3/9/25 Update

 Below are some recent happenings from the chess world as of 3/8/25:

• The Women’s World Chess Championship is from 4/1/25 through 4/23/25. Appropriately is being held in Shanghai, China since the two players are the current WCC Ju Wenjun and the challenger is former WCC Tan Zhongyi. Back in 2018 Ju defeated Tan in a close World Championship Match.

• The World Junior Championships concluded. GM Pranav Venkatesh scored 9/11 to take the title in the Open Section while WIM Anna Shukhman also scored 9/11 to outpace the field by a full point to capture the Girls title. The US representative GM Nico Chasin picked up speed near the end to finish in 20th place – not bad given he started out ranked 40th.

• The updated FIDE ratings list came out 3/1/25. For Men it’s Carlsen, Nakamura, Gukesh, Caruana, and Erigaisi all above 2775. For Women it’s Hou, Ju, Tan, Lei, and Goryachkina.

• If you want to view the current live ratings check Live Chess Ratings - 2700chess.com where you can see ratings, live games, a database, etc… Lots of interesting free information.

• If you are a fan of Freestyle Chess (Chess 960, Fischer Random Chess) it looks like Chess.com has started (a couple months ago) a weekly $1,000 prize tournament for titled players – seems like the Titled Tuesday for Chess960. Freestyle Friday: Live Coverage - Chess.com

• Hans Niemann played an 18 game blitz (G/3 + 2) match against Daniil Dubov in Moscow on 3/7 and 3/8. Result was Dubov 9.5 points to Niemann’s 8.5 points. Games can be seen at Hans Niemann vs Daniil Dubov | Levitov Chess • Game 1 • lichess.org