The Week in Chess

1. Superbet Poland Rapid & Blitz 2025 - Games and Results

   The Superbet Poland Rapid & Blitz takes place Sat 26th Apr 2025 to Thu 1st May 2025. Players: Praggnanandhaa, Firouzja, Aravindh, Aronian, Duda, Fedoseev, Vachier-Lagrave, Topalov, Deac, Gavrilescu. A three day rapid is followed by a two day blitz event.

2. Bundesliga 2024-25 - Games and Results

   The Bundesliga takes place Sat 28th Sep 2024 to Sun 27th Apr 2025. Duesseldorfer SK leads by three points over SC Viernheim going into the final three rounds held in Deggendorf. They do meet in round 15 but likely Duesseldorfer SK will have won by then. Baden Baden are a further point behind in 3rd place.

3. IV Menorca Open 2025 - Games and Results

   The IV Menorca Open takes place Tue 22nd Apr to Sun 27th Apr 2025. Players: Nihal Sarin, Sam Shankland, Volodar Murzin, Karthikeyan, Puranik, Pranav, Lu Shanglei. Vasyl Ivanchuk etc.

4. Chess this weekend - 25th to 27th April 2025 -

   The Grand Chess Tour kicks off with the Superbet Poland Rapid & Blitz starting on Saturday at 1pm BST. Players: Praggnanandhaa, Firouzja, Aravindh, Aronian, Duda, Fedoseev, Vachier-Lagrave, Topalov, Deac, Gavrilescu.

   The final weekend of the German Bundesliga takes place in Deggendorf Friday 25th to Sunday 27th April. Duesseldorfer SK take a three point lead over SC Viernheim into these final three matches. They do meet in the final round 15 of the season on Sunday but the title will likely be settled by then. The relegation battle is a good deal closer. I look for big names in the Bundesliga but don't know who will play.

   Vasyl Ivanchuk has been playing nearly non-stop since February. He leads the IV Menorca Open on 5/5 after beating Nihal Sarin. The event finishes on Sunday.

   Other events include the Saint Louis Spring tournaments, Finnish Championship, English Seniors, Asian Zonal in Mongolia, the Sydney Open and the finish of the Frauenbundesliga.

5. Humpy Koneru edges out Zhu Jiner to win the Pune Women's Grand Prix - 9

   The Pune Women's Grand Prix was won by Humpy Koneru on tie-break from Zhu Jiner. Koneru mostly impressed with an important victory over Zhu in Round 7 and another long win today, she did survived against Alina Kashlinskaya in round 8 in her only weak game. Zhu also won a long game to share the Grand Prix points with Koneru.

   38 year old Koneru's win was her eighth Grand Prix and gave her the sole record she had shared with Hou Yifan.

   This Grand Prix was the fifth of a series of six events held in 2024 and 2025, two players will qualify for the next Women's Candidates tournament. Each player competes in three events. Alexandra Goryachkina leads the series ahead of Koneru with both having completed their three tournaments. 22 year old Jiner Zhu only needs a decent result in the final tournament to overtake Koneru. The final Grand Prix takes place in Grosslobming, Austria 5th to 16th of May.

6. Pune FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2025 - Games and Results

   The Pune FIDE Women's Grand Prix took place April 13-24. Players: Humpy Koneru, Divya Deshmukh, Vaishali Rameshbabu, Harika Dronavalli, Nurgyul Salimova, Batkhuyag Munguntuul, Zhu Jiner, Alina Kashlinskaya, Melia Salome and Polina Shuvalova. Humpy Koneru just edged out Zhu Jiner to take first place on tie-break, both scored 7/9.

7. grenke Open and Freestyle Open 2025 - Games and Results

   The grenke Open and Freestyle Open took place 17th to 21st April 2025. The open had top seeds Awonder Liang, Nikita Vitiugov and Ivan Saric but the Freestyle Chess960 open had the stronger field with Magnus Carlsen, Arjun Erigaisi, Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi etc. I can't display Freestyle games. Carlsen impressively clonked his way through the field in the Freestyle and scored 9/9. Parham Maghsoodloo finished in second place on tie-break after claims a place in Las Vegas, it's my understanding that the remaining 6 players will play off for another place in that Freestyle-Chess Grand Slam event sometime soon.

   S Aswath and Brandon Jacobson finished on 8/9 in the regular chess open, finishing in that tie-break order. Finally I was interested to see that grenke had a rebrand about 10 months ago and went from the all caps GRENKE to all small letters grenke (with a modern font). No doubt someone was paid big bucks for this genius move.

8. FIDE Women's World Chess Championship 2025 - Games and Results

   The FIDE Women's World Chess Championship took place in Shanghai and finished in Chongqing, China. The event was supposed to take place 3rd to 20th April 2025 but finished early on 16th April with the closing ceremony two days later. Defending champion Ju Wenjun won comfortably 6.5-2.5 against her challenger and predecessor Tan Zhongyi.