Nathaniel Green is a staff writer for Chess.com who writes articles, player biographies, Titled Tuesday reports, video scripts, and more. He has been playing chess for about 30 years and resides near Washington, DC, USA.
GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won the February 24 edition of Titled Tuesday to wrap up the winter split with his second win of the month, becoming one of eight qualifiers into the Chess.com Open. Vachier-Lagrave won in the final round to reach 9.5 poi...
With brand-new stakes introduced by the announcement of the Freestyle Friday Championship, the victory that GM Oleksandr Bortnyk earned in the February 20 edition of Freestyle Friday gave him a jumpstart toward potentially playing in the 2027 FIDE...
GM Fabiano Caruana finished just ahead of GM Denis Lazavik to win Titled Tuesday on February 17, after Caruana defeated GM Wesley So in the final round but Lazavik only made a draw with GM Hikaru Nakamura (in a rematch of the 3rd Place Match in th...
GM Haik Martirosyan scored 10.5 points in Freestyle Friday on February 13, the most of anyone since last July. In the process, Martirosyan won the tournament—his first win ever in this event—by two whole points. IM Reza Mahdavi, GM Ale...
Already a candidate for the World Championship, GM Javokhir Sindarov took steps toward the 2026 Esports World Cup as well on February 10, winning Titled Tuesday with a 10/11 score. Coming in the largest field since September (455), it was his seco...
GM Vincent Keymer rode his 10th-round victory over GM Magnus Carlsen in Freestyle Friday to a win in the tournament on February 6. Both players scored nine points but Keymer's tiebreaks put him in the lead. Keymer previously won on May 2, 2025, an...
GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave took home Titled Tuesday on February 3, becoming the first player all year to score 10/11, allowing him to avoid tiebreaks to beat out GMs Arjun Erigaisi and Alexey Sarana on 9.5 points. The win was not only Vachier-...
GM Sina Movahed won his fifth Freestyle Friday on January 30, holding at least a share of the lead in every round of the tournament to join GMs Hikaru Nakamura, Oleksandr Bortnyk, Arjun Erigaisi, and Magnus Carlsen with five or more. Carlsen finis...
Queen of Chess, the Netflix documentary directed by Rory Kennedy about GM Judit Polgar's rise from child prodigy to one of the world's top players—woman or man—debuted at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27, ahead of its official ...
GM Dmitry Andreikin won a wild Titled Tuesday outright on January 27 with a score of 9.5/11. Andreikin, who wasn't in the picture atop the standings for much of the tournament, worked his way up and then became the only one of six players who ente...
GM Pranav Venkatesh is now a Freestyle Friday victor, taking his first tournament on January 23 with a 9.5/11 score. Coming in second place was GM Martin Kravtsiv, followed by GM Nodirbek Yakkuboev in third and GM Shamsiddin Vokhidov in fourth, wh...
GM Magnus Carlsen needed a few rounds to get himself going in Titled Tuesday on January 20, but still ended up scoring 9.5/11 and winning the tournament outright. He has now won two of the three Titled Tuesdays of 2026 so far and his fourth of the...
GM Ian Nepomniachtchi won Freestyle Friday on January 16, grabbing his opportunity at a mate-in-two in the final round to take the tournament outright with 9.5 points. IM Renato Terry helped by beating the one player who had been tied with Nepomni...
GM Javokhir Sindarov took home Titled Tuesday honors on January 13 after holding a draw against countryman GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov in the final round. The result gave Sindarov outright first place with 9.5 points after GM Alexey Sarana went ...
GM Oleksandr Bortnyk is your Freestyle Friday winner on January 9, after he recovered from a loss in round three by never losing again. It was Bortnyk's sixth win of the tournament, more than anyone besides GM Hikaru Nakamura. Bortnyk still needed...
GM Magnus Carlsen is off to a fast start in Titled Tuesday in 2026, winning the January 6 tournament with a 9.5/11 score. He came out ahead of second-place GM Vincent Keymer and third-place GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda on tiebreaks. Duda, Keymer, and Car...
GM Magnus Carlsen won Freestyle Friday four times in 2025, and he has started 2026 on the right foot by winning the January 2 edition. He did not go wire-to-wire, losing in rounds three and nine, but it was enough to win on tiebreaks over GM Matth...
GM Vincent Keymer took home the last Titled Tuesday of 2025 on December 30, scoring 10/11 to become the first player to reach a double-digit score in the tournament since November 18. Only two players could win entering the final round, and Keymer...
GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda won a dramatic Titled Tuesday on December 23, just barely winning on tiebreaks ahead of GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. It was Duda's first win in the event since February 18, and he got there by defeating GM Magnus Carlsen in the...
GM Magnus Carlsen is not inevitable but, more often than not, he seems to be. The December 19 edition of Freestyle Friday was no exception, as Carlsen won his last four games in a come-from-behind victory. Carlsen won with 9.5 points, outlast...
By his own admission, it wasn't pretty, but GM Magnus Carlsen got the job done in Titled Tuesday on December 16, scoring 9.5 points to win outright despite a loss in the second round and a worse final position in the 11th round as he successfully ...
Freestyle Friday of late has often been dominated by two young players, 19-year-old Indian GM Pranesh M and 15-year-old Iranian GM Sina Movahed, and December 12 was no different. Pranesh won this week's tournament on 9.5/11, defeating Movahed in a...
An undefeated GM Sam Sevian won Titled Tuesday on December 9—his first since 2021—scoring 9.5 points to claim an outright victory ahead of five players on nine points. In that group, GM Denis Lazavik emerged from the tiebreak applicati...
GM Sina Movahed won Freestyle Friday on December 5 with a round to spare, becoming just the fourth player to win the event at least four times. Even more impressively, Movahed won 10 straight games to end the tournament, persevering despite a loss...
