Chess Archives - Dot Esports

For the first time in three years, grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi won’t play a part in the world chess championship match. Don’t worry, though, he’ll keep himself busy: for the next few days, he will occupy himself by participating in a streamer-focused Dota tournament, and he’s got quite the MOBA credentials.

Eagle-eyed redditors spotted yesterday that the eighth edition of BetBoom’s Streamers Battle Dota 2 will feature a player familiar to a different clan of nerds: playing under the Goodwin Team banner is none other than the world’s eight-highest-ranked chess player and back-to-back challenger for the classical world championship title, Ian Nepomniachtchi.

The chess world has its eyes on the upcoming classical World Chess Championship match between title holder Ding Liren and young challenger Gukesh Dommaraju in a titanic clash that will decide who the best chess players in the world not named Magnus Carlsen.

All joking aside, the world chess championship is always a momentous occasion and there have been many other times in the history of the royal game when it wasn’t the clear number one and number two contesting the title. (Anand-Gelfand, anyone?) It still remains the crown jewel of the chess world and it is a must-watch event of epic proportions, with a huge impact on the community.

Having just one minute to play your entire chess match isn’t conducive to precise play, and it’s rightfully seen as a brain-rotting pastime. But what if I told you the work on my “serious” chess in 2024 crystallized in a massive bullet rating boost—and nothing else whatsoever?

An exercise in graphology

Chess improvement is meant to be a slow and steady process, one of incremental gains and growing understanding, with the feeling that you’re finally uncovering new knowledge after long sessions of calculation and analysis, reaping the rewards in the form of a handful of rating points after a while.

After a breakout showing at the 2022 Chess Olympiad, Dommaraju Gukesh took things a step further this year in Budapest as he helped lead his nation to first place while also securing the individual gold. With the Indian women’s team also winning their competition, this marked an unprecedented national double.

Eight wins and two draws against the world’s elite: not a bad way to etch yourself into the chess record books at the tender age of eighteen. In 2022, Gukesh played on the first board of India’s second team (as the host nation has the opportunity to field three squads instead of one), ending the tournament with a 2867 tournament performance rating.

The chess world’s gearing up for its greatest international team competition, the Olympiad. This biennial chess competition is always a special occasion for fans of the royal game, and its 2024 edition promises to be a very special one.

Set to take place in Budapest, Hungary between Sept. 10 and 23, a record-breaking 193 nations will compete in the open section, and 181 teams will battle for supremacy in the women’s event.

It wasn’t even close. The much-anticipated grand final of the Speed Chess Championship quickly turned into a procession, then a demolition, as Magnus Carlsen defeated Alireza Firouzja by a score of 23.5-7.5 in an utterly dominant display, putting a stop to the young Frenchman’s white-hot form.

Even with no Nakamura, this year’s Speed Chess Championship final promised to be a fascinating affair, with both players posting incredible results in recent competitions. Firouzja, especially, has been having a banner year so far, winning the Grand Chess Tour in classical competition and the Bullet Chess Championship in faster time controls.

Chess.com’s 2024 Speed Chess Championship will mark the first time that the event incorporates a live final for the showpiece competition. This time, the top four will battle over the board, with Paris serving as host for the great chess clash between Carlsen, Nakamura, Firouzja, and… Hans Niemann.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Speed Chess Championship live finals, the format and schedule, and the Carlsen-Niemann showdown.

It was an all-American affair in the consolidation match of the 2024 Speed Chess Championship, and streamer extraordinaire Nakamura battered his young opponent, outthinking and outlasting Niemann in the progressively faster time controls.

After defeats to Alireza Firouzja and Magnus Carlsen, respectively, in the semifinals, Nakamura and Niemann faced off in a match that may not have had that much riding on the line in terms of tournament prestige, but human elements still made it a notable clash between two of North America’s greatest players.

In a tension-filled but ultimately straightforward affair, world number one Magnus Carlsen comfortably dispatched Hans Niemann in the live semifinals of the 2024 Speed Chess Championship.

It was their first face-to-face battle since the Norwegian lodged his cheating accusation at his young American counterpart, and while the final scoreline read 17.5-12.5, Carlsen at one point had a ten-point lead and simply cruised in the final portion of a match with many technical issues.

World #22 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave has long been a fixture of the chess elite, but he has now etched his name into the record books with the exact same number: 22 consecutive draws in classical chess across three tournaments and three and a half months of play.

While patzers like myself will inevitably blunder something in a drawn rook and pawn endgame, chess grandmasters are cut from a different cloth, and they can steer most of the even positions to a drawn conclusion. This is especially true in classical chess, the pinnacle of the royal game, where the oceans of time available to think allow them to play with incredible precision.