Fabiano Caruana drew a sharp game against Richard Rapport to finish in clear first place in the Superbet Chess Classic, taking the $100,000 top prize and the maximum 13 Grand Chess Tour points. His pursuers could all only draw, though that was a good result for Anish Giri after he stumbled into a lost position against Ian Nepomniachtchi. Ding Liren regained the world no. 3 spot after ending with a fine win over Bogdan-Daniel Deac ..read more

Jan-Krzysztof Duda won his first classical game of chess in 9.5 months after Alireza Firouzja’s decision to dodge an early draw backfired spectacularly. That means Fabiano Caruana goes into the final round of the Superbet Chess Classic in Bucharest as the sole leader after he managed to draw against Anish Giri with 7 minutes more on his clock than he’d started with. The remaining three games were uneventful draws ..read more

Anish Giri has become the latest player to beat Ding Liren after the World Champion allowed a powerful piece sacrifice on move 11 in Round 7 of the Superbet Chess Classic. Ding has dropped to last place, but he has the company of his World Championship challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi, who was put to the sword by Alireza Firouzja. The young star now co-leads with Fabiano Caruana going into the final two rounds ..read more

‌Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So missed gilt-edged chances as all games were drawn in Round 6 of the Superbet Chess Classic in Bucharest. World Champion Ding Liren was fighting hard but might still have suffered a 2nd loss in a row if not for Wesley taking a draw by repetition. Caruana leads but would be much closer to overall victory if he’d beaten Alireza Firouzja. Instead a careless 41st move spoilt all his efforts ..read more

19-year-old Alireza Firouzja has regained the world no. 2 spot after beating World Champion Ding Liren in Round 5 of the Superbet Chess Classic in Bucharest. Ding had winning chances of his own, as did Ian Nepomniachtchi, who for most of the round was putting pressure on Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. A few careless moves, however, and MVL took over to make it a red-letter day for French chess ..read more

Fabiano Caruana won his first ever classical game against Ian Nepomniachtchi to take the sole lead after Round 4 of the Superbet Chess Classic in Bucharest. Fabiano described it as “really satisfying” to outplay his opponent from a position where a draw looked inevitable. The day’s other winner was Alireza Firouzja, who scored his first classical win in 8 months after bamboozling Bogdan-Daniel Deac in a complicated clash ..read more

Ding Liren confessed “I forgot the moves” as he stumbled into a close to lost position against Ian Nepomniachtchi in Round 3 of the Superbet Chess Classic. Just as in the second half of the match, however, Ding managed to survive, thus denying his opponent a 2800 rating. Elsewhere the one decisive game saw Fabiano Caruana beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in only 23 moves to join Richard Rapport, Wesley So and Nepo in the lead ..read more

Ian Nepomniachtchi and Richard Rapport picked up wins in Round 2 of the Superbet Chess Classic to join Wesley So in the lead. Nepomniachtchi took down Bogdan-Daniel Deac and will go into the Round 3 clash against Ding Liren with a chance to cross 2800 for the first time with a win. Rapport ground down Jan-Krzysztof Duda in what had at first looked sure to be a drawn ending ..read more

Wesley So talked of “revenge” as he beat Alireza Firouzja with the black pieces to score the only win on Day 1 of the Superbet Chess Classic, the first event on the 2023 Grand Chess Tour. Ding Liren was ultimately happy to open with a solid draw against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, while the world champion’s second Richard Rapport felt Ian Nepomniachtchi was vulnerable in the French Defence, though he couldn’t prove it ..read more

Less than a week after Ding Liren became the 17th World Champion he’s back in action today in Bucharest, Romania as he takes on Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the first round of the Superbet Chess Classic. It’s not just Ding making the trip from Astana, as Ian Nepomniachtchi faces Ding’s second Richard Rapport. The line-up features 2022 Grand Chess Tour champion Alireza Firouzja as well as Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and local wildcard Bogdan-Daniel Deac ..read more