3/18/2024 – Three players remain in contention in each section of the 2024 American Cup. In the open, Levon Aronian won the Champions Bracket and is set to face the winner of the match between Ray Robson and Wesley So. In the women’s, Irina Krush secured victory in the Champions Bracket and will face either Alice Lee or Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova in the Grand Final. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

3/13/2024 – The third edition of the American Cup kicked off at the World Chess Hall of Fame in Saint Louis. Each match saw the contenders playing a classical game and a rapid game on opening day. In the open, only Fabiano Caruana scored back-to-back wins (over Grigoriy Oparin), which means he only needs a draw on Wednesday to advance to the next stage in the Champions Bracket. Meanwhile, three out of four matches finished with 2–0 scores in the women’s section, with Nazi Paikidze, Alice Lee and Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova obtaining consecutive wins on the first day of action. | Photo: Austin Fuller

10/16/2023 – Fabiano Caruana continues to have a full-point lead over his closest chasers with two rounds to go at the U.S. Championship. Caruana beat Hans Niemann, one of the players sharing second place before round 9, but the remaining three chasers all won to remain one point behind the leader. Meanwhile, in the women’s event, Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova grabbed her fifth consecutive win to become the sole leader — now only she and Carissa Yip, who stands a half point behind, are in the race for first place. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

10/14/2023 – Fabiano Caruana has now a full-point lead at the U.S. Championship, as his closest chaser before round 8, Hans Niemann, was defeated by Ray Robson on Friday. Niemann is now sharing second place with Leinier Dominguez, Wesley So and Abhimanyu Mishra — the latter beat Sam Sevian in round 8. Meanwhile, in the U.S. Women’s Championship, Carissa Yip and Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova cannot stop winning, as each obtained a fourth consecutive win on Friday and now have a 2-point lead over their closest chasers. | Photo: Austin Fuller

10/13/2023 – While two consecutive rounds ended with draws on all six boards in the U.S. Championship, three players got win after win in the U.S. Women’s Championship. Co-leaders Carissa Yip and Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova have each grabbed three full points in a row to remain tied for first, while Alice Lee has in fact collected four back-to-back victories to climb to shared second place. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

10/11/2023 – An exciting round both at the U.S. Championship and the U.S. Women’s Championship finished with 10 (out of 12) decisive results. In the open, Fabiano Caruana grabbed his third consecutive win to remain as the sole leader, while Carissa Yip and Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova also kept their spots at the top of the standings by collecting full points on Tuesday. The highlight of the day, though, was Ray Robson’s 29-move victory over Jeffery Xiong. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

3/22/2023 – In the most thrilling match of the tournament so far, Levon Aronian knocked out Fabiano Caruana to remain alive in the elimination bracket, where he is set to face Leinier Dominguez next. In the women’s elimination bracket, Nazi Paikidze and Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova were the winners of the day and will face off on Wednesday. Meanwhile, in the champions brackets, draws were seen in both sections. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

3/18/2023 – The 2023 American Cup kicked off with several decisive games on the first day of action, with Nakamura, Krush, Lee, & Tokhirjonova all taking a one-point lead in their initial matches. Their opponents (Sevian, Abrahamyan, Pourkashiyan, and Nemcova) will now have to win tomorrow’s game in order to force their match into a playoff. | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Lennart Ootes

10/16/2022 – The one decisive result in round 10 of the U.S. Championship saw Hans Niemann beating Elshan Moradiabadi with the black pieces. Fabiano Caruana continues to be the sole leader going into the second rest day of the 13-round tournament. In the women’s section, Thalia Cervantes and Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova both scored with the black pieces. Jennifer Yu is still topping the standings. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

10/6/2022 – Hans Niemann and Sam Sevian kicked off the U.S. Championship with wins, as they defeated Christopher Yoo and Elshan Moradiabadi in the first round of the 14-player event. True to his style, Niemann was laconic in the post-game interview, noting that “chess spoke for itself” and that the game was so beautiful he did not even need to describe it. In the women’s event, four players scored full points, including Alice Lee, who is playing her first national championship. | Photo: Crystal Fuller

11/12/2018 – Seven out of eight rating favourites won their round-of-16 matches at the 2018 Women's World Championship, as 40th seed Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova took over Valentina Gunina to become the surprising quarter-finalist. So far, Ju Wenjun is the only player that has not played a single tiebreak game, while Kateryna Lagno had to go all the way to Armageddon to eliminate her compatriot Natalija Pogonina. | Photos: Official site

11/8/2018 – Round two of the 2018 knockout Women's World Championship culminated with a handful of upsets, a few fighting matches and a couple of favourites dominating their rivals. Mobina Alinasab, Jolanta Zawadzka, Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova, Alisa Galliamova and Zhai Mo were the surprising winners in this stage of the event. The tension will continue to rise in round three, as the players know that getting through two more rounds will secure them a place in the Candidates. | Photos: Official site

9/16/2018 – Although the gold medal in the open section had already been confirmed by Parham Maghsoodloo, the fight for other medals was exciting on the last day of the World Juniors 2018. Esipenko managed to beat Maghsoodloo, but it wasn't good enough for a medal for the Russian. Silver went to Abhimanyu Puranik who beat Aram Hakobyan and bronze to Sergei Lobanov who got the better of Johan-Sebastien Christiansen. In the Girls section, Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova drew her last round game which allowed Aleksandra Maltsevskaya to overtake her and win the gold. Tokhirjonova had to be content with silver and bronze to Nino Khomeriki.

9/15/2018 – (Current standings, games and results!) It has been one of the most dominating performances that you would ever see at any strong chess tournament, leave alone World Junior Championships. GM Parham Maghsoodloo from Iran started the tournament as the top seed. He conceded half a point in the sixth round by drawing his game against Alireza Firouzja. But rest of the games he managed to win thereby scoring 9½/10 and winning the tournament with one round to spare. In the Girls section as well, we have the sole leader after ten rounds and she is Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova. | Photo: Shohreh Bayat

9/14/2018 – The Open section has ceased to be interesting from the gold medal point of view as GM Parham Maghsoodloo from Iran notched up another win, this time against Awonder Liang from America. Maghsoodloo is on 8½/9 and has a 1½ point lead over the field with a rating performance of 2944! In the Girls section, there is everything to play for as five girls are tied for the top spot with 7.0/9. Among the five, four are Russian and one is from Uzbekistan. It will be exciting to see who comes out on top — Maltsevskaya, Dordzhieva, Tokhirjonova, Assaubayeva or Potapova?

9/13/2018 – Parham Maghsoodloo has shown some tremendous chess at the World Juniors 2018. He is currently the sole leader with a score of 7½/8. He has a lead of one full point over his rivals. On 6½/8 we have Awonder Liang followed by ten players on 6.0/8. In the Girls section Maltsevskaya, Khomeriki and Dordzhieva are leading with 6½/8. They are being followed by five more players on 6.0/8. While Maghsoodloo is a clear favourite for gold in the Open section, nothing is clear in the Girls. Round eight report from Gebze, Turkey. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

6/1/2018 – Ding Liren is at a career best 2798 on the Elo ratings and number four in the world. But Thursday night it emerged that he's suffered a hip fracture while bicycling in Norway and will miss today's fourth round. The scheduled game with Caruana has been postponed (for now) until the next rest day, June 4th. Before the incident, the players took part in a "cook-off" where they were paired up and got to play the roll of professional chefs for a while. Here Ding enjoys the fruits (or rather veggies) of his labour. Behind him (L-to-R): Vachier-Lagrave, Aronian, Caruana and Karjakin | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Altibox Norway Chess