GM Maurice Ashley, the first Black grandmaster in history, said he fulfilled a lifelong dream when he appeared on The Oprah Podcast, sitting down virtually with Oprah Winfrey for a conversation about chess, impact, and hidden potential. Few gran...
GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu won the 2025 FIDE Circuit and joined 2024 winner GM Fabiano Caruana in qualifying for the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament. The International Chess Federation (FIDE) has now announced that for 2026-7 two years will be c...
Both day-one leaders built on their momentum to earn maiden titles on day two. GM Wesley So won 2026 Tata Steel Chess India Open Blitz, his first time winning the title after six attempts. He finished in sole first with 12/18, while GMs Nihal Sari...
GM Hikaru Nakamura kept the Bullet Brawl ball rolling with his second straight win of 2026 after snatching the $400 first prize from GM Andrew Tang's grasp in the final moments of Saturday's event. Tang dominated in the first half but slumped in t...
GM Wesley So leads at the halfway point of 2026 Tata Steel Chess India Open Blitz with seven points out of nine games. After blundering into a mate-in-one the first game, So stormed back to snatch the lead from GM Arjun Erigaisi, who started with ...
GMs Denis Lazavik, Alexey Sarana, and Oleksandr Bortnyk won the three 3 0 Thursday tournaments on January 8. It was Bortnyk's first victory in the event, while the other GMs took their second title. IM Anna Sargsyan won the women's prizes in the f...
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 Nihal Sarin won the 2026 Tata Steel Chess India Open Rapid tournament with 6.5 points out of nine games on Friday. It's his second time winning the tournament, the first being in 2022, and he earns $10,000. He dedicated his victory to his ...
On January 7, FIDE and Freestyle Chess announced the first FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship, taking place at Weissenhaus, Germany, from February 13-15. Now, Chess.com is hosting the qualifier that determines the remaining player who will co...
GMs Viswanathan Anand and Nihal Sarin ended day two of 2026 Tata Steel Chess India in the shared lead with 4.5 points out of six games. Anand lost his first game against GM Arjun Erigaisi but bounced back with two wins, while Nihal won all three o...
Freestyle Chess and FIDE have agreed to join forces to stage the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship, scheduled for February 13–15, 2026, in Weissenhaus, Germany. The surprise announcement was made on Wednesday, just over one mon...
GMs Viswanathan Anand and Hans Niemann lead 2026 Tata Steel Chess India with 2.5 points out of the first three games. Anand scored wins against GMs Wesley So and Aravindh Chithambaram, while Niemann scored his against 2024 Rapid World Champio...
Five national chess federations have formally launched a legal challenge against the International Chess Federation (FIDE) at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), contesting the decisions taken at December's online General Assembly to lift re...
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...
We’re excited to announce the first event of the 2026 Chess.com Community Championships. The 2026 Chess.com Puzzles Championship takes place on January 15 and 16, starting at 1 p.m. ET/19:00 CET, and features a $5,000 prize fund. The event w...
2025 was an eventful year for chess, and we surely had a lot to celebrate! We were lucky enough to see chess take over the world stage at the Esports World Cup, witness viral table-banging moments, gasp at brilliant sacrifices, and more. We aske...
The first 16 players have been determined for the 2026 Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot tournament (“Total Chess 2026 Pilot”), FIDE and Norway Chess announced on Tuesday. This year's event is a test run for the 2027 inaugural ...
What happens when two of the world's biggest creators collide? You're about to find out with the upcoming Gotham vs. Song match, taking place in Madrid, Spain from January 15 to 18. IMs Levy Rozman and Julien Song will compete in a series of 14 ga...
GM Hikaru Nakamura was crowned as Bullet Brawl's first half-centurion on Saturday after he won the first edition of 2026 and took home the $400 first prize. In a field of 177 titled players, which included 13 players with ratings over 3100, N...
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...
GMs Tuan Minh Le, Hikaru Nakamura and Jose Martinez celebrated the new year by winning the first three 3 0 Thursday tournaments of 2026. Le overcame back-to-back losses to catch up and win the first event with a 9/11 score. Nakamura dominated the ...
GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov has marched into 2026 with 19 extra rating points after a tremendous performance in the 2025 London Chess Classic in December. Abdusattorov recovered the 18 points he lost at the 2025 FIDE World Cup with interest, courtesy...
The Naroditsky Memorial and Fellowship Fund has surpassed $1 million, marking a major milestone in efforts to honor the legacy of GM Daniel Naroditsky. The grandmaster tragically passed away at the age of 29 on October 19. In November, the Charl...
Freestyle Chess has informed Chess.com that the Open Qualifiers for the first leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour are cancelled. We have no more information at this time, but Freestyle Chess has promised that a press release is coming in th...
GM Magnus Carlsen has won the 2025 FIDE World Blitz Chess Championship by defeating GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov 2.5-1.5 in the final match. Along with €70,000, he earned his ninth world blitz title and 20th world championship title across all th...
