Σκακιστικά νέα

22-year-old WGM Mai Narva is the four-time Estonian Women’s National Chess Champion. She won her first National Champion title at the age of 15, winning the 2014 Estonian Women’s Championship. At the recently concluded 2022 Serbia Chess Open Masters Narva made her third and final IM norm. With 5/9 points, Mai had an impressive performance of 2467 and added 19.8 points to her current rating of 2385.

The Higher League of the 75th Russian Championship and the 72nd Russian Women’s Championship took place from 25 June – 6 July in Obninsk. The top 5 finishers in each tournament received the right to play in the 2022 Russian Championships Superfinals. 

The World Youth Chess Championships U14, U16, and U18 will take place from September 05-17, 2022 in Mamaia, Romania. The 11-round Swiss System tournaments, organized by International Chess Federation and Romanian Chess Federation together with Chess Club Universul and Chess Club Juniorul Constanta, will be held in Constanta Exhibition Centre.

Ian Nepomniachtchi won the 2022 FIDE Candidates Tournament, thus qualifying for the World Chess Championship Match. But it is still unknown whether Magnus Carlsen will accept to defend the World Champion title.

The first session of the special preparation programme for the Arbiters’ Team of the 44th Chess Olympiad 2022 took place on July 3. Almost 200 arbiters from around 100 federation attended the session. A second online session is planned for July 17, before a final preparation day on July 28, at the Olympiad venue, to practice in real conditions.

In the year declared by FIDE as the Year of the Women in Chess, one woman, who heads the Virgin Islands Chess Federation, suffers insults, unproven accusations, and public dissemination of her personal information from the (now former) FIDE officer.

After reading Nigel Short’s claims (shared within the text) and his daily dose of tweets, we decided to call Margaret Murphy and hear the other side of the story. The interview is below:

Immortal Game celebrates the 15k mark since the beta launch this June 21st during the Candidates in Madrid. Since June 22nd, all beta players are able to purchase Mystery Boxes, each containing 1 to 4 Immortals to quickly start building a team. These boxes contain random Immortals. More info

The 15th edition of the International Chess Festival Paracin 2022 starts tomorrow and will be played from 8 – 16 July at the Pool Prestige Hotel in Paracin. Just two days after the end of one of the biggest European Open chess events in Novi Sad, Paracin hosts another massive and strong event.

The 2022 New York GM/IM Summer Invitational will take place from 7-11 July at Hilton Garden Inn Midtown Park Ave, New York. The event features four 10-player round-robin tournaments for grandmasters and international masters norms. Starting rank list of players for each tournament can be found below.

2022 New York GM A Summer Invitational – Starting List:

From July 6 – 16, 2022, Saint Louis, America’s Chess Capital, will host the top juniors, girls, and seniors in the invitational 2022 U.S. Junior, U.S. Girls’ Junior, and U.S. Senior Chess Championships. The three 10-player fields will tie together chess past and future for a celebration of the best of chess and feature more than $130,000 in prizes. All information and starting rank lists