Chess on Monday 26th May 2025 -

Magnus Carlsen beat World Champion D Gukesh in the first round of the 13th Norway Chess tournament. Carlsen tried to surprise Gukesh in the opening with the London but ended up being surprised himself with 4....Bg4. There was a long struggle that led to a sharp endgame and down to less than 10 seconds on the clock Gukesh blundered away a draw with 46.Qh6? instead of 46.Rg2+ which was his only move. Hikaru Nakamura won in the endgame too, against Fabiano Caruana. Arjun Erigaisi drew against Wei Yi with the black pieces but beat him in the Armageddon. This extra game divides the points between the players in case of a draw. In the women's event Humpy Koneru was the only winner in the classical game, against Rameshbabu Vaishali, Anna Muzychuk and Lei Tingjie won Armageddon games against Khademalsharieh and Ju Wenjun.

Tomorrow's Round 2 pairings: Erigaisi-Gukesh, Nakamura-Carlsen, Wei Yi-Caruana. Women: Khadem-Ju Wenjun, Vaishali Lei Tingjie, Muzychuk-Koneru.

I have some annotated games below but they're almost entirely computer generated, I just didn't have time tonight with TWIC magazine due out.

The 30th Sigeman & Co tournament was won by Javokhir Sindarov with 4.5/7, the 19-year old drew with Vasyl Ivanchuk in the final round, when the draw was agreed on move 41 he was quite a bit better, but only needed the draw for clear first. 13 year old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus drew with Erwin L'Ami to take a share of second place, Nils Grandelius beat Tan Zhongyi to join him on 4 points.

The Match of two capitals took place in Moscow Sat 24th to Mon 26th May 2025. Daniil Dubov representing Moscow and Maxim Matlakov representing St Petersburg played a six game classical (90m + 30spm) match two games per day. Daniil Dubov won game three yesterday, and the rest of the games were drawn, final score 3.5-2.5. I believe Dubov now plays Hans Moke Niemann in a two day exhibition starting tomorrow.

The 3rd Cambridge International Open 2025 started today. Top seeds Michael Adams and Sergei Tiviakov were both held to draws in the first round, both then won in round 2. Already only six players have 2/2 and none of them are highly seeded. Looks like this might be very a very unpredictable tournament.