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Boris Spassky, legendary Russian chess player and the 10th World Chess Champion who rose to international fame in the 1972 “Match of the Century” against American Bobby Fischer, died Thursday in Moscow at age 88. The icon’s death was announced by the Russian Chess Federation, who mourned the loss of one of the 20th century’s most influential chess players. “A great personality has passed away; generations of chess players learned and continue to learn from his games and work. A great loss for the country,” Andrei Filatov, president of the Russian Chess Federation said in a statement to Russian outlet...

Magnus Carlsen, the world's top chess player, has quit the World Rapid Chess Championship being held in New York after refusing to change out of jeans to abide by a dress code. The Norwegian chess grandmaster was fined $200 on Friday and given a warning by the International Chess Federation (FIDE), the governing body for international chess championships, to change into acceptable attire or be disqualified. Five-time world chess champion Magnus Carlsen says he will not defend his title World Five-time world chess champion Magnus Carlsen says he will not defend his title Carlsen told chess channel Take Take Take...

As the Chess community, not just in India but across the world is celebrating its youngest World Champion -- 18-year-old D Gukesh, a disturbing accusation from Russian Chess Federation chief Filatov has emerged. Filatov, according to Russian media, had accused the defending champion Ding Liren (China) of losing the all important final game on purpose. A blunder by the Chinese player in the 14th game that cost him the world title, also kept him at the receiving end of the serious allegations. "Losing the position in which Ding Liren was is difficult even for a first-class player. The defeat of...

Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju capped a stunning ascent to the pinnacle of chess by dethroning China’s Ding Liren to become the youngest ever world champion on Thursday in Singapore. The 18-year-old from Chennai dramatically snatched the decisive victory from a dead-drawn position in the final contest of their best-of-14-games showdown when Ding made one of the worst blunders in the 138-year history of world championship matchplay. The 32-year-old defending champion resigned moments later after a game that lasted 58 moves and just over four hours, sealing Gukesh’s 7½-6½ win in the three-week match and rendering moot the widely expected prospect...

GM Gukesh Dommaraju will have the white pieces against GM Ding Liren for Monday's game one of the 2024 FIDE World Championship after the opening ceremony concluded in the Capitol Theatre in Singapore. At an earlier press conference Ding, who's again accompanied by GM Richard Rapport, said, "I feel peace and with a lot of energy," while Gukesh paid glowing tributes to "huge icon" GM Viswanathan Anand and his coach GM Grzegorz Gajewski, adding, "I’m confident I have all the chances in the world." The main business of Saturday's "media day" of the World Championship was to decide who would...

CPSC issued a Notice of Violation to the seller, Auncley, of China, but the firm has not agreed to recall the Magnetic Chess Games or offer a remedy to consumers. When high-powered magnets are swallowed, the ingested magnets can attract to each other, or to another metal object, and become lodged in the digestive system. This can result in perforations, twisting and/or blockage of the intestines, infection, blood poisoning and death. >p> CPSC estimates 2,400 magnet ingestions were treated in hospital emergency departments annually from 2017 through 2021. CPSC is aware of eight deaths since 2005 through 2021 involving the...

Over the last few weeks, a Russian blitz has claimed more than a dozen villages in northeast Ukraine, near the country’s second-largest city. This summer, Russia will likely continue its offensive push... Russia’s ability to carry out these attacks is in some ways surprising. War is expensive...Yet Moscow has managed to keep paying for its war machine.... to China, the benefits of a Russian victory in Ukraine may outweigh the costs. Among those benefits: The war has entangled the U.S. and its allies in a faraway conflict, straining the U.S. military’s ammunition stockpiles. It has made Russia, a big military...

India’s D Gukesh became the youngest winner of the FIDE Candidates tournament after an exciting final round on Monday in Toronto. India’s D Gukesh became the youngest winner of the FIDE Candidates tournament after an exciting final round on Monday in Toronto. Gukesh held fellow title contender Hikaru Nakamura to a draw with black pieces in Round 14 to ensure his title win and become the second Indian to qualify for a World Championship final in the classical format, after Viswanathan Anand. The 17-year-old has now qualified for the World Championship final, where he is slated to face China’s Ding...

The association was also forced to address rumours circulating online that Yan had cheated during the competition by using anal beads equipped with wireless transmitters to send and receive signals. Yan allegedly clenched and unclenched rhythmically to communicate information about the chess board via code to a computer, which then sent back instructions on what moves to make in the form of vibrations, according to reports circulating on the Chinese social site Weibo.

R Praggnanandhaa began the third day of his epic final with Magnus Carlsen in the FIDE World Cup on a strong note but the day, and match, ended as predicted: Carlsen, the world no. 1, winning his first ever World Cup, 2.5 - 1.5. Carlsen bossed the endgame of the first tiebreak to win the first rapid game; that result and three draws (two in classical over the past two days), gave him the title. Praggnanandhaa, who like Carlsen was playing in his first World Cup final, will now play in the Candidates tournament in 2024, where the winner will...

Chess.com and Lichess will halt their relationships with St. Louis Chess Club and no longer provide support for or cover any of their tournaments in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct, The Wall Street Journal revealed on Wednesday. In an exclusive story, the influential newspaper reveals how the two biggest chess servers no longer will broadcast, provide news coverage of or support tournament at the Saint Louis Chess Club.

Adecision to effectively ban transgender women from competitive chess tournaments until further notice by the chess world's governing body has sparked a backlash on social media. The International Chess Federation, known by its French acronym FIDE, recently released an updated version of its handbook that says players who transition "from a male to a female" have "no right" to participate in official events for women until a further decision is made. That decision will be based on "further analysis" in a process that could take up to two years.

The 2023 FIDE World Championship in Astana, Kazakhstan is the most important over-the-board classical event of the year and decides who will be the next world champion. After a record-breaking Candidates Tournament, world number-two Nepomniachtchi faces world number-three Ding Liren in a battle for Magnus Carlsen's throne after the current world champion abdicated his title.

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iranian chess player arrived in Spain on Tuesday after receiving what a source close to her said were warnings not to return to Iran for competing without a hijab at an international tournament in Kazakhstan. Sara Khadem, born in 1997, took part in last week's FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships in Almaty without the hijab - a headscarf mandatory under Iran's strict dress codes. The source, who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, said Khadem subsequently received multiple phone calls in which individuals warned her against returning...

A study of an international chess tournament has revealed that wearing a face mask significantly reduced the average quality of player decisions, impacting the cognitive performance of competitive chess players. Australian chess Grandmaster and University of Queensland Prof. David Smerdon analysed almost three million chess moves played by 8,531 people in 18 countries before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The decrease in performance was due to the annoyance caused by the masks rather than a physiological mechanism,” Smerdon said. “The data showed masks were more likely to decrease performance in situations where there was a demanding mental task with a...

After an accident, former World Champion Anatoly Karpov was rushed to the hospital with multiple head injuries in which he was placed in an induced coma. Karpov was put on a ventilator now, and has been diagnosed with cerebral edema, fractures of the right parietal and right temporal bones, multiple head hematomas, and traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage. We will update this report as the news trickles in.

Hans Niemann, the 19-year-old Grandmaster embroiled in a cheating scandal, filed a lawsuit against world champion Magnus Carlsen, Chess.com, grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, and others, seeking $100 million in damages. The lawsuit accuses the defendants of slander, libel, unlawful group boycott, tortious interference with business, and civil conspiracy. Niemann defeated Carlsen in an over-the-board match at the Sinquefield Cup in Missouri in early September. Afterward, Carlsen withdrew from the tournament, posting a vague tweet that implied he couldn't say more about his reasons for withdrawing. Weeks later, during an online match against Niemann at the Julius Baer Cup, Carlsen quit after...

American chess grandmaster Hans Niemann previously admitted to cheating twice in the past, but a new investigation reveals that he did it way more than that. Conducted and released by Chess.com, a 72-page report alleges that the 19-year-old champion likely received illegal assistance in more than 100 online games, the latest of which occurred as recently as 2020. Those matches included contests in which prize money was awarded. {snip}

We appreciate your patience over the last several weeks as we have been working on a comprehensive report on Hans Niemann and the events following Magnus’ resignation in the 2022 Sinquefield Cup. We know many of you have been eager to hear from Chess.com, and while there is more we want to research around the topic, we present to you this report on our findings so far. Our report was first referenced by the Wall Street Journal article published on October 4 2022. We know that while we are answering some questions here, more questions will surface, and we look...

Rising chess star Hans Niemann has admitted to cheating in online chess in the past as he rejected any suggestions he had used computer assistance in a major tournament. The American made an impassioned statement during an interview with St Louis Chess Club commentator Alejandro Ramírez after allegations swirled on social media. World champion Magnus Carlsen stunned the chess world yesterday by suddenly withdrawing from the Sinquefield Cup following his shock defeat to Niemann with the white pieces.