4.11.26

Chess digest, Oct. 31–Nov. 4: Lazavik takes Almaty, Firouzja ends Nakamura's streak, Sindarov enters the title match 72 points clear | Chess World Digest

Denis Lazavik wins Almaty unbeaten while 14-year-old Mark Smirnov earns a first GM norm, Alireza Firouzja ends Hikaru Nakamura's Bullet Brawl run, and Javokhir Sindarov goes into the world title match 72 rating points and 22 places clear of Gukesh Dommaraju.

View the full story on Neodrop →

Coverage window: after 10:45 Sofia time on October 31 through 10:45 on November 4, 2026.

Denis Lazavik won the KazChess Masters in Almaty without losing a game, and a 14-year-old left the same tournament with his first GM norm. Alireza Firouzja ended Hikaru Nakamura's Bullet Brawl run. The November rating list put Javokhir Sindarov 72 points and 22 places above the man he plays for the world title in three weeks. Chess.com also named the field for the Speed Chess Championship.

Lazavik wins Almaty, Smirnov earns his first GM norm

The KazChess Masters ran October 26 to November 3 in Almaty: ten players, nine rounds, 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30, a 30-second increment from move one and no draw offers before move 30. 1

Five Kazakhs faced five grandmasters from abroad. The field averaged 2573 and an age of 21. 2

Daniil Dubov led with three rounds to play, on 4½/6, half a point clear of Denis Lazavik and Shamsiddin Vokhidov. 1

Round seven was where the lead first wobbled. Dubov reached a clearly better endgame against Sauat Nurgaliyev and could not convert it; Lazavik beat Alua Nurman with black to draw level on 5/7. 3

A day later Lazavik took the lead outright, beating Nurgaliyev with white while Dubov drew with Aram Hakobyan. Vokhidov stayed in the race by beating Nurman. 3

All three frontrunners had black in Tuesday's last round. Dubov drew Mahammad Muradli in 31 moves. Vokhidov lost to Nurgaliyev, the 16-year-old Kazakh IM who had come into the round without a win. 3

Lazavik needed only a draw. He held Hakobyan's pressure in a minor-piece endgame, and the two agreed a draw after 58 moves. 3

Lazavik is 19 and Belarusian, and he finished on 6½/9 with four wins and five draws. His previous classical title was the 2025 Abu Dhabi Masters; this year he reached the final of the Esports World Cup, where he lost to Magnus Carlsen. 3

A young man in a dark sweater holding a framed trophy with a gold medal and a city skyline model inside

Denis Lazavik with the trophy from the 2025 Abu Dhabi Masters, the classical tournament he won before Almaty. Photo: Aditya Sur Roy / ChessBase India, via ChessBase.

Mark Smirnov was the youngest and lowest-rated player in the field, at 14 and 2451. He lost his first-round game to Dubov, then scored four wins and three draws in his remaining eight games, losing only once more, to Vokhidov. 3

His wins over Edgar Mamedov in round seven and Denis Makhnev in round nine both came with black. The 5½/9 finish and a 2666 performance rating gave him his first GM norm, the first of the three the grandmaster title requires. 3

Smirnov won the world under-12 title in 2024. 3

Final standings after nine rounds. Players level on score are grouped, and ordered within a group by rating. 2

Player Fed Rating Score
Denis Lazavik BLR 2636 6½
Daniil Dubov FID 2654 6
Shamsiddin Vokhidov UZB 2649 5½
Mark Smirnov KAZ 2451 5½
Aram Hakobyan ARM 2638 4½
Denis Makhnev KAZ 2581 4½
Edgar Mamedov KAZ 2474 4½
Mahammad Muradli AZE 2662 4
Sauat Nurgaliyev KAZ 2526 3
Alua Nurman KAZ 2460 1

Firouzja ends Nakamura's Bullet Brawl run

Bullet Brawl on October 31 drew 232 players, seven of them super-grandmasters. Carlsen was among them, logging in from Spain. 4

Nakamura won 14 of his first 15 games, beating Firouzja twice in that stretch, and led by 16 points with a quarter of the arena left. 4

Then he queued for a bullet game outside the arena by mistake and did not notice until the game was over. His lead was down to 13 points. 4

Firouzja scored 13.5/15 over that last quarter. He beat Nakamura in their final meeting, declining the usual 2...d5 in the Caro-Kann for 2...d6!? and an Old Indian set-up. 4

Firouzja finished on 170 points, four clear of Nakamura's 166. Ediz Gurel took third on 159 and Matthias Bluebaum fourth on 136; Melika Mohammadi won the best women's prize. 4

The prize money went $400 to Firouzja, $250 to Nakamura, $150 to Gurel and $100 each to Bluebaum and Mohammadi. 4

Nakamura had won the seven previous editions and 72 Bullet Brawls in all, 23 of them this year. He was chasing a 73rd here. 4

The win is Firouzja's third, which puts him level ninth on the event's all-time list. The next edition is Saturday, November 7. 4

Sindarov goes into the title match 72 points and 22 places clear

The November rating list is the last official measurement before the world title match in Cologny, outside Geneva, which begins on November 22 with the first classical game two days later. 5

Javokhir Sindarov is fourth in the world at 2782. Gukesh Dommaraju, the defending champion, is 26th at 2710. 5

Title matches have carried a 72-point gap before. Carlsen went into his matches against Nepomniachtchi, Karjakin and Anand with leads of 74, 81 and 95 points. 5

The ranking gap is new. No title match since the championship was unified in 2006 has been played across 22 places; the previous widest were 18 places in 2024, when Gukesh played Ding Liren, and 16 in 2012. 5

Gukesh is the lowest-ranked player to reach one of these matches in that period. The lower-rated player has won only twice: Anand against Veselin Topalov in 2010 and Ding against Nepomniachtchi in 2023. 5

Big leads have still left matches open. Carlsen's 81 points on Karjakin in 2016 ended in a playoff, and Gukesh needed the last classical game to beat Ding two years ago. 5

Behind them, Nihal Sarin climbed 11 points to 2720 and from 30th to 19th, a career best. His 5/6 and board-two gold at the European Club Cup in Budva came with a 2859 performance. 5

Hans Niemann dropped 20 points to 2697 and from 22nd to 32nd, out of the 2700s, after losing four games and winning one at the U.S. Championship. 5

Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus lost 12 points to 2719 and sits 21st, having been 15th live during the Club Cup. 5

The women's top ten stood unchanged. Alice Lee rose to 14th on 2474 and took over as the American number one; Carissa Yip fell 31 points to 2453 and 22nd. Rachael Li, the new U.S. champion, gained 50 points to 2430 and 31st, and Bodhana Sivanandan climbed to 39th on 2414. 5

In the FIDE Circuit, which decides two places in the next Candidates, Wesley So's U.S. title earned 17.76 points and left him within a couple of points of Sindarov's lead. Caruana moved up to third. 5

Speed Chess Championship XI names its field

Chess.com announced the eleventh Speed Chess Championship on November 3: 16 players, a $250,000 prize fund, and up to 150 Champions Chess Tour leaderboard points. 6

The season starts this month and ends with a live final at 180 Studios in London on February 5 to 7, 2027. 6

Carlsen and Nakamura have won five titles each and both return. The only players besides Carlsen to have beaten Nakamura in a Speed Chess match, Firouzja and Denis Lazavik, are in the field too. 6

Sindarov makes his debut. Praggnanandhaa, Nihal Sarin, Yagiz Erdogmus, Caruana, So, Abdusattorov, Niemann, Dmitry Andreikin, Sina Movahed and Vladislav Artemiev fill out the line-up. 6

Each match is a knockout tie split into two blitz sections and one bullet section. The winner takes 150 Champions Chess Tour points toward one of the 12 Esports World Cup places that come through the tour. 6

Promotional artwork with three players in front of a teal background and the words Speed Chess Championship XI, November 16 2026 to February 7 2027

Chess.com's key art for Speed Chess Championship XI, which runs to the live finals in London on February 5-7, 2027. Image: Chess.com.

Budapest names its broadcast team, and Carlsen prepares with Abdusattorov

The Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot runs November 10 to 20 at the Anantara New York Palace Budapest Hotel, with 24 players and Carlsen among them. 7

A blitz Swiss sets the tiebreak rankings, a fast classical group stage follows at 45 minutes plus a 30-second increment, and knockout matches then combine all three formats, with wins in the longer games weighing more. 8

FIDE named the broadcast team on November 3. Anna Rudolf, Fiona Steil-Antoni, David Howell and Jovanka Houska will present and commentate, with Rudolf also reporting from the venue. 7

Levy Rozman, better known as GothamChess, will front a daily highlights show with player interviews, analysis and guests. 7

Carlsen spent the days before Budapest at his holiday home in Spain with Nodirbek Abdusattorov, David Howell and his longtime coach Peter Heine Nielsen. A post on his social accounts on October 31 showed the four of them and a video of the two top-ten players at blitz. 8

"Someone brought a chess board into this house," the caption read. 8

Rivals inside the top five rarely prepare together, and the two could meet in Budapest. Abdusattorov won the London Chess Classic in December, then Tata Steel and the Prague Masters this year. 8

Also this window

  • English Championship, Peterborough, October 24 to November 1. Gawain Maroroa Jones won the open unbeaten, with six wins and three draws for 7½/9, a point clear of Michael Adams, who was also unbeaten. It was his fourth English title, after first winning it jointly with Stephen Gordon in 2012; Adams has seven since 2007. Elmira Mirzoeva took the women's event on 7½/9, her second title after 2024, with Anusha Subramanian second on 6½. Both open and women's winners also won the blitz championship on the final day. 9
  • World Senior Championship, Vrnjačka Banja, from November 3. The championship has 385 players from 65 federations, among them 44 grandmasters and 8 women grandmasters. Four nine-round classical Swiss events run in the 50+ and 65+ age groups, open and women's, for a €50,000 prize fund and four titles in 11 days. 10
  • Bavarian Championship, Gmund am Tegernsee. The 548-player field has 50 players on 2/2 after two rounds, with top seed Frederik Svane and third seed Alexander Donchenko among them. Three top-ten seeds were held to draws by lower-rated opponents: Jaime Santos, Leonardo Costa and Peter Acs. 11

What to watch next

Date (Europe/Sofia) Event and location Checkpoint
November 7 Bullet Brawl, online The first edition since Firouzja ended Nakamura's run of seven straight wins.
November 10–20 Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot, Budapest 24 players; the blitz Swiss opens the event and sets the tiebreaks. 7
November 16 – February 7 Speed Chess Championship XI The season opens; the live finals are in London, February 5-7. 6
November 22 – December 13 World Championship match, Cologny, Geneva Gukesh Dommaraju defends against Sindarov; the first classical game is November 24. 12
November 24 – December 7 XTX Markets London Chess Classic, London Nodirbek Abdusattorov defends the Masters title he won in 2025. 13
December 26–30 World Rapid and Blitz Championships, Istanbul Four titles; Carlsen defends both open championships. 14
December 27 FIDE Extraordinary General Assembly, online Delegates meet at 14:30 CET; the agenda is due by November 27. 15

References

1ChessBase: KazChess Masters — Dubov moves ahead with consecutive wins

2Chess-Results: KazChess Masters Almaty 2026, pairings and results

3ChessBase: KazChess Masters — Lazavik takes title, Smirnov earns GM norm

4Chess.com: Firouzja Snaps Nakamura's Streak, Outscores Six Super-GMs

5Chess.com: November FIDE Rating List — Nihal Enters Top 20, Sindarov Leads Gukesh By 72 Points

6Chess.com: Speed Chess Championship XI Announced — Prize Fund, Dates

7FIDE: Total Chess unveils star-studded broadcast team and new highlight show for Budapest Pilot

8Chess.com: Carlsen Trains With Abdusattorov In Spain Ahead Of Total Chess Debut

9ChessBase: Gawain Maroroa Jones wins English Championship 2026

10FIDE: FIDE World Senior Chess Championship 2026 begins in Vrnjačka Banja, Serbia

11ChessBase: Bavarian Championship — Few surprises in the opening rounds at Tegernsee

12ChessBase: Salesforce FIDE World Championship Match 2026\

13ChessBase: Stellar line-up for 2026 XTX London Chess Classic\

14Chess.com: Istanbul To Host 2026 World Rapid & Blitz Championships\

15FIDE: Invitation — FIDE Extraordinary General Assembly 2026\

31.10.26

Chess digest, Oct. 28–31: Sindarov overturns Clutch Chess, three share the lead in Almaty, Istanbul gets the World Rapid and Blitz | Chess World Digest

Javokhir Sindarov overturns a 2½-point deficit to win Clutch Chess a month before his world title match, three players share the lead at halfway in Almaty, and Istanbul picks up December's World Rapid and Blitz.

View the full story on Neodrop →

Coverage window: after 10:45 Sofia time on October 28 through 10:45 on October 31, 2026.

Javokhir Sindarov won Clutch Chess in Saint Louis, overturning a 2½-point deficit on the last day. Three players share the lead at the halfway point in Almaty, one of them a 16-year-old rated 2474. FIDE also gave December's World Rapid and Blitz Championships a host, and London named its Masters field.

Sindarov wins Clutch Chess from 2½ points back

Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown ran October 27 to 29 at the Saint Louis Chess Club. Caruana, Nakamura, Praggnanandhaa and Sindarov played three double round-robins at 10 minutes plus five seconds, 18 games each. 1

A win was worth one point and $1,000 on day one, two points and $2,000 on day two, three points and $3,000 on day three. A draw was worth half a point on day one, a full point after that, and the money set aside for drawn games went into a jackpot for the winner. 2

Praggnanandhaa began the last day 2½ points clear. He had gone from last to first on day two with four wins in six games, two of them against Nakamura and one against Caruana. 3

"I was just lucky," Praggnanandhaa said of the first of those wins over Nakamura, "and obviously that kind of carried through the day." 3

Nakamura put his own day two down to one game. "I was completely winning and lost my mind," he said. 3

Sindarov opened day three by drawing and then beating Praggnanandhaa in their mini-match, four points against one. That moved him half a point ahead. 2

Praggnanandhaa answered with two wins over Nakamura, six points from the two games, while Sindarov took four from Caruana. With two games left, Praggnanandhaa led by 1½. 2

Then came the game. Sindarov, with black against Nakamura, sacrificed a bishop out of a King's Indian Defence and later gave up two exchanges. He won. 2

Two players at a chessboard in a bright room, the nearer player leaning forward with his head in his hands

Javokhir Sindarov, facing the camera, during the King's Indian win over Hikaru Nakamura that he called one of the best games of his life. Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club, via ChessBase.

"One of the best King's Indian games I've ever played in my life," Sindarov said afterwards. "Any move was winning, but I was thinking, if I started playing beautifully, let's finish playing beautifully." 1

In the parallel game, Praggnanandhaa nursed an extra pawn against Caruana for much of 100 moves and had to settle for a draw. Sindarov led by half a point. 2

Praggnanandhaa then needed to beat Caruana with black to take the title. He built a Stonewall, found chances, and played 33...Rg7??, which ran into 34.Ng4! and cost him his queen. 1

Sindarov drew the last game against Nakamura from a Berlin Defence and finished on 20½ points, 1½ clear. 1

Standings after the three days, with each day's column scored under that day's rules. 2

Player Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Total
Javokhir Sindarov 3½ 5 12 20½
Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu 2 9 8 19
Fabiano Caruana 2½ 6 8 16½
Hikaru Nakamura 4 4 4 12

Sindarov earned $168,000 including bonuses from a $425,000 prize fund. 1

Nakamura blamed the five-second increment. "95 percent of every game, for most games, I played fabulous chess, but then I could not keep it together in the time scrambles," he said. 1

"Knowing how close I was to winning it, it's a little disappointing," Praggnanandhaa said of second place. 1

Caruana and Praggnanandhaa fly from Saint Louis to Budapest for the Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot. Sindarov goes to Geneva, where the first game of his world title match against Gukesh Dommaraju is on November 24. 1

In Almaty, three share the lead at halfway

The KazChess Masters runs October 26 to November 3 in Almaty: ten players, nine rounds, 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30, with a 30-second increment from move one and no draw offers before move 30. 4

Five Kazakhs face five grandmasters from abroad, all of them rated above 2600. Mahammad Muradli of Azerbaijan is the top seed at 2662. 5

Edgar Mamedov, 16, is level with Daniil Dubov and Denis Lazavik on 3½ after five rounds. Mamedov won his first two games and has drawn the last three, against Muradli, Dubov and Lazavik. 6

Mamedov is the lowest-rated grandmaster in the field, at 2474. 5

Dubov took his third win in round five, beating Denis Makhnev with black. Lazavik beat Shamsiddin Vokhidov in round four and drew Mamedov a day later. 6

Vokhidov and Makhnev sit half a point back on 3. Vokhidov beat Mark Smirnov with white on Friday. 6

Muradli lost his first two games, then took two points from three, beating Alua Nurman in round five. 6

Smirnov, 14, is on 2½. He beat Sauat Nurgaliyev in round four and lost to Vokhidov in round five. 6

Standings after round five. Players level on score are ordered by rating. 6

Player Fed Rating Score
Daniil Dubov FID 2654 3½
Denis Lazavik BLR 2636 3½
Edgar Mamedov KAZ 2474 3½
Shamsiddin Vokhidov UZB 2649 3
Denis Makhnev KAZ 2581 3
Mark Smirnov KAZ 2451 2½
Mahammad Muradli AZE 2662 2
Aram Hakobyan ARM 2638 2
Sauat Nurgaliyev KAZ 2526 1½
Alua Nurman KAZ 2460 ½

A young player in glasses and a white shirt at a chessboard, flags behind him

Edgar Mamedov, 16 and the lowest-rated grandmaster in the field, has drawn his last three games and leads the KazChess Masters on 3½. Photo via ChessBase.

Round six is today at 12:00 Sofia time. Mamedov plays Vokhidov, Dubov plays Nurman, and Lazavik meets Makhnev. 6

Istanbul takes the World Rapid and Blitz

FIDE announced on October 29 that Istanbul will host the 2026 World Rapid and Blitz Championships, from December 25, when players arrive, to December 30. 7

Four titles are at stake: open and women's rapid, open and women's blitz. Freedom Holding Corp., a FIDE partner since 2023, is the title sponsor. 7

Magnus Carlsen won both open titles in 2025. Aleksandra Goryachkina defends the women's rapid title and Bibisara Assaubayeva the women's blitz. 7

The venue, the regulations and registration details are still to come. 7

Istanbul hosted the 40th Chess Olympiad in 2012, and Türkiye staged the World Youth Rapid and Blitz championships at the end of 2025. 7

"We are delighted to bring the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships to Istanbul," FIDE president Timur Turlov said. 7

London's Masters field arrives, with Abdusattorov defending

The 16th XTX Markets London Chess Classic announced its ten-player Masters field on October 29. The tournament runs November 24 to December 7, with a £100,000 prize fund and £50,000 for first. 8

Nodirbek Abdusattorov, 22, returns as defending champion. He won the 2025 Classic with a round to spare, on 7½/9. A second straight title would be the first since Magnus Carlsen in 2010. 8

Player Country Rating
Nodirbek Abdusattorov UZB 2780
Levon Aronian USA 2725
Nihal Sarin IND 2709
Gawain Maroroa Jones ENG 2630
Vasyl Ivanchuk UKR 2628
Andy Woodward USA 2619
Luke McShane ENG 2607
Ihor Samunenkov UKR 2607
Michael Adams ENG 2597
Shreyas Royal ENG 2533

Ratings as published in the tournament's own player announcement. 8

Vasyl Ivanchuk, 57, plays the Classic for the first time. Michael Adams has appeared at every edition since 2009 and won in 2023. 8

Four Englishmen are in the field, among them Shreyas Royal, 17, the newly crowned British champion. 8

Ihor Samunenkov, also 17, arrives from the Olympiad in Samarkand with an individual gold for Ukraine. 8

Bodhana Sivanandan, 11, plays the nine-round FIDE-rated Swiss. The festival opens with a blindfold tournament at the Tower of London and runs at the Novotel London West in Hammersmith. 8

The Masters begins on November 24, the day of the first classical game in Geneva. 2

FIDE fills the posts under its new structure

FIDE published a new organisational structure on October 26. On October 29 it named the advisers and representatives who will staff the President's Office under Adil Kozhikhov. 9

Emil Sutovsky becomes chief executive adviser, handling strategic partners and special assignments. Victor Bologan takes global development and Dana Reizniece social development. 9

Mohamed Al-Mudahka covers international relations, Akaki Iashvili special projects, Willy Iclicki chess participation. Zhu Chen will head a FIDE office in Shenzhen. 9

The administration followed on October 30 under Secretary General Alina Dvoretskaya. Marat Umutpayev takes legal, Nadezhda Kravchuk external relations and communications, Anton Zhuravlev events. 10

Grandmaster Pavel Tregubov, a former European champion, takes sport: competition regulations and work with FIDE's sporting bodies. 10

FIDE said further appointments would follow. Delegates meet at the online Extraordinary General Assembly on December 27, with the agenda due by November 27. 11

Also this window

  • Lhamsuren Myagmarsuren, 1938–2026. The four-time Mongolian champion died on October 26 at 88. He won board-four gold at the 1960 Olympiad in Leipzig, played ten Olympiads, and reached the 1967 Interzonal in Sousse, where he lost the game against Bobby Fischer that is still reprinted. 12
  • Sarana wins 10/11, then Arjun twice. Alexey Sarana took the first of October 29's three 3 0 Thursday tournaments with 10/11. Arjun Erigaisi won the second on tiebreak over Jan-Krzysztof Duda, both on 9, and the third by 1½ from Parham Maghsoodloo. It was the second time this year Arjun has won two of the three in one day. 13
  • Movahed's second in three weeks. Sina Movahed won Freestyle Friday on October 30 with 9½, from 1.5/3, on an eight-game run that included Nodirbek Yakubboev in round 10. Yakubboev finished second on 9, Faustino Oro third on 8½. 14
  • Rozman in Munich. Levy Rozman played chess with Harry Kane and Michael Olise at Bayern Munich, two days after Kane won the Ballon d'Or. 15

What to watch next

Date (Europe/Sofia) Event and location Checkpoint
October 31 – November 3 KazChess Masters, Almaty Rounds six to nine, with Mamedov against Vokhidov today at 12:00. 6
October 31 Bullet Brawl, online 18:00 Sofia; Nakamura goes for an eighth straight week after a 23-game streak. 16
November 7 The 100-0 Project, online Daniil Dubov plays 100 games of 1+0 against Josh Smith, an amateur rated in the 1800s; Dubov is guaranteed $10,000 and doubles it only with a 100-0 sweep. 17
November 10–20 Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot, Budapest Twenty-four players, Carlsen among them; Caruana and Praggnanandhaa arrive from Saint Louis. 1
November 22 – December 13 Salesforce FIDE World Championship match, Cologny, Geneva Gukesh Dommaraju defends against Sindarov; the first classical game is November 24. 18
November 24 – December 7 XTX Markets London Chess Classic, London The Masters with Abdusattorov, Aronian and Ivanchuk; £100,000, £50,000 to the winner. 8
December 25–30 World Rapid and Blitz Championships, Istanbul Four titles; venue and regulations still to be published. 7
December 27 FIDE Extraordinary General Assembly, online 15:30 Sofia time; the agenda and papers are due by November 27. 11

References

1Chess.com: Sindarov Plays Game Of Tournament, Wins Final Event Before World Championship

2ChessBase: Sindarov takes Clutch Chess title ahead of World Championship match

3Chess.com: Praggnanandhaa Jumps From Last To 1st With Hat Trick

4ChessBase: KazChess Masters Almaty 2026 — Live!

5ChessBase: KazChess Masters — Mamedov and Makhnev set the pace

6Chess-Results: KazChess Masters Almaty 2026, pairings and results

7FIDE: Istanbul to host FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2026

8ChessBase: Stellar line-up for 2026 XTX London Chess Classic

9FIDE: FIDE announces new appointments to the President's Office

10FIDE: FIDE introduces the first members of its administrative team

11FIDE: Invitation — FIDE Extraordinary General Assembly 2026

12ChessBase: Lhamsuren Myagmarsuren (1938-2026)

13Chess.com: Sarana Wins Early, Arjun Wins Twice In 3 0 Thursday

14Chess.com: 'Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad' In Movahed's Freestyle Friday Victory

15Chess.com: GothamChess Plays Chess With Ballon d'Or Winner Harry Kane, Michael Olise

16Chess.com: Bullet Brawl, October 24\

17Chess.com: Dubov Accepts $20,000 100-Game Challenge\

18ChessBase: Salesforce FIDE World Championship Match 2026\

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