Fabiano Caruana used the first rest day of the U.S. Championships to win Chess.com's Titled Tuesday on October 13, finishing on 9.5 points, half a point clear of Hikaru Nakamura and Nihal Sarin. I

Round 4 in Saint Louis on Monday produced a new co-leader in the open section, as Fabiano Caruana beat Ray Robson to join Wesley So on 3/4, while Jeffery Xiong knocked Awonder Liang out of the lead. In the women's section, Alice Lee beat overnight co-leader Megan Paragua to go clear on 3.5/4, her third straight win.

Grandmaster Vasif Durarbayli, the founder of the live-chess app ChessEver, has set out how he sees the online chess landscape in a thread on X, describing Chess.com as the capitalist end of the spectrum and Lichess as the communist end, with ChessEver aiming for the middle.

The 6th Intercontinental Online Chess Championship for Prisoners kicked off with 140 teams from 56 countries, a new participation record, with teams competing in men's, women's, and youth sections.

England's highest-rated player, Grandmaster Nikita Vitiugov, has said his playing career is over, explaining that once he stopped improving he was no longer willing to give chess less than everything.

Twelve-year-old Supratit Banerjee has made history by becoming Britain's youngest-ever International Master (IM), breaking a record previously shared by grandmasters Luke McShane and David Howell.

Chess will make its debut at Germany's prestigious multi-sport event, The Finals, with the national blitz championships set to receive live coverage on the country's two major public television broadcasters, ARD and ZDF

FIDE's General Assembly has formally supported a resolution on shorter classical time controls.

Round 3 in Saint Louis on Sunday ended the perfect scores in both sections, as Wesley So and Awonder Liang drew their meeting of the open leaders and Thalia Cervantes and Megan Paragua both drew in the women's. Alice Lee won to join them, so each section now has a clear front group, and the $64,000 Fischer Prize for a perfect score is out of reach.

Round 2 in Saint Louis on Saturday cut the open section's leaders from three to two, with Wesley So surviving a bad position against Jeffery Xiong and Awonder Liang beating Samuel Sevian, while Fabiano Caruana scored his first win to move within half a point. In the women's section, Megan Paragua and Thalia Cervantes, the two lowest-rated players in the field, took the lead at 2/2, with Paragua beating defending champion Carissa Yip.

Round 1 in Saint Louis on October 9 left three players at 1/1 in the open section, with Wesley So, Awonder Liang and Jeffery Xiong all winning with White, and Fabiano Caruana opening with a 17-move draw. The women’s section was even more decisive, as four wins produced a four-way tie at the top while defending champion Carissa Yip started with a draw.

Wadim Rosenstein has criticised FIDE over the potential exclusion of Israeli players from the upcoming World Amateur Chess Championship in Malaysia, questioning whether the international federation applies its own rules consistently.

Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri has made his debut for She Plays To Win Lionesses A in the British Four Nations Chess League (4NCL), following a controversy over rules requiring the previously all-female team to recruit a male player.

GM David Navara beat GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in round 1, board 9 of the German Bundesliga 2026/27 (Schachbundesliga), winning in 76 moves.

FIDE president Timur Turlov is promising to put about €30 million into chess over four years, according to a report in the Cyprus Mail, with a spending plan covering development grants, federation media support, a digital platform for players and a push into artificial intelligence.

Wadim Rosenstein announced on X on October 9 that former FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has agreed to testify in support of his case before the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The 2026 U.S. Chess Championship and U.S. Women's Chess Championship begin this week at the Saint Louis Chess Club.

European chess has received a significant vote of confidence. Wadim Rosenstein has pledged €1,000,000 to the European Chess Union

Wadim Rosenstein has pledged €1,000,000 to European chess through the European Chess Union. In a post on X on October 9, he said he was "very happy to support the future of chess in Europe" and that the support is "about the future of our sport, regardless of election results."

The suspicion that has trailed Timur Turlov's election as FIDE president since the Samarkand General Assembly has now reached the business press. Business Matters, a UK outlet, published a piece on October 9 asking whether the endorsement of English chess figure Malcolm Pein helped put a candidate under Ukrainian sanctions at the head of the world federation.

Germany’s Chess Bundesliga returns on Friday, 9 October, with defending champions SC Viernheim and rivals OSG Baden-Baden heading the race for the 2026/27 title.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Joseph Vijay handed out cash awards on Thursday to the state's medal winners from the Samarkand Olympiad, with ChessBase India reporting five awards totaling Rs 60 lakh.

Magnus Carlsen is coming to Barcelona on October 20 to unveil the MOVE Cup, a new elite tournament set to debut January 18-20, 2027. The announcement came via a press invitation and was confirmed by veteran chess journalist David Llada on social media, who will be handling media for the event.

Kazakh chess player Alua Nurman has questioned why results from the Chess Olympiad are not included in Kazakhstan’s system of state rewards for athletes.

Ian Nepomniachtchi didn't set out to make news on a Tuesday livestream, but his aside landed squarely inside one of chess's hottest arguments in recent years.

GM Murali Karthikeyan beat GM Alexandr Predke in round 3, board 25 of the Serbian Super League 2026 (Open), winning in 30 moves.

The three Afghan chess players detained after their secret trip to the Samarkand Olympiad were still under house arrest in Kabul as of the latest reporting, dated October 4.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who ran FIDE for 23 years until 2018, says the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) could still throw out Timur Turlov's election as FIDE president.

GM Murali Karthikeyan beat GM Ivan Cheparinov in round 2, board 7 of the Serbian Super League 2026 (Open), winning in 34 moves.

The 2026 FIDE World U7-U17 Rapid and Blitz Championships will take place in Cairo, Egypt, from December 8 to December 15, 2026.

GM Pranesh M beat GM Pierre Laurent-Paoli in round 2, board 7 of the Romanian Team Chess Championships 2026 (Men’s Super league), winning with checkmate on move 39.

A photo of a couple at a flower-draped engagement ceremony showed up on Uzbekistan Chess Federation's social media over the weekend, captioned only with an Uzbek phrase wishing a young couple happiness. It looked like Nodirbek Abdusattorov at the time, though the post itself never named him.

Garry Kasparov has spent over a decade as Russia's most prominent chess export turned Kremlin critic, and the US Justice Department now says Russian intelligence was actively plotting to have him killed.

Faustino Oro is 12 years old, already a grandmaster, and apparently unbothered about filing Magnus Carlsen under chess history's analog generation.

GM Hikaru Nakamura breaks record for most Bullet Brawl wins in a year

GM Awonder Liang wins 2026 Seirawan Chess Championship with a perfect score

Arkady Dvorkovich posted his farewell as outgoing FIDE president on Saturday, the kind of message departing officials usually get to send without much pushback.

IM Quoc Hy Nguyen, GM Parham Maghsoodloo, and GM Alexander Grischuk won titles in the 3|0 Thursday tournaments on October 1.

Russian authorities have filed a lawsuit seeking to seize the assets of billionaire businessman and newly elected FIDE President Timur Turlov, accusing him of financing Ukrainian organizations opposing Russia’s military operations.

Freestyle Friday has resumed on Chess.com, with the remaining weekly tournaments leading up to the December knockout finals

Nihal Sarin and Mukhiddin Madaminov left Samarkand with medals from opposite ends of the podium, Sarin with silver on India's Open team, both credited something you don't usually hear top players bring up unprompted: time spent gaming instead of studying chess.

FIDE's official rundown of the General Assembly's decisions reads, on its face, like routine housekeeping: a president and deputy seated, four vice presidents elected, five more nominated, a treasurer confirmed, a new Chess960 rating system approved, a bilingual English-French name adopted for the federation itself.

The European Continental Stage of the FIDE ISCF World Schools Team Championship 2026 saw intense competition and camaraderie on its third day in Tsaghkadzor, Armenia.

The International Scientific Conference "Theory and Practice of Chess Education" took place in Tsaghkadzor, Armenia, from October 1-2, 2026.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has an opinion on whether Timur Turlov should be FIDE president, and it isn't a kind one. "Turlov, like Dvorkovich, had no right to be elected," the former FIDE president said.

The European Continental Stage of the FIDE ISCF World Schools Team Championship 2026 saw intense competition on Day 2, with several teams vying for top spots in the standings.