Chess · Worth knowing

The 112th British Chess Championship is underway from August 1-9 at the University of Warwick in Coventry, featuring a 9-round Swiss tournament with classical time controls. The 2026 edition has set records with over 1,750 entries, making it the largest in the event's history, and offers the biggest prize fund ever. Top seeds include Luke McShane (2597), Michael Adams (2622), and Shreyas Royal (2502), with notable participation from 11-year-old prodigy Bodhana Sivanandan, the highest-rated woman player in this year's championship.

The FIDE World Senior Chess Championships 2026 Open 65+ will take place from November 3-14, 2026 in Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia, using an 11-round Swiss system with a time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes with 30-second increment. The tournament features top-seeded players including GM Zurab Sturua (Georgia, 2488), GM Klaus Bischoff (Germany, 2419), and IM Alexander Mikhalevski (Israel, 2411), with participants from over 40 countries spanning from the United States to Singapore.

On Day Two of the FIDE World University Team Chess Championship in Almaty, five teams secured their quarterfinal places: Ural State Mining University defeated Unimelb 4-0 in consecutive rounds to clinch Pool A; Saint Louis University swept the competition in Pool B with a 4-0 victory over University of Pretoria; Harvard University strengthened its position with back-to-back 3-1 wins over Peking University; The University of Texas at Dallas leads Pool C with victories over National Technical University of Athens; and KNUS dominated Pool D with a 3½-½ victory followed by a 4-0 sweep over Oxford University. Three remaining quarterfinal spots remain contested heading into the final group stage day, with Universidad de Chile, National Technical University of Athens, Almaty Management University, Cambridge, and host team KazNU Al-Farabi still in contention. Separately, the Kazakhstan vs. the World Youth Chess Match concluded with Team Kazakhstan claiming victory in the boys' competition while Team World won the girls' match.