Play, Jerry Nash Education, Akaki Iashvili Events and GM Tiberiu-Marian Georgescu the Technical Commission.

• New chess foundation in Dresden – 12 Nov 2022

  A Förderverein Schach Wolfgang Uhlmann will be founded this week in Dresden with the intention to run chess events and a little chess museum to commemorate East Germany’s top player who passed away in 2020.

• Nepomniachtchi buys chess bar – 12 Nov 2022

  Ian Nepomniachtchi and his manager Zoe Arnatskaya have bought the World Chess Club Moscow from Ilya Merenzon and reopened it. Apart from the bar service, the plan is to run a chess school and business chess events.

• So is Global Champion – 08 Nov 2022

  Chess.com’s Global Chess Championship and $200,000 was won by Wesley So who dominated Nihal Sarin in the final with 4,5:1,5.

• Almaty hosts World Rapid and Blitz – 07 Nov 2022

  FIDE will hold the World Rapid and Blitz Championship as usual between Christmas and New Year in the Kazakh capital Almaty (not Abu Dhabi as reported here in April).

• Boycott call against World Teams – 05 Nov 2022

  BDS, a Palestinian organisation that is mobilizing against Israel, asks to boycott the World Teams Championship later this month as it will be held in East Jerusalem which has been occupied by Israel since 1967 and de facto annexed. The Palestine Chess Federation is not known to support the call. FIDE has since 2018 taken significant steps against the frequent boycott of Israeli players.

• Woman quota in French leagues works – 05 Nov 2022

  Two economists interested in discrimination, José de Sousa and Muriel Niederle, found mainly positive effects of the women quota introduced by the French Chess Federation in leagues in 1990 and virtually no adverse effects on men. Niederle has earlier established gender differences in confidence and competitive reward schemes.

• World Chess seeks stock listing – 05 Nov 2022

  Ilya Merenzon, the Berlin-based Russian-Israeli entrepreneur behind World Chess, has hired Novum Securities Limited, a UK brokerage, to help his company get listed on the London Stock Exchange.

• Regan promoted to full professor – 04 Nov 2022

  His cheating-detection work in chess helped Ken Regan to be promoted from assistant professor to full professor of computer science at the University of Buffalo.

• Stellar line-up at Chess.com Speed Chess – 04 Nov 2022

  The world top players are lined up for the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship held online from 21 November. Alireza Firouzja is the only big name missing, even though the $110,000 prizefund is considerably smaller than at the ongoing Chess.com Global Chess Championship ($1 million), the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour ($1,6 millon) and the Grand Chess Tour ($1,4 million).

• Dubov wins Halloween masked event – 31 Oct 2022

  An online tournament of masked players was held (video link) by chess24 and Chessable. The winner Scary Surprise turned out to be Daniil Dubov.

• Nakamura is Fischer Random World Champion – 30 Oct 2022

  Hikaru Nakamura narrowly beat Ian Nepomniachtchi in the final of the Fischer Random World Championship in Reykjavik and scored $150,000. Magnus Carlsen was ousted by Nepo in the semifinal but won the match for 3rd place against Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who had dominated his preliminary. The defending champion Wesley So came sixth after losing to Vladimir Fedoseev.

• Mike Basman (1946–2022) – 27 Oct 2022

  The English IM, off-beat opening creator and initiator of the UK Chess Challenge, a nationwide scholastic tournament, Michael Basman has passed away.

• Uzbekistan hosts other Women Candidates – 25 Oct 2022

  While the Ukrainian or A group of the Women Candidates Tournament has started in Monaco, FIDE announced that the Russian or B group will be played from 28 November in Khiva, Uzbekistan. FIDE divided the event to avoid a clash between the Muzychuk sisters and any of the three Russian players.

• Two law firms litigate for Niemann – 21 Oct 2022

  Oved & Oved, a New York litigation specialist, and the local Gartner Law Firm filed a defamation law suit in the state of Missouri on behalf of Hans Niemann claiming $100 million altogether from Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, the Play Magnus Group and Chess.com. Latham & Watkins has rejected the law suit as without base on behalf of Chess.com. Niemann made the complaint public on twitter, where legal expert Akiva Cohen has taken it apart.

• Turlej becomes FIDE General Secretary – 20 Oct 2022

  Łukasz Turlej, a former President of the Polish Chess Federation and FIDE Vice President, has been appointed as FIDE General Secretary, a post that was vacant since 18 months.

• Junior excluded for bringing earbuds – 19 Oct 2022

  Priyanka Nutakki, a 20-year old WGM from India participating in the U20 World Championship, after winning her sixth round game was declared the loser and excluded from the tournament because of earbuds that had not been detected during the pre-round scan but found in her jacket. There was no indication of cheating whatsoever.

• Carlsen seals third tour victory – 18 Oct 2022

  By reaching the semifinal of the Aimchess Masters, Magnus Carlsen wins the 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour ahead of the final event in November.

• Second leagues trimmed down in Germany – 17 Oct 2022

  The German Chess Federation decided to trim down its four second leagues of ten teams in the 2023/24 season to get two second leagues of twelve teams in 2024/25.

• Marketing expert leads Austrian Federation – 17 Oct 2022

  Markus Stöttinger, a marketing and event manager, has been elected the new President of the Austrian Chess Federation after his inactive predecessor Christoph Tschohl resigned. Stöttinger also sponsors the top seated team of the Austrian league, ASV Linz.

• Meetup chess groups in 66 countries – 14 Oct 2022

  Nearly 6000 chess fans registered in 300 Magnus Chess Groups in 66 countries that use the app Meetup, which is now announced as a cooperation partner of the Play Magnus Group.

• Konstantin Landa (1972–2022) – 13 Oct 2022

  The Russian GM and coach Konstantin Landa, who lived in Germany for many years, lost his fight against Leukaemia.

• Pro Chess League back in February – 10 Oct 2022

  The Chess.com-sponsored online Pro Chess League, whose last final in 2020 was overshadowed by cheating allegations, has announced its next season for February to May.

• ACP asks to open world championship cycle – 10 Oct 2022

  The Association of Chess Professionals proposes that 20 players qualify from open tournaments to the FIDE World Cup and thus the classical world championship cycle. Eligible should be results from open tournaments with at least 9 rounds, not more than one double-round, a minimum of 50 participants and 5 GM among them.

• Norway president resigns after admitting cheating – 08 Oct 2022

  Joachim Nilsen, who was elected as President of the Norwegian Chess Federation in July, stepped down after admitting to a computer equiped assistant telling him moves during the 2016/17 PRO Chess League season. Vice President Anniken Vestby is taking over.

• February top event in Düsseldorf – 03 Oct 2022

  The WR Masters is announced in Düsseldorf for the second half of February with Nepomnachtchi, Giri, Aronian and Keymer among its ten participants. The event is sponsored by the German-Russian logistics entrepreneur Wadim Rosenstein and his WR Group.

• Short and Iashvili hired by FIDE – 03 Oct 2022

  FIDE has confirmed the appointments of two newly created positions: Nigel Short, who had resigned as VP in June after controversially being sanctioned by the Ethics Commission, becomes Director of Development and shall advise young federations. Akaki Iashvili as the new Director of Special Tasks shall supervise events.

• FPP investigates against Niemann and Carlsen – 29 Sep 2022

  FIDE’s Fair Play Commission will nominate three people to run investigations against Hans Niemann, suspected of cheating, and Magnus Carlsen, suspected of false accusation.

• Cheating related emails leaked – 28 Sep 2022

  Confidential emails between the New York grandmaster and coach Max Dlugy, confessing cheating in prize money events on Chess.com and the platform’s Chief Chess Officer Danny Rensch have been leaked to Motherboard, the tech section of Vice for an unproportionate article. Dlugy was earlier singled out by Magnus Carlsen as mentor of Hans Niemann.

• Niemann confirmed for US championship – 28 Sep 2022

  The US Chess Championship starting next Tuesday at the St. Louis Chess Club confirmed the participation of Hans Niemann even though his percentage of engine first line moves while qualifying in the US Juniors 2021 is a suspiciously high 78,6% percent. Hikaru Nakamura had decided much earlier to miss out on the $250,500 event.

• Commentator Smirin fired for sexism – 28 Sep 2022

  Sexist remarks about women and chess by the Israeli GM Ilya Smirin while commenting on the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix in Astana caused a shitstorm on social media and led FIDE to fire him.

• Carlsen won’t play cheaters like Niemann – 26 Sep 2022

  Magnus Carlsen clarified in an open letter that his boycott of Hans Niemann is connected with his belief that the young American has cheated more often and more recently than he admitted and that Niemann wasn’t even fully concentrated while he beat him. Carlsen mentions that he considered to withdraw from the Sinquefield Cup when Niemann replaced Rapport, and that he will not play against repeat-offenders such as he considers Niemann.

• Preschool chess conference on 10 December – 26 Sep 2022

  The FIDE Education Commission has announced a conference on chess for preschoolers in cooperation with the Chess Scientific Research Institute of Armenia to be held on 10 December and is calling for papers.

• Immortal Game raised $15,5 million – 20 Sep 2022

  The French start-up Immortal Game that is bringing Play2Earn to online chess based on monetization through NFT pieces has raised $3,5 million a few months ago and $12 million now from The Chernin Group (TCG) Crypto Fund and Greenfield, another investment company specializing in crypto companies.

• Where are the Ukrainian kids? – 18 Sep 2022

  The U8–12 World Championships that are going on in Batumi until 28 September have 76 participants with a FIDE designation, 59 of which are listed for Russia in the FIDE rating list, but not a single kid from Ukraine.

• Caruana wins Fischer tournament in St. Louis – 17 Sep 2022

  Fabiano Caruana won the 9LX aka Fischer Random tournament at the St Louis Chess Club after a tie-break against Alireza Firouzja. One month before the Fischer Random World Championship in Reykjavik world champion Wesley So scored 50%. The inactive former world champion Garry Kasparov clinched only one draw in nine games.

• Social applications conference on 15 October – 17 Sep 2022

  The International Society for Applied Chess celebrates its fifth anniversary with an online conference on “Bio-psycho social applications of the game chess” held online on 15 October.

• Lviv vs Berlin – 16 Sep 2022

  Next Friday, 23 September, teams meet in Lviv, the capital of Western Ukraine, and in Berlin to play a hybrid rapid match in front of spectators and presence of arbiters, raising funds for Unicef and testing the Millennium Supreme Tournament 55 electronic boards.

• Matocha and Droin appointed by ECU – 16 Sep 2022

  The ECU added two commissions: The Media and Communications Commission is chaired by Pavel Matocha, a journalist and organiser from Prague, while the Social Commission is chaired by Franck Droin, a Parisian health business consultant who started a similar commission in France.

• Chess in Education degree offered at Webster – 14 Sep 2022

  Webster University in St. Louis has started courses for a Chess in Education minor (i.e. supplementary subject) degree, based on five core courses and six elective courses that are taught on campus but not online.

• Khader heads Trainers Commission – 14 Sep 2022

  Sami Khader, an IM and coach from Jordan, replaces the Russian Mihail Kobalia as chairman of FIDE’s Trainers Commission.

• Logistics-in-Russia specialist sponsors FIDE event – 13 Sep 2022

  WR Group, a special logistics company whose business is mainly in Russia and its energy sector, has been announced as sponsor of the first World Open Teams Championship to be held over three days in May or June 2023 in Düsseldorf, where they have their headquarter. The event with an “expected” prize fund of €250,000 will probably replace the Corporate World Championship that had been held online.

• Men get more competitive against women – 12 Sep 2022

  A new study “Gender, Competition and Performance” by Peter Backus et al analysed competitive games between men and women and found that men become more competitive compared to when they face other men, eg delaying resignation in lost positions against women, whereas women tend to become less competitive and slightly underperform. This is in line with earlier findings that women underperform against men in fields that are supposed to favour men.

• Firouzja grabs GCT – 12 Sep 2022

  After winning the St Louis Blitz & Rapid, Alireza Firouzja also claimed first place in the classical control Sinquefield Cup after beating Ian Nepomniachtchi in the tie-break. The 19-year old also came first ahead of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the Grand Chess Tour, adding an extra $100,000 to his $40,000+$97,500 tournaments’ prize money. The event was overshadowed by wildcard Magnus Carlsen walking out after a loss against last-minute replacement Hans Niemann who finished with four draws, two losses and 6th place.

• Gaprindashvili and Netflix settle – 08 Sep 2022

  A defamation lawsuit brought by former women’s world champion Nona Gaprindashvili against Netflix based on a line in The Queen’s Gambit series that Gaprindashvili had “never faced men” has been settled out of court without disclosure.

• Anja Gering directs German federation – 08 Sep 2022

  Anja Gering, head of finance and administration, is promoted to Executive Director of German Chess Federation as Marcus Fenner is leaving. As a consequence (update) Paul Meyer-Duncker could be convinced to return as Social Media Director and Gregor Johann is reconsidering another term as Tournament Director. The staff has voted a representative for the first time. Sport Director Kevin Högy takes this role.

• Carlsen withdraws – 05 Sep 2022

  Magnus Carlsen withdrew for the first time during a tournament before round four of the Sinquefield Cup in Saint Louis not mentioning a reason but quoting José Mourinho that if he would speak he would be in trouble. On the day before he had lost with White against 19-year-old Hans Moke Niemann whose earlier fair play bans on Chess.com fuel suspicions that Carlsen feels that Niemann wasn’t playing fair.

• Research stipendia by Chessable – 05 Sep 2022

  Students and graduate students with chess-related, staff-supervised research projects can apply for the Chessable Research Awards until 1 October.

• FIDE seeks Marketing Director – 31 Aug 2022

  The Italian brand manager Marco Verdoia is leaving FIDE who is appointing a new Marketing Director.

• German Federation in disarray – 31 Aug 2022

  The German Chess Federation is losing its Tournament Director Gregor Johann and its Social Media Director Paul Meyer-Dunker. While the operations are now managed by Anja Giering, the tasks of Executive Director Marcus Fenner are now described as strategy, fundraising and representation.

• L’Ami and van den Berg head MEC together – 24 Aug 2022

  After the Max Euwe Centrum’s long-term director Eddy Sibbing has retired, his job is now shared by grandmaster Erwin l’Ami and TataSteelChess organiser Jeroen van den Berg. Chairman of the Amsterdam institution remains grandmaster Paul van der Sterren.

• 60,000 dollars and a car – 11 Aug 2022

  The Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has praised and awarded each member of the gold-winning Chess Olympiad team with $60,000 and a new car. After winning the Youth Chess Olympiad in 2018, the team members had already picked up a smaller car each even before having reached driving age.

• Randall Bauer heads US Chess – 11 Aug 2022

  After 17 years as a board member of US Chess, overseeing finance, Randall Bauer, a public budget consultant, has moved up and been elected as president.

• Tamil Nadu awards medal winning teams – 10 Aug 2022

  India B and India’s women team each got awarded 10 million rupees, equivalent of €120,000, for winning a medal at the Chess Olympiad in Mamallapuram by the government of Tamil Nadu.

• Uzbekistan, Armenia, India II – 09 Aug 2022

  None of the top ten seated men teams managed to win a medal at the Chess Olympiad in Mamallapuram. Uzbekistan, seated 14th and host of the 2026 Chess Olympiad, wins gold ahead of Armenia, seated 12th, and India II, seated 11th. 16-year old Gukesh blundered a possible gold for the host’s junior squad in the penultimate round against Abdusattorov but still claimed the best result on board one ahead of the 17-year old Uzbek. The Women Chess Olympiad was won by Ukraine ahead of Georgia and India, who had led throughout but lost their last match against the US.

• 157 federations reelect Russian leader – 07 Aug 2022

  Arkady Dvorkovich remains FIDE President until 2026 with 88% of the vote. Only 16 federations voted for the Russian’s only challenger, the Ukrainian GM Andrii Baryshpolets. Five federations abstained, one vote was invalid. Bachar Kouatly of France withdrew his candidacy just before the vote at the ongoing FIDE Congress in Chennai. In case of being sanctioned, Dvorkovich has pledged to step down. His deputy Vishy Anand would be interim president until new elections take place within six months.

• 56 individuals got women chess awards – 06 Aug 2022

  Judit Polgár received an ICON award, fifty other women and five men got individual awards connected with the FIDE Year of the Woman in Chess, sponsored by the Saudi Arabian Chess Federation who for the first time sent a women’s team to the Chess Olympiad and whose President Alwahshi Abdullah Salem is also the CEO of the Asian Chess Federation.

• First spectator tour event in Miami – 05 Aug 2022

  Magnus Carlsen headlines the FTX Crypto Cup, the second in-presence event and first live spectator event of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour 2022, to be held in Miami on 15–21 August.

• Tshepiso Lopang leads African federations – 05 Aug 2022

  The African Chess Confederation has elected Tshepiso Lopang, an arbiter, WIM, organiser, engineer and PhD candidate from Botswana, as its new President.

• South Korea prepares World Cup bid – 03 Aug 2022

  The Chess Federation of South Korea has announced at the ongoing FIDE Congress in Chennai that it will bid for the World Cup 2023.

• Tashkent to host 2026 Olympiad – 03 Aug 2022

  Since the early favourite to host the Chess Olympiad 2026 India is filling in for the current edition, Uzbekistan is expected to be chosen for 2026. Their young team is performing very well so far and will definitely be a medal contender by then.

• Sheripov withdraws – 03 Aug 2022

  Inalbek Sheripov, an experimental filmmaker hailing from Chechnya and based in Belgium, withdrew his candidature for FIDE President citing health reasons.

• Mind Sport Olympiad returns to London – 28 Jul 2022

  The Mind Sports Olympiad will take place again in presence with a shortened nine-day-schedule on 21–29 August in London and ASICS as the new sponsor.

• Robot squeezes finger – 25 Jul 2022

  News agencies picked up an incident that happened during a chess festival in Moscow where the robot Chess Terminator by Konstantin Kosteniuk squeezed the finger of a seven-year-old boy, who didn’t wait the completion of a capture and was hurt when he recaptured. It was falsely reported that the boy’s finger was broken.

• Carlsen not to defend title – 20 Jul 2022

  On International Chess Day Magnus Carlsen announced that he will not defend the world championship and stresses that he is not retiring as a professional player. He shared this intention in a meeting with FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich and FIDE General Director Emil Sutovsky in Madrid and received some suggestions to amend the match regulation but wasn’t convinced to change his mind.

• Nikolai Krogius (1930–2022) – 17 Jul 2022

  Nikolai Krogius, a grandmaster, arbiter, official and psycholist, who seconded Boris Spassky against Fischer in 1972 and led Anatoly Karpov’s delegation at the 1990 world championship, passed away days before his 92nd birthday.

• Infight for Afghanistan voting right – 17 Jul 2022

  While chess is struggling to survive under Taliban rule, two officials who fled Afghanistan are fighting over the right to vote at the upcoming FIDE election. Ghulam Ali Malak Zad, who resides in Latvia and was recently listed as President and Delegate of the Afghan Chess Federation, is protesting a decision of the Electoral Commission to approve as delegate Abasin Mohibi. Mohibi is indebted to FIDE President Dvorkovich to help him get residency in Uzbekistan. Afghanistan registered a men’s but no women’s team for the Chess Olympiad.

• Wei Yi and Aronian make final – 15 Jul 2022

  Wei Yi and Levon Aronian made it to the final of the FTX Road to Miami online tournament of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour and thus qualifid for the FTX Crypto Cup that will be held over the board next month in Miami.

• Nilsen follows Agdestein – 13 Jul 2022

  Joachim Birger Nilsen, a 29-year-old headhunter specializing in IT and President of the Bergen Chess Club, is the new President of the Norwegian Chess Federation after former top player Simen Agdestein didn’t run for a second term.

• Nordic federations quiz candidates – 11 Jul 2022

  FIDE Presidential candidates Arkady Dvorkovich and Bachar Kouatly were received in Koningsvinger near Oslo at a meeting of the Nordic Chess Federations while Andrii Baryshpolets and Peter Heine Nielsen connected online to present their programmes and answer questions, whereas Inalbek Sheripov didn’t participate. Nielsen followed up with a critique of Dvorkovich’s political connections.

• Close win for Baden-Baden – 11 Jul 2022

  The OSG Baden-Baden has won Germany’s Schachbundesliga for the 15th time in 16 seasons after beating rival SC Viernheim 5:3 in the penultimate round, adding Caruana, Rapport and Vachier-Lagrave for a few games each. The last five rounds were centrally played at the Werder Bremen football stadion, sponsored by Grenke AG who is also behind Baden-Baden.

• FIDE to draft compromise regulation – 04 Jul 2022

  FIDE has heard Magnus Carlsen’s ideas for the world championship match 2023 at a confidential meeting during the penultimate round of the Candidates Tournament in Madrid. According to FIDE General Director Emil Sutovsky there are no regulations yet and a draft is to be provided to Carlsen in the next days that shall integrate both FIDE’s and the world champion’s views. Carlsen is expected to decide if he plays the 2023 match by 20 July.

• Record participation at Chess Olympiad – 03 Jul 2022

  While weaker at the top with the teams of Russia and China missing, the upcoming Chess Olymiad in the South Indian resort Mamallapuram is expecting 187 men and 162 women teams, probably beating the records set 2018 in Batumi of 185 men and 152 women teams.

• Women Candidates tweaked – 29 Jun 2022

  In order to avoid clashes between two Ukrainian participants and three players Russia at the Women’s Candidates Tournament, FIDE will not hold it as a round-robin but in matches and has pooled the participants in a way that doesn’t allow a Russian-Ukrainian clash before the final, diverging from the principle introduced in 2019 to hold top women competitions in the same way as top men competitions. Ukraine has banned its athletes from competing against Russians.

• Austrian Federation to vote on 14 October – 25 Jun 2022

  Inactive leadership and intransparency in the Austrian Chess Federation have led to an extraordinary general assembly which decided to elect a new president and board on 14 October. Christof Tschohl announced that he won’t run again.

• Social chess initiatives conference – 24 Jun 2022

  On 2 July, the last rest day of the Candidates Tournament, FIDE holds a hybrid conference online and at the Palacio de Santoña, on its social chess initiatives with keynotes by Franck Droin and Geir Nesheim. Registration is free.

• China won’t play Chess Olympiad – 23 Jun 2022

  Ding Liren revealed in Madrid that the Chinese Chess Federation will not send teams to the Chess Olympiad in Mamallapuram next month. Since Russia is banned and France will have neither Firouzja nor Vachier-Lagrave, the US Chess team becomes a heavy favourite in the men’s section, with India and Azerbaijan as their strongest challengers.

• Nornickel logo out – 22 Jun 2022

  Ian Nepomniachtchi has been asked by FIDE not to bring a thermos nor wear the jacket with the logo of his sponsor Nornickel any more at the Candidates Tournament. The mining company was also a FIDE partner until contracts with Russian sponsors were terminated after the start of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine.

• Shorts steps down – 21 Jun 2022

  Nigel Short has stepped down as FIDE Vice President after the Ethics Commission has suspended him for three months for overstepping his office when trying to clean up the mess between the US Virgin Islands Chess Federation and a rival federation.

• FIDE goes open source – 20 Jun 2022

  FIDE is using open source software by Lichess and Stockfish under a General Public Licence for transmitting the games from the Candidates Tournament.

• India introduces torch relay – 20 Jun 2022

  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended a PR event, where a torch was introduced to be carried from Delhi to Mamallapuram, the venue of the Chess Olympiad. The torch relay, introduced by Nazi Germany in 1936, may undermine FIDE’s relationship with the IOC which may see it as abuse of an Olympic symbol.

• Big chess comes to Toronto – 20 Jun 2022

  Isai Scheinberg, cosponsor of the Candidates Tournament, said that his family’s engagement in top FIDE events until at least 2026 is purely philanthropic in memory of his father Matafia Šeinbergas (1909–2003). He revealed that one of the next events is planned to be held in Toronto.

• Three quarantined in Madrid – 20 Jun 2022

  On the third day of the Candidates Tournament in Madrid there are no more flash interviews and player visits to the Chess.com studio until further notice, after one commentator tested positive for Covid-19 and two members of the organisational staff have also been quarantined and tested positive. All three have light symptoms at most. FIDE has a page on prevention.

• Kristine Marie Ganz runs Norwegian federations – 15 Jun 2022

  The Norwegian Chess Federation and the Norwegian Youth Chess Association have appointed Kristine Marie Ganz, an experienced administrator and local politician in Holmestrand, west of Oslo, as new general secretary.

• Nakamura left TSM, joins Misfits – 15 Jun 2022

  After recently leaving the E-sport team TSM, Hikaru Nakamura has been signed up by Misfits Gaming, where he joins content creators like Tubbo, a Pogchamps 3 participant.

• Cloud computing power for French top – 14 Jun 2022

  The cloud computing network Microsoft Azure is providing computing power to the top players of the French Chess Federation, which includes Candidates Tournament participant Aliréza Firouzja.

• Naroditsky becomes NYT chess columnist – 13 Jun 2022

  The New York Times has announced that 26 year-old GM Daniel Naroditsky, who is also lead commentator at Chess.com, is the new chess columnist.

• Parent resource guide – 11 Jun 2022

  Chesskid has assembled and annotated its videos and articles for parents in an exemplary white paper.

• Carlsens wins in Stavanger – 11 Jun 2022

  The world champion took first place but didn’t improve his rating at Norway Chess. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov came second, Vishy Anand third. The only participating Candidate Teimour Radjabov lost three classical games, drew six and dropped to 18th in the live rating list.

• Catalan circuit is back – 10 Jun 2022

  After two pandemic years the Catalan Chess Circuit returns with 17 rapid and 13 classical opens and started a few weeks ago with the Festival Sunway Formentera.

• Kouatly joins race, while Fumey is out – 09 Jun 2022

  The French GM and FIDE Deputy President Bachar Kouatly has joined the race for the FIDE presidency with Ian Wilkinson from Jamaica as running mate. The other candidates are Dvorkovich, Baryshpolets and Sheripov. Enyonam Fumey failed to get an endorsement from a federation on each continent, in this case from Europe, and was therefore disqualified by the Electoral Commission.

• Nakamura and the eight streamers – 08 Jun 2022

  Hikaru Nakamura has lined up eight fellow streamers, no less, to rumble his Twitch and Youtube channels during his second attempt to win the Candidates Tournament. ChessLife published an exclusive interview with the 35-year old American who is now represented by the expanding, publicly listed agency WME.

• Women chess conference in Prague – 08 Jun 2022

  ECU and FIDE sponsor a Women Chess Conference on 26 and 27 August alongside the European Women Championship in Prague.

• Chesskid partners with ClassLink – 30 May 2022

  Chesskid is the first chess learning platform that is available on ClassLink, a provider of single sign-on for students digital learning and analytics for their schools, strengthening its position in the US market.

• Rapport to represent Romania – 27 May 2022

  The Romanian Chess Federation announced that Richárd Rapport will join. The 26-year-old world championship candidate had very little support in Hungary and moved to Serbia six years ago. Behind his and is wife Jovana Rapport’s move to Romania is the owner of Superbet Sasha Dragic.

• Ding wins Chessable Masters – 27 May 2022

  Ding Liren confirmed his shape for the Candidates Tournament by winning the Chessable Masters, the fourth event of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. The surprise of the tournament was 16-year-old Pragnanandhaa who reached the final, which he lost only narrowly in spite of school examinations on the same days. Indian Oil was announced as his new sponsor.

• Nielsen joins Baryshpolets – 26 May 2022

  Peter Heine Nielsen, Danish grandmaster and coach of Magnus Carlsen, runs for FIDE Deputy President on the ticket of fellow grandmaster Andrii Baryshpolets.

• Dodon detained – 25 May 2022

  Igor Dodon, President of the Moldovan Chess Federation and President of Moldova in 2016–2020, has been detained on charges of corruption. The pro-Russian politician is leader of the Socialist party, to whom FIDE Executive Director, member of the Moldovan parliament and Vice President of the Moldovan Chess Federation Victor Bologan belongs.

• Nordic cooperation – 25 May 2022

  The Uppsala Chess Academy and Offerspill Chess Club Oslo have signed a cooperation agreement that includes joint competitions, training camps and Jesper Hall Bergmark supervising the training of the Norwegian top players.

• French federation joins Olympic Committee – 24 May 2022

  With 85% of the votes French Chess Federation was accepted as a new member by the French Olympic Committee. This (usually) paves the way to more sport-related subsidies.

• Baryshpolets challenges Dvorkovich – 20 May 2022

  Andrii Baryshpolets, a Los-Angeles-based Ukrainian GM and business consultant, has announced that he runs for FIDE President. Earlier, he initiated a petition to remove Dvorkovich from the post.

• ESport hotel hosts federation event – 19 May 2022

  The RCadia Hotel in Hamburg, that is specializing in gaming and E-sport, will host a qualifier of the German Amateur Chess Championship on 1–3 July.

• Georgia makes chess mandatory – 19 May 2022

  The Georgian Minister of Education Mikhail Chkhenkeli announced that from the next school year 2022/23 chess will be a mandatory subject for first-graders in primary schools and an elective subject in grade two and three. The curriculum and teacher training will be developed together with the Georgian Chess Federation. In neighbouring Armenia, chess has been a mandatory subject since 2011.

• European assembly before Olympiad – 17 May 2022

  The ECU brings forward the date of its general assembly and election from 6 August to 23 July. The European federations won’t meet in Mamallapuram but in Thessaloniki. The Asian Chess Federation also avoids the Chess Olympiad for its general assembly and has postponed it to December.

• Teenage IM sponsor search viral on LinkedIn – 16 May 2022

  Eight million people have seen, and more than 176,000 liked a post by 16-year-old French IM Elliot Papadiamandis looking for a sponsor on the former-networking-turned-into-self-marketing-site LinkedIn.

• Bremen hosts Bundesliga final – 16 May 2022

  On 7–10 July rounds 11–15 of the delayed Schachbundesliga season will be played at the VIP halls of Weserstadion during the summer break of Werder Bremen that has just assured its return to Germany’s top football league.

• Candidates do poorly in Bucharest – 14 May 2022

  Wesley So, Levon Aronian and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave share the first place and the latter won the tie-break at the first Grand Chess Tour event 2022, the Superbet Chess Classic Romania in Bucharest. None of the four participants of the forthcoming Candidates Tournament performed well. Fabiano Caruana did the least bad at 50%, Alireza Firouzja, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Richárd Rapport all ended below.

• Ukraine solidarity match in Paris – 13 May 2022

  The Blitz Society chess pub hosts a charity rapid match France – Ukraine on four boards, led by GMs Laurent Fressinet and Pavel Eljanov, this Saturday at 17.30 CET with donations going to Unicef and a Twitch stream.

• Norwegian surprise on Dvorkovich team – 13 May 2022

  Jøran-Aulin Jansson, former President of the Norwegian Chess Federation, initiator of the NorwayChess tournament and the Fischer Random world championship, an outspoken critic of corruption in FIDE, has joined the election ticket of incumbent FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich. Former world champion Vishy Anand candidates as Deputy President and will step up in case the Russian politician steps down. Mahir Mammedov stays on as another Vice President as does Zhu Chen as treasurer. In case there were any doubts, the Chess Federation of Russia has reconfirmed its support for Dvorkovich.

• Ding and Carlsen headline Chessable Masters – 13 May 2022

  After his April marathon to reach the required games for his Candidates ticket, Ding Liren will participate in the Chessable Masters, the fourth tournament of this year’s Meltwater Champions Chess Tour on 19–26 May, where he will face Magnus Carlsen at least once in the preliminaries. Wei Yi is invited for the first time. Neither Russians nor Ukrainians are in the line-up.

• Olympiad seeks fair play experts – 13 May 2022

  FIDE has published a Call for Interest inviting applications for the Fair Play Panel of the Chess Olympiad in Mamallapuram not only from arbiters but also from legal and technology experts. Applicants will have to pay their travel to Chennai from the grant of $1,500–2,000.

• Carlsen surprise visit on Chess.com – 12 May 2022

  For the first time since 15 months, Magnus Carlsen played on his company’s rival platform Chess.com and won the Titled Tuesday with 10/11.

• Deep Blue anniversary quasi unnoticed – 11 May 2022

  Except for a a few tweets, the 25th anniversary of Garry Kasparov’s landmark match loss to Deep Blue, an IBM research computer, 1997 in New York went unnoticed by chess websites and news media. Some had commemorated last year the less significant loss of one game in the 1996 match that Kasparov still had dominated. The general and sponsors’ interest in chess suffered after “humanity lost”.

• Pein to join ECU board – 08 May 2022

  Zurab Azmaiparashvili is virtually assured four more years as ECU President after nobody else presented a team. Vice President Dana Reizniece-Ozola, who is also FIDE’s Managing Director, is to switch posts with Deputy President Gunnar Bjornsson after the election on 6 August. The English chess organiser Malcolm Pein joins the team as candidate for Vice President and replaces the Austrian Johann Poecksteiner.

• FIDE last Russian sponsor specializes in counter sanctions – 08 May 2022

  The law firm ALRUD, FIDE’s last Russian sponsor, not only consults Russian and foreign companies in dealing with sanctions but also offers expertise in counter-sanctions as pointed out by Peter Heine Nielsen.

• Yuri Averbakh (1922–2022) – 08 May 2022

  Yuri Averbakh, the oldest grandmaster ever, a former world championship candidate (1953) and President of the Soviet Chess Federation (1972–1977), eminent chess historian, author and arbiter passed away in Moscow.

• Gustafsson captains German team – 05 May 2022

  Jan Gustafsson, second of Magnus Carlsen and founder of chess24, is returning as non-playing captain to the team of the German Chess Federation, with which he became European Champion 2011 and for which he last played in 2012.

• Caruana wins American Cup – 02 May 2022

  Fabiano Caruana beat Dominguez and Aronian to win the American Cup and $60,000, showing good shape in his last classical chess tournament before the Candidates Tournament. The American Cup was a new event that was played at the Saint Louis Chess Club as K.o.-matches between the eight top US players with a second chance after losing once in an “elimination bracket”. It doesn’t seem to replace the US Championship that is expected to be held in autumn.

• Fumey announces candidacy – 01 May 2022

  Enyonam Sewa Fumey, the President of the Togo Chess Federation and FIDE General Secretary in the team of incumbent Arkady Dvorkovich until stepping down in May 2021, has declared his candidacy for FIDE President in the election to be held on 7 August in Mamallapuram, India.

• Duda on the fast track – 29 Apr 2022

  Jan-Krzysztof Duda is the surprise winner of the Oslo Esports Cup of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour after overtaking Indian prodigy Praggnanandhaa who was alone in the clear lead after five of seven days, Magnus Carlsen, who felt sickly throughout, and Liem Quang in the last round. All participants played from the tour’s Oslo studio, and this set-up shall be repeated in the next “major” on 12–20 August in Miami.

• Grand Chess Tour becomes Candidates qualifier in 2023 – 29 Apr 2022

  The FIDE Council approved an agreement with the Grand Chess Tour that the top two finishers of their 2023 resp. 2025 series will qualify for the following Candidates Tournaments. This comes down to the end of the Grand Prix that had been organised by World Chess.

• Global change – 29 Apr 2022

  After protests and being ridiculed the $1 million Chess.com World Championship has been renamed Chess.com Global Championship.

• Anish Giri signed up by PMG – 27 Apr 2022

  Anish Giri becomes ambassador of the Play Magnus Group. His contracts includes regular streams for chess24, wearing chess24 and Chessable logos, promoting the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour and producing more courses for Chessable.

• And so does Lichess – 25 Apr 2022

  The open source chess server has announced that its monthly Titled Arena tournaments will from on be called the Lichess World Championship following Chess.com’s announcement with FIDE’s apparent consent.

• Chess.com announced own world championship – 22 Apr 2022

  The biggest chess website announced the Chess.com World Championship with $1 million in prizes, half of which go to eight finalists meeting in Toronto on 31 October to 5 November. Qualifiers for non-titled players start online on 1 May and require verified membership. Since Chess.com is a sponsor of the official world championship, FIDE is expected not to enforce the clause signed by all participants of the Grand Swiss, World Cup, Grand Prix or Candidates Tournament not to play in any world championship run by third parties.

• Swiss invitational canceled halfway due to Covid – 22 Apr 2022

  When half of the participants had symptoms and tested positive for Covid19, the Swiss Young Masters, an invitational tournament held without masks in Basel, was canceled halfway.

• Ding qualified for Candidates – 22 Apr 2022

  Through a marathon of rated games in China, Ding Liren has completed the requirement of 30 games between 1 June 2021 and 30 April 2022 to take over as highest rated player the spot of banned Sergey Karjakin at the Candidates Tournament in Madrid, unless the Russian appeal at CAS succeeds. Ding has also narrowly overtaken Firouzja in the rating list and is number two again.

• A tour stop with three experiments – 22 Apr 2022

  The Oslo Esports Cup starting this Friday with games every day after 18.00 CET comes with three experiments: The first Meltwater Champions Chess Tour event without finals is a round robin of one day matches between eight players. It is the first event for which the players don't compete from home but all meet in the same venue, a TV studio in Oslo. And all streamers have been invited to stream the competition.

• Carlsen to play in Ukraine charity match – 21 Apr 2022

  Magnus Carlsen leads the Norwegian side in a charity online rapid match against Ukraine this Saturday from 13.00 to 16.15 CET, which is also the second day of the Oslo Esports Cup, a Meltwater Champions Chess Tour event, scheduled from 18.00 CET. The Oslo team, completed by Aryan Tari, Johan-Sebastian Christiansen and Lars Oskar Hauge meets at the Good Knight pub, while Vasyl Ivanchuk, Kirill Shevchenko, Yuriy Kuzubov and Alexander Moiseenko play from different places. The four round Scheveningen match will be streamed by Offerspill and on Youtube.

• Two more years with Unibet – 21 Apr 2022

  The online gambling company Kindred Group has renewed for two more years the sponsorship contract of its sports betting brand Unibet with Magnus Carlsen and the Offerspill club he founded in 2019 for two more years. The world champion is currently endorsing Kindred’s “zero percent” campaign with the goal not to make any more revenues from compulsory gamblers.

• ECU promotes projects through new portal – 21 Apr 2022

  A service portal to promote projects, mainly in educational chess, has been launched by the ECU Education Commission with support from the FIDE Development Fund. Among its first products is a brochure on project planning and funding.

• Scheinberg family commits until 2026 – 21 Apr 2022

  The sponsors of the Grand Swiss and Chess.com-investors Isai and Mark Scheinberg, who became billionaires through PokerStars, agreed with FIDE to sponsor one major tournament each year until 2026.

• Nutrition for chess project launched – 17 Apr 2022

  1700 participants plus parents and coaches are expected at the French Youth Championship that starts in Agen on this Sunday coinciding with the launch of Deuxième Cerveau (second brain), a project to educate young players about nutrition and help them to adopt healthier eating and drinking habits in cooperation with Oviva, a Swiss health tech company.

• Peter Burri 1957–2022 – 16 Apr 2022

  Peter Burri, who had been on the organisation team of the Biel Chess Festival for more than forty years, twenty of which at its helm, has passed away. This year’s festival on 10–24 July is dedicated to commemorate him.

• Chessvision analysis bot on Twitter – 15 Apr 2022

  Pawel Kacprzak, winner of the Best Chess Startup 2020 with ChessvisonAI, has launched a bot to analyse chess positions. It works by tweeting a position and “scan white” or “scan black” to @ChessvisionAI.

• Russia voted to join Asian Chess Federation – 15 Apr 2022

  The Supervisory Board of the Chess Federation of Russia, that includes Putin’s speaker Dmitry Peskov and Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu, has decided to join the Asian Chess Federation. The European Chess Union has not received a request to leave for this unprecedented move and is checking the regulations before issuing a statement.

• Controversial invitees at Stavanger – 08 Apr 2022

  After publicly trading punches with its two times winner Sergey Karjakin, Norway Chess has published the invitees for its tenth edition on 31 May to 10 June in Stavanger, including Magnus Carlsen (as always), semi-retired stars and two participants of the Candidates Tournament starting on 17 June, Richárd Rapport and Teimour Radjabov, who supported Putin and the Azerbaijan attack on Nagorno-Karabakh on social media.

• Romanian Grand Prix announced – 08 Apr 2022

  Under its new leadership the Romanian Chess Federation announced a 100 000€ Grand Prix of two rapid and three classical tournaments. The first event on 30 April-1 May in Bucharest precedes the inaugural classical tournament of the Grand Chess Tour 2022.

• David Anderson (1941–2022) – 02 Apr 2022

  David Anderton passed away at 80 after serving the English Chess Federation as team captain, legal counsel and in other roles for more than fifty years.

• Dvorkovich seeks second term – 01 Apr 2022

  At a press conference in Delhi, coinciding with a visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and after signing the contract for the Chess Olympiad in Mamallapuram, Arkady Dvorkovich confirmed that he still seeks a second term as FIDE President despite being citizen of Russia that isolated itself by invading Ukraine. Former world champion Vishy Anand joins his ticket.

• Slovenia and ECU support Ukrainians – 31 Mar 2022

  Ukrainians make the strongest contingent with 35 players and 5 coaches at the European Championship in Catez. The Slovenian organisers have provided some free rooms and accommodation whereas the ECU has waived the fees. The Government of Ukraine granted players between 18 and 60 special permissions to represent their country at the board. The Belarus Chess Federation retracted its players when it was announced that they couldn’t represent their country. Only four Russians take part, two of whom are juniors, one is a senior and the fourth is married in Germany and about to change federation.

• Nakamura, Rapport and probably Ding – 31 Mar 2022

  Hikaru Nakamura and Richard Rapport qualified at the Grand Prix for the Candidates Tournament that will take place in Madrid from 17 June to 4 July (or 5 July if equality on the first place leads to a tiebreak). The place of the banned Sergey Karjakin will probably go to current world number two Ding Liren who is underway in Chinese events to complete enough rated games before 1 May.

• Oligarchs banned on Chess.com – 22 Mar 2022

  Accounts of several unnamed Russian oligarchs were identified and closed by Chess.com, which has also sent the open anti-war-letter by Russian players to its members in Russia and Belarus.

• Nesheim heads Social Commission – 22 Mar 2022

  Geir Nesheim, the former general secretary of the Norwegian Chess Federation where he started the successful Sjakk & Samfunn (chess and society) programme, is the new chairman of the FIDE Social Commission. Paris Klerides stepped down for personal motives.

• Karjakin banned, Russia will appeal – 21 Mar 2022

  The FIDE Ethics Commission bans Sergey Karjakin for six months from any FIDE rated events with immediate effect for his pro-war, anti-Ukrainian statements on social media. Since it costs the Russian challenger of 2016 his place in the Candidates Tournament, the Chess Federation of Russia announced an appeal. Whereas the ECU has suspended the federations of Russia and Belarus, FIDE only banned teams from both countries. If the appeal is rejected, the open place in the Candidates Tournament goes to the highest rated player on 1 May 2022 with at least thirty rated games since June 2021, a regulation that turned out biased against players from Asia and the US where hardly tournaments have taken place during the pandemic.

• Dvorkovich lost main job – 18 Mar 2022

  While several federations are demanding his removal from the FIDE Presidency, Putin’s party United Russia demanded his removal as chairman of Skolkovo Foundation that runs Russia’s main IT campus and incubator after Arkady Dvorkovich spoke out against the war and in sympathy of the Ukrainian population. As the Kremlin’s chief economic advisor he was a main driver of Skolkovo and headed it since leaving the government in 2018. The 49-year-old duely stepped down and, according to the agency Interfax, will focus on educational projects and FIDE.

• French Federation gets promoted – 16 Mar 2022

  The French Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport has given the French Chess Federation delegate status, which comes with more rights, support and access to subsidies.

• Mamallapuram to host Chess Olympiad – 16 Mar 2022

  After removing the Chess Olympiad 2022 from Moscow FIDE has awarded the event to the only bidder, the All India Chess Federation, which will hold the tournament near its original date at the end of July, early August at Mamallapuram, a tourist town with hotels, temples and beach 50 km south of Chennai.

• Tour raises funds for Ukraine – 15 Mar 2022

  The second online tournament of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour starting on 19 March will be the Charity Cup and serve as a fundraiser for UNICEF to support Ukrainian children and families.

• Judit Polgar takes on the world – 10 Mar 2022

  In an online simul organised by the Hungarian pavilion of the Expo 2020 on 20 March, Judit Polgar will take on eleven communities of online users, each spearheaded by an influencer, with moves based on majority vote.

• Women’s Day fundraiser for Ukraine – 07 Mar 2022

  FIDE, chess24 and prominent female players join forces for a fundraising stream from 17.00 CET this Tuesday, the International Women’s Day, with proceeds going to Ukraine.

• ECU suspends Russia and Belarus – 04 Mar 2022

  The ECU has suspended the Chess Federation of Russia and Belarusian Chess Federation with immediate effect: No events can take place there, no officials will get any role and no teams can participate in ECU events. Individuals can only participate if they change the federation or participate under the FIDE flag. Players should contact federations@fide.com

• Russian players appeal to end the war – 03 Mar 2022

  34 Russian chess personalities, including challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi, national team players and employees of the Russian Chess Federation signed an open letter to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin requesting to end the “military operation on the territory of Ukraine”, a euphemism required by Russian censorship.

• Streamers collect $132,724 for Ukraine – 02 Mar 2022

  Hikaru Nakamura and Levy Rozman led a charity stream that raised $132,724 for CARE Ukraine and was supported by Chess.com.

• World Teams postponed – 02 Mar 2022

  FIDE postponed the Men’s World Team Championship in Jerusalem from April to November because Ukraine couldn’t play and Russia shouldn’t play.

• FIDE rules out Moscow – 25 Feb 2022

  As expected after the Russian invasion in Ukraine, FIDE doesn’t risk a wide boycott and has declared that the Chess Olympiad, Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities and FIDE Congress 2022 won’t take place in Moscow. The FIDE Council will hold an extraordinary meeting on Sunday to discuss how to rescue its main event scheduled five months from now.

  FIDE Managing Director Dana Reizniece-Ozola has condemned the Russian action and is urging her colleagues to drop FIDE’s Russian sponsorships and relocate all operational activities outside of Russia.

• Karpov sanctioned by EU – 23 Feb 2022

  The former world champion and FIDE-ambassador Anatoly Karpov is among the 351 members of the Russian parliament who are banned by the EU to travel and are subject to freezing their assets as a sanction after voting for the recognition of the People Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, which comes equal to annecting the cities in Eastern Ukraine into Russia.

• Puma partners with Champions Tour – 21 Feb 2022

  The Meltwater Champions Chess Tour announced that Puma SE, the third biggest sportswear brand, signed a multi-year partnership with the tour and with Magnus Carlsen personally. PUMA CEO Björn Gulden is a former football professional from Norway.

• Bora Ivkov (1933–2022) – 18 Feb 2022

  Borislav “Bora” Ivkov, the first junior world champion in 1951, who participated in five Interzonal Tournaments, beat Bobby Fischer twice and represented Yugoslavia in twelve Chess Olympiads, didn’t survive a Covid-19 infection.

• FIDE didn’t guarantee Ding place – 17 Feb 2022

  Ding Liren told German Press Agency that he dropped out of the Grand Prix, because FIDE refused to guarantee him a place in the third tournament and would only let him play if a place opens up and his visum for Germany was still not granted. The world number 3 also didn’t like the prospect to be put in quarantine upon his return to China. So the top player was replaced before the second tournament in Belgrade starts on 28 February.

• Norwegian federation with new look – 17 Feb 2022

  Metric Design and Feed Oslo have developed a new visual design for the Norwegian Chess Federation.

• Neither Carlsen nor Ding at Grand Chess Tour – 16 Feb 2022

  The $1,4 million Grand Chess Tour 2022 will have to do without world champion Magnus Carlsen and world number three Ding Liren at its five events in four cities Bucharest, Warsow, Zagreb and Saint Louis between May and September.

• A Wordle for chess – 16 Feb 2022

  Jack Li, a digital game designer, launched Chessle where you guess opening sequences in the same way as in the popular Wordle game that has been bought by the New York Times.

• Gaming chair producer Secretlab changes sides – 16 Feb 2022

  Secretlab, a producer of high end chairs for gamers, is designing a special chair for the Champions Chess Tour that begins its 2022 edition on Saturday. The US company formerly partnered with Chess.com.

• PMG raises expectations – 16 Feb 2022

  Reporting stronger than expected Q4 figures, the Play Magnus Group has raised its goal for 2025 from $60 million turnover to $100+ million in bookings, defying a stock evaluation near its all-time low, and announced a collaboration with Animoca Brands, a Hongkong marketing agency specializing in games and blockchain.

• New courses for educators – 13 Feb 2022

  Chessplus, the company behind ChessTech, has launched a new course Critical Thinking through Chess, developed by Jerry Nash. Another recent addition is the course on Chess and Logic by and with Rita Atkins, for which there are free places on 18 February.

• Hybrid test with ECU – 11 Feb 2022

  During the ECU board meeting in Thessaloniki, a team played a hybrid match via Tornelo against a team from the Berlin Chess Association that ended in a 2:2. Five seconds per move increment turned out too little, as one player on each side overstepped the time. Millennium’s Supreme Tournament 55 electronic boards worked well.

• Ragger is Sport Director – 11 Feb 2022

  The Austrian Chess Federation has moved its headquarter from Graz to the Haus des Sports in Vienna and hired its top player Markus Ragger as Sport Director and Annika Fröwis, a female national team player, as office manager.

• New Ethics Code valid from April – 08 Feb 2022

  A fully revised and extended Ethics and Disciplinary Code was approved by the FIDE General Assembly and will come into action on 1 April 2022.

• Abram Khasin (1923–2022) – 08 Feb 2022

  The world’s oldest IM and correspondence-GM Abram Khasin, coach of Razuvaev, Gulko and Bareev, passed away in Essen, Germany, where he lived since twenty years, days before his 99th birthday.

• More than fifty players harassed by pornographic letters – 07 Feb 2022

  More than fifty female players, mostly Russians, some of them teenagers, received anonymous letters with pornographic pictures and used condoms during the last ten years, culminating during the Grand Swiss in Riga a few months ago according to a report by the Russian investigative website Meduza. that identifies a chess teacher who bought himself an IM title in Ukraine as the sender and links him to sexist statements in Russian chess forums.

• FIDE invites bids – 07 Feb 2022

  Bidders for the World Championship 2023 are expected to cover a € 2 million prizefund and all organisational expenses without knowing the players since the deadline is 7 June. FIDE is also looking for organisers for the overdue Women Candidates Tournament and Women’s Grand Prix.

• Best of-exhibition in St. Louis – 07 Feb 2022

  The new exhibition Mind, Art, Experience at the World Chess Hall of Fame in Saint Louis brings together more than 120 of the finest exhibits from the last ten years. It will remain on show until the end of July with several top events, including the Sinquefield Cup in May, happening at the Saint Louis Chess Club during its duration.

• Chessbomb offline – 06 Feb 2022

  Three years after buying the live transmission site Chessbomb, Chess.com has taken it offline. Some features have long been integrated into their own events page and more will soon, according to CEO Erik Allebest: “It just doesn’t make sense to be two supporting two front-end products.”

• The cycle explained – 06 Feb 2022

  FIDE has launched a website to display the world championship cycles of men and women. While all participants of the women candidates tournament are known, the venue is not.

• Women lose a battle – 03 Feb 2022

  A match between ten female professionals and ten male players that matched by rating and age ended 53:47 for the men’s side. The Battle of the Sexes filled in for a year without a big Gibraltar open after its old venue, the Caleta Hotel, has been closed for good.

• Ding Liren can’t travel to Berlin – 02 Feb 2022

  The top favourite of the Grand Prix Ding Liren didn’t get his visa application complete in time to reach Berlin before the first round on Friday. If FIDE doesn’t switch him into the remaining two Grandprix tournaments or if another player concedes his place in the Candidates, the world number three will loose out again on a big chance to become challenger. Radek Wojtaszek replaces Ding in Berlin, whereas Dmitri Andreikin who tested positive for Covid-19, passes on his place to fellow Russian Andrej Esipenko.

• New grants for women and girls projects – 01 Feb 2022

  The St Louis Chess Club and US Chess Women announced a third cycle of grants for projects dedicated to girls and women with special emphasis on education after a first call in 2019 and a second one for online projects in 2020.

• Airthings Masters starts tour on 19 February – 01 Feb 2022

  Magnus Carlsen heads the lineup of the first tournament of the 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, the Airthings Masters from 19 to 26 February. Each win will now be worth $750 and $250 for a draw. The new website is integrated with chess24 with an eye to promoting the playing zone.

• Gilles Mirallès (1966–2022) – 31 Jan 2022

  The French grandmaster, coach, chess teacher and organiser Gilles Mirallès, who was a towering figure of chess in Geneva, passed away at 55.

• Year of the woman podcast – 31 Jan 2022

  Lilli Hahn from the Chess Sports Association, the German podcaster Michael Busse and FIDE have launched a monthly podcast during the Year of the Woman in Chess. The first interviewee is the Slovenian psychologist and author Jana Krivec. Next up is the American chess and poker commentator and author Jennifer Shahade.

• Mind Sports Grand Prix online from Easter – 31 Jan 2022

  Building on the success of its two online editions, the Mind Sports Olympiad announced the MSO Grand Prix of several dozen board game competitions to be held on different platforms from 15 April to 29 May. The in-person event at the JW3 in London will be shorter than previously and last from 21 to 29 August.

• Carlsens wins Tata Steel, climbs to 2868 – 29 Jan 2022

  Magnus Carlsen secured clear first place at Tata Steel Chess with one round to go after beating his four highest rated rivals Giri, Rapport, Mamedyarov and Caruana. He adds 3 rating points to climb to 2868. Arjun Erigaisi dominated the B or Challengers group and qualified for the 2023 Masters.

• Dubov out after positive test – 28 Jan 2022

  Daniil Dubov tested positive for Covid-19 on the final rest day of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament and forfeits his last three games against Rapport, Praggnanandhaa and Carlsen. Earlier three coaches tested positive and had to go into isolation. One of them was with Dubov, so he was asked to play round seven with a mask, which he refused and forfeited against Giri. With forfeits against the three tournament leaders Carlsen, Giri and Rapport, the impact of his exclusion is limited.

• Super Bowl spot features chess – 25 Jan 2022

  The halftime show at the 13 February american football Super Bowl final is promoted by Pepsi with the video “The Call” that features chess and will probably be seen more than 100 million times. Among the invited artists are chess afficionados Dr Dre and Kendrick Lamar.

• Mark Tseitlin (1943–2022) – 25 Jan 2022

  The Russian-Israeli grandmaster Mark Tseitlin, who coached Karpov, Smirin, Avrukh and others, passed away in Beersheba.

• PMG accepted Milner’s bid – 21 Jan 2022

  An extraordinary meeting of the Play Magnus Group shareholders agreed to issue 4,864,753 additional shares at an adjusted prize of NOK 18,30 to Yuri Milner for $10 million.

• General Atlantic invests in Chess.com – 15 Jan 2022

  General Atlantic, a US equity form with early investments in Slack, Airbnb and TikTok, is financing further growth in Chess.com.

• Chess.com announced $650,000 rapid series – 14 Jan 2022

  Chess.com’s answer to the Champions Chess Tour is their own series of online elite events starting six days earlier than the competitor on 12 February. Only the top 100 rated players, top 10 juniors and top 10 women are eligible to compete for $500,000 in the qualifiers and $150,000 in the final.

• Maia can guess the player from anonymous games – 14 Jan 2022

  Maia, an AI by University of Toronto researchers Ashton Anderson and Reid McIlroy-Young, was trained on hundred games each of 3000 different players. It was then fed portions of hundred anonymous games not in the training sample and guessed correctly who played these in 86% of the cases. They told Science magazine that the code wasn’t published due to privacy concerns.

• Giri and Esipenko (re-)join Bundesliga – 13 Jan 2022

  Germany’s top team is getting even stronger. Anish Giri joins the OSG Baden-Baden and so do Alexander Donchenko and Georg Meier who used to play for the second placed team SF Deizisau. Even though no agreement with Alireza Firouzja could be reached, winning a 16th championship title in this Bundesliga season starting in March is highly likely, as the Russian youngster Andrey Esipenko alone will not transform Turm Kiel into a title contender.

• Yuri Milner to invest $10 million in PMG – 12 Jan 2022

  The Russian-Israeli tech investor and billionaire Yuri Milner offers to buy $10 million worth of shares in Play Magnus Group at the average prize of the last 90 trading days NOK 18,49, which is driving up the share prize that was near its all-time low at NOK 13,50 when trading closed on Tuesday. An extraordinary shareholder meeting is called for 19 January to decide on this private placement. Milner is a personal friend of Magnus Carlsen and has sponsored the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour through its Breakthrough Foundation.

• Nakamura wins restarted Agadmator event – 10 Jan 2022

  The tournament promoted by youtuber Antonio Radic that had to be interrupted before Christmas after forty minutes when a server crashed was restarted by Lichess. Hikaru Nakamura defended his lead till the end and won ahead of Andrew Tang and David Paravanyan. Magnus Carlsen ended on 14th place.

• Chesspecker tactic training launched – 07 Jan 2022

  A free, open-source tactic training in connection with Lichess and based on repetition drills has launched on Chesspecker.com.

• US Chess moves to St. Louis – 06 Jan 2022

  The board of US Chess has unanimously voted to move its headquarters from Crossville, Tennessee, to the unofficial American chess capital Saint Louis even without any inducements, citing central location, reachability and better prospects to hire office staff.

• German league starts on 5 March – 04 Jan 2022

  The Schachbundesliga has postponed its season with the first round on 5 March instead of 15 January. The last five rounds are planned to be held centrally in Berlin on 16–19 June. The clubs have agreed on new rules to promote the participation of players who have grown up in Germany. Teams who line up more foreign players can compensate with junior and school chess programmes.

• Wijk aan Zee without amateur events – 04 Jan 2022

  The Tata Steel Chess Tournament will only feature the Masters and Challengers with 14 participants each on 14–30 January. All amateur events have been canceled, the children tournament will take place online.

• Gabor Kallai (1959–2021) – 04 Jan 2022

  The Hungarian grandmaster, coach, author and arbiter Gabor Kallai passed away at age 62 on New Year’s Eve.