Σκακιστικά νέα

15-year-old Indian Grandmaster Gukesh D won the 1st Chess Menorca Open which was played from 20th to 24th April 2022 at Hotel Princesa Playa, Menorca, Spain.

GM Leinier Dominguez, GM Fabiano Caruana, GM Irina Krush, and FM Alice Lee all advanced to the finals of the Champions Bracket today, after defeating their respective opponents in the semifinals, relegating them to the Elimination Bracket. While the finalists get a rest day tomorrow, the second round of the Elimination Bracket will feature the matches Aronian – So, Sevian – Robson, Tsolakidou – Tokhirjonova, and Nemcova – Abrahamyan as the players fight to avoid double-elimination.

After FIDE’s ban on Sergey Karjakin for 6 months, a replacement for the Russian player at the Candiadates Chess 2022 was needed.

The Chess Academy of Armenia and the Armenian Chess Federation organize four international chess events from June 6th – July 16th:

• 13th Karen Asrian Memorial (6th-16th June, Yerevan, Armenia)
• 1st International Youth Chess Festival (17th-26th June, Yerevan, Armenia)
• Chess Summer Camp with renowned chess players and Grandmasters (29th June – 6th July, Aghveran, Armenia)
• Stepan Avagyan International Open Chess Tournament (7th-16th July, Jermuk, Armenia)

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Teen sensation Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa leads the Oslo Esports Cup after a stunning win over world number 10 Shakrhiyar Mamedyarov. The 16-year-old from Chennai blew away the oldest player in the field with two game wins to take the Round 2 match 2.5 to 0.5. It followed up Pragg’s impressive Round 1 match win over Jorden van Foreest and leaves him out in front as the only player with the maximum 6 tournament points.

At the time of the last article, Stockfish had already won the TCEC Season 22 Superfinal, but it was still pursuing two potential records: the record for the most decisive Superfinal, and an ‘undefeated’ Superfinal where it loses no openings. Unfortunately for Stockfish fans, Stockfish failed to break the first record – its final score of +19 is still eclipsed by the +20 margin of victory its younger self scored against Komodo in Season 12.

The 51st edition of Mar del Plata Open took place from April 9-16 in the second-largest city in Buenos Aires province. The event gathered 282 participants from eight countries, including 35 titled players.

GM Andres Rodriguez Vila took a decisive victory in the last round to score 8 points and win the tournament.

Four players were knocked out of the American Cup as the first day of Elimination matches took place, with Robson – Shankland and Nemcova – Yan lasting all the way until Armageddon.  In the Champions Bracket, GM Leinier Dominguez dealt a lethal blow to GM Levon Aronian, while FM Alice Lee won a fine technical game to also take the lead against WGM Tatev Abrahamyan.

An action packed day saw five matches decided in the playoffs and one match (Caruana-Xiong) made it all the way to Armageddon, finishing in a dramatic time scramble. After all was said and done, Aronian, Dominguez, Sevian, and Caruana from the Open Field along with Krush, Tokhirjonova, Lee, and Abrahamyan from the Women’s Field advanced to the next stage of the Champions Bracket. Meanwhile the rest of the players were relegated to the Elimination Bracket, where they will get a second chance to win the tournament starting tomorrow.

The world’s first fully in-person chess esports event, the Oslo Esports Cup, got under way on Friday with World Champion Magnus Carlsen in imperious form. Carlsen, who is going for a hat-trick of wins in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, rounded off the challenge of Polish No.1 Jan-Krzysztof Duda with a thumping 2.5-0.5 victory. The Norwegian even managed to survive a second-game experiment on move 1 as he opened with the highly-dubious 1.f3 – not a standard move at the elite level. That game ended in a draw.