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British chess sensation WFM Bodhana Sivanandan continues to make chess history. Now the nine-year-old prodigy is set to become the youngest player ever to represent England in an international sporting competition.

Sivanandan is one of five players selected for England's women's team in the 2024 Chess Olympiad, that takes place in Budapest, Hungary from September 11-22. She will play alongside veterans IM Jovanka Houska, IM Harriet Hunt, and WGM Katarzyna Toma, all in their 30s and 40s, while WGM Yao Lan is 23.

Im so pleased to be picked for England. Its a great honor and Im looking forward to being part of a team," Sivanandan said.

Teammate Houska commented, "I've had a lot of players say to me they're terrified of playing her!"

According to the Guardian, she is likely the youngest to ever represent England in any international sporting competition. England selector and chief executive of Chess In Schools & Communities IM Malcolm Peincalled her inclusion entirely justified.

Bodhanas success at European level includes victories over many established players, and her fearless style of play and immense focus on the board has already caused a sensation in the chess world, he told the Guardian.

Her fearless style of play and immense focus on the board has already caused a sensation in the chess world.

Malcolm Pein

Sivanandan will be part of a powerful England team, whose open representativesGMs Nikita Vitiugov, David Howell, Michael Adams,Gawain Jones, and Luke McShane, are the country's top-five on the rating list and potential medal contenders.

While Sivanandan is set to become one of the youngest participants in the 2024 Chess Olympiad, she won't be the youngest ever. In 2022, eight-year-old Randa Sedar played for Palestine. Other youngsters have also played for smaller nations.

Sivanandan has stunned the chess world and made headlines all over the world with her record-breaking performances. Last year she became England's first World Youth Chess Champion in 25 years, winning a historic triple gold medal by scoring an incredible 33/33. She followed up by sensationally winning the woman's prize in the European Woman's Blitz Championship, beating an IM and drawing a GM along the way.

Her rise continued this year, jumping 327 rating points to 2185 and positioning herself as the world's second highest-rated player under nine, only rivaled by compatriot Ethan Pang. She recently earned the WFM title and is edging closer to the woman international master title as well, becoming the youngest ever to earn a norm.

Sivanandan has also caught the attention of the greatest female player in history, GM Judit Polgar. Earlier this year, Bodhana met the legend in her home in Budapest, getting a masterclass that was filmed by Chess.com. A video of the meeting is set to be released this month.

Bodhana will next be in action on July 7 at the annual ChessFest at London's Tragalgar Square, while she will also play in Chess.com's Kids vs. Stars on July 16, where she will compete against Houska and WGM Nemo Zhou in a fun series of matches.

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9-Year-Old Bodhana To Become England's Youngest Ever Olympian - Chess.com

A fourth day full of draws means that GM Fabiano Caruana, who played GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabutoday, goes into the final round of the Superbet Chess Classic Romania with a half-point lead. The longest game of the round, between GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov and GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac, lasted almost six hours.

The other draws occurred in GM Alireza Firouzja vs. GM Ian Nepomniachtchi, GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave vs. GM Wesley So, and GM Gukesh Dommaraju vs. GMAnish Giri.

The final round starts Friday, July 5, at 7 a.m. ET / 13:00 CEST / 16:30 p.m. IST.

Superbet Chess Classic Romania Round 8 Results

Superbet Chess Classic Romania Standings After Round 8

On what was Independence Day in the U.S., voting day in the U.K., GM Alexei Shirov's birthday, and Alice in Wonderland Day, there were some festivities in Bucharest as well. The Olympic chess torch passed through the city on its way to Budapesta tradition that was started ahead of the 2022 Olympiad in Chennai.

However, celebrations among the tournament players will have to wait until the final day, as once again, we saw five draws and no changes in the standings. Caruana will defend his half-point lead tomorrow as Black against Giri, who is still looking for his first win.

Abdusattorov - Deac

Abdusattorov was visibly disappointed when he agreed to a draw after five hours and 55 minutes and 84 moves. Apparently, he felt that he had been very close to scoring a win today, but that was likely some sort of optical illusion. With a knight and a rook vs. a rook and bishop, his side was more pleasant to play but never clearly better.

The opening was the topical Open Ruy Lopez and had a nice theoretical twist. Deac's move 11...f6 had been played only once before, all the way back in 1888(!) in a game by the three-time Dutch champion Arnold van Foreest, GM Jorden van Foreest's great-great-grandfather.

Check out annotations by GM Rafael Leitao below:

Caruana - Praggnanandhaa

This was the biggest game of the round on paper: the tournament leader against one of the three players in second place. The Indian GM could take over the lead with a win, so he must have been happy to reach a double-edged middlegame position.

"Its a fighting line that I chose, its not like White is better but Im playing with a very imbalanced structure so I get an extra central pawn, he gets space with d4 but the d4-pawn is potentially a bit weak," noted Caruana.

On move 14, a series of trades started, simplifying the position considerably. Caruana was perhaps still hoping for a slight edge, having a bishop against a knight, but it was nothing. "Maybe I didnt have any real chances," he said. Hes a very stable player; hes very accurate."

Gukesh - Giri

This one had the potential to become a very exciting game. Around move 24, Caruana felt that Giri was taking over a bit; he liked the knight on h4. "It looks like Anish is playing a good game so far," he said.

It was quite the anticlimax when the players suddenly repeated moves then and there. "I dont really have an active plan," Giri explained. "White has all these options with f5 or Bxf6 and Nh5 and I am just waiting and reacting, so from my perspective its fine to repeat."

Gukesh, however, told his opponent after the game that he thought both the f5 and Bxf6 ideas didnt work and that he didnt see a move. In other words, neither player really liked their position.

"I think its a position of dynamic equality of sorts," Giri summarized.

Firouzja - Nepomniachtchi

Firouzja and Nepomniachtchi, on the other hand, had quite an interesting game today that started with the London System. Although the queens were traded as early as move 14, there was still enough to play for. That was especially the case for Nepomniachtchi, who had slightly better chances with an active rook on the second rank. Why he didn't want to play the position with an extra pawn was puzzling, though.

Vachier-Lagrave - So

Apparently not in the mood for another Berlin Endgame, Vachier-Lagrave went for the Italian against So. At first, it looked like Black equalized in the middlegame, but after the queens were traded, it turned out that So still had to be a bit careful, and he was.

The 2024 Superbet Chess Classic Romania is the second leg of the 2024 Grand Chess Tour. The event is a 10-player round-robin with classical time control (120 minutes for the entire game, plus a 30-second increment per move). The tournament runs June 26-July 5 and features a $350,000 prize fund.

Previous coverage:

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Superbet Chess Classic Round 8: Caruana Remains Favorite In Bucharest After Another Day Of Draws - Chess.com

TwitchCon, TwitchCon, TwitchCon. I just celebrated my first time at the convention as part of the Chess.com team. Sure, I expected things to be a little bit wild. But what I walked into was a vibrant ball of purple-drenched chaos, inflatable pawns, and world record-smashing times. If you couldnt join us for the action in person, heres everything you missed:

Before Twitch opened its doors to the public, I took advantage of the downtime to enjoy our community picnic hosted in Hondeneiland Zuiderpark. We invited members of our Discord channel, as well as creators, to start the weekend with some healthy competition. FM Anna-Maja Kazarian and WCM Alexandra Prado joined us, and it was the perfect way to mingle before the convention buzz began.

And then the doors opened. Armed with chess socks, a schedule of meet-and-greets, and a booth completely lined with boards, we were ready for anything. Throughout the weekend, many creators were challenged by players and watched by many. TwitchCon is where you can spark a conversation with anyone, and I met some incredible people, from complete chess newbies to a former Irish Women's National team player. Some familiar faces, including EsfandTV, dropped by our booth and shared their love for chess.

Weve all seen that clip of the guy who solves the Rubiks cube in under four seconds, right?

This year, we challenged TwitchCon to set up an entire chessboard at record speed. I decided to make everyones life a little bit trickier that day; not only would challengers be restricted to using one hand when setting up the board, but you could also only move one piece at a time.

Queues formed as over-the-board gladiators waited for their turn. As soon as a challenger lifted their hands from the speed timer, the clock started, and their fate was counted in milliseconds. The first-day record was set by an impressively calm Polish grandmaster, Kacper Piorun, also known as GMSolver. I guess that grandmaster title helped him achieve the record of 28.76 seconds. But was he beaten?

At TwitchRivals, we cheered on chess legend WFM Anna Cramling as she took on the gaming world with Wirtual. But Anna's secret weapon was her on-site support in the form of two inflatable chess pieces. I tried out the inflatable pawn costume for myself, and though it was scandalously hot, I concluded that it was one of the happiest and most carefree moments of my life.

As the weekend wound down and TwitchCon's security started swarming the venue like a final boss, one competitive challenger returned to give the chessboard challenge one last try. In a movie-like turn of events, the final attempt to be made before closing the booth resulted in a crushing 27.91-second victory, beating the World Record by just shy of two seconds. Necktyz, our challenge winner, went home with a brand new wooden chessboard as their prize.

My experience at TwitchCon was a vibrant and wonderfully chaotic adventure. The most heartwarming part was seeing the diverse and growing chess community at our booth, with both familiar and new faces. The fact that when I asked people about their favorite chess streamers, many of them mentioned "Tyler1" was a clear indication of the widespread growth of chess.

We look forward to seeing you all at TwitchCon San Diego in September!

Excerpt from:
Suns Out, Pawns Out: What We Got Up To At TwitchCon EU - Chess.com

Another round with five draws at the Superbet Chess Classic Romania saw several missed chances. GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu was completely winning for one move but failed to spot the required queen sortie against GM Wesley So. Another hard-to-find tactic, good for a clear advantage, was possible for GM Gukesh Dommaraju vs. GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov.

Round six starts Tuesday, July 2, at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CEST / 17:30 p.m. IST.

Superbet Chess Classic Romania Round 5 Results

Superbet Chess Classic Romania Standings After Round 5

Just when GM Garry Kasparov gave his support the other day for classical chess, where players can "realize their full potential to put on display what they can do," all 10 games ended in draws this weekend. The lack of decisive results seems to be the result of a fairly solid approach by most, although there were still some possibilities to score on Sunday.

So - Praggnanandhaa

Our Game of the Day saw the biggest chance, where Praggnanandhaa had to recognize the geometrical motif of a lateral followed by a diagonal queen move that would have left So without a defense. Asked if he had spotted the move, the Indian GM answered: "No, should have" and later noted that, with five minutes on the clock, he should have spent more time there.

It was Kasparov who had inspired Praggnanandhaa in the opening: "I decided to play the King's Indian because Garry played the move on our board, so why not?"

I decided to play the King's Indian because Garry played the move on our board, so why not? Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu

When So pointed out to the 13th world champion that they weren't representing the youngest board (see Saturday's report for that reference), Kasparov noted that he didn't mind meeting some more of the grandmasters playing in Bucharest.

GM Dejan Bojkov's annotations below analyze the Game of the Day:

Vachier-Lagrave - Caruana

One player who was willing to take some risk is the tournament leader: GM Fabiano Caruanaplayed the double-edged 5...Nxe4 and 6...Be7 line in the Ruy Lopez.

"It's probably a statistical gamble but since we're talking about top players, I think they've really calculated that this risk pays off," Kasparov noted about the willingness to gamble a bit by modern top players. This remark is also relevant for the line Caruana played, which was sharp but still not comparable with some of the lines in the Najdorf. A calculated risk.

It was quite topical in 2019, when Caruana first faced it as White vs. GM Magnus Carlsen and later played it himself against GM Hikaru Nakamura, and then Carlsen tried it one more time against GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

The Frenchman, therefore, must have been well-prepared for it, so he didn't need to think twice about a positional exchange sacrifice on the e5-square. Caruana, on his turn, knew that the rook shouldn't be taken as Black's dark squares are too weak.

Just before the queens were traded, the engine claims that Caruana played a serious inaccuracy which was not picked up by Vachier-Lagrave, but it takes a deep dive into the position to understand it.

Giri - Firouzja

It was quite a theoretical round in general. GMs Anish Giri and Alireza Firouzja followed an earlier game by Giri, in the Warsaw leg of this year's Grand Chess Tour, for 21 moves. The players went straight into an endgame where White is much more active, in return for a pawn.

Kasparov said he had been chatting with Dutch GM Jan Smeets, Giri's second, and that they joked that if Giri sacrificed a pawn, it's probably triple computer-checked. And indeed, White had plenty of compensation but never more than that.

Deac - Nepomniachtchi

This game saw an Open Catalan with 13 moves of theory followed by a queen trade. When more pieces left the board, it seemed like the game that would end in a draw the quickest. Who would have guessed this was going to be the longest game of the round?

GM Ian Nepomniachtchi wanted to play for a win in this game with GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac. Although the Russian GM got quite far and eventually reached a RN-R ending, Deac held it easily.

Gukesh - Abdusattorov

Kasparov didn't have any doubt thatGukesh's quiet opening system with a fianchetto on the kingside is a clear sign that the Candidates winner is already hiding his preparation before his world championship match. Even so, thanks to some nice piece maneuvering, Gukesh got an advantage against Abdusattorov, whose play was perhaps more ambitious but also less solid.

After Gukesh missed a tactical possibility on move 27, the game soon was equal and remained so until deep in the rook endgame.

The 2024 Superbet Chess Classic Romania is the second leg of the 2024 Grand Chess Tour. The event is a 10-player round-robin with classical time control (120 minutes for the entire game, plus a 30-second increment per move). The tournament runs June 26-July 5 and features a $350,000 prize fund.

Previous coverage:

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Missed Chances Mark Another Day Full Of Draws In Bucharest - Chess.com

Meet nine-year-old Ethan Pang from London, U.K. The chess prodigy has just fulfilled a dream after a series of incredible results that earned him the title of candidate master and the record as the youngest player ever to cross the 2200-barrier.

A seemingly endless generation of rising kids has seized the spotlight in recent years, and they keep breaking records. The new kid in town is Pang, a pupil at Westminster Under School in the heart of London. He's had an exceptional few months and since turning nine in March has in just three tournaments gained a whopping 334 rating points, skyrocketing from 1878 to 2212.

Pang's latest success was scoring 3/4 in the EACU County Team Championship in June, where he jumped 48 rating points. His best result was a draw against 2493-rated IM Alan Merry from a reportedly winning position. He hasn't lost in his last 16 classical games.

Last week Pang also competed in the U13 section of the ChessKid Youth Championship, where he defeated none other than GM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, the world's youngest grandmaster.

Pang learned the game at the school's chess club at the age of five. When he was still only seven, he held a draw in a simul against two-time British Champion GM Gawain Jones. How did he become so good, so early?

"It seems that it ultimately came down to practice. When he is presented with the opportunity to play against strong players, he tends to take it more seriously and apply himself fully. Consistent practice and the chance to compete against different types of opponents were key factors to his chess development," Ethan's father Raymond Pang told Chess.com.

He noted that the ability to access online chess resources and compete with others around the world had been instrumental to Ethan's chess growth during the pandemic.

"We feel the pandemic has played a huge role in his chess development, in that the handful of chess club sessions that he attended ignited his interest, then lockdown suddenly forced everyone to stay at home. This period provided Ethan with an opportunity to delve even deeper into his newfound passion, and we can genuinely say that it was thanks to Chess.com and ChessKid videos," he said.

Pang's rise is extraordinary as he has now broken the 2200-barrier for the first time and earned the CM title. At nine years and three months, he has now become the youngest player ever to have a published rating of at least 2200, according to Chess.com's research. The previous record holder was none other than FM Faustino Oro, who recently became the youngest-ever international master.

"Ethan enjoys every moment playing chess, finding it mentally challenging and rewardingprobably more so when he wins. He has a strong sense of direction and determination, knowing exactly what he wants and going after it with all his might," his father said.

Ethan enjoys every moment playing chess, finding it mentally challenging and rewardingprobably more so when he wins.

Ethan's father, Raymond Pang

He added: "One of his greatest motivators to improve is to participate in Titled Tuesday, so that he has a chance of facing Hikaru and playing the infamous Bongcloud against him! Obviously no winning chances for Ethan, but at least he can tell everyone he had a go!"

Chess.com has covered the incredible generation of talented players born in 2015, children who learned chess during the pandemic. Many of them have already beaten grandmasters in classical games, such as Leonid Ivanovic from Serbia who became the youngest to do so at eight years, 11 months, and seven days.

Not long after, that record was smashed by eight years, six months, and 11-days-old CM Ashwath Kaushik from Singapore, who beat 2351-rated GM Jacek Stopa. Another noteworthy player born the same year, is CM Roman Shogdzhiev, who beat five grandmasters in the World Rapid & Blitz Championships last December.

Pang now tops that list, 27 points ahead of WFM Bodhana Sivanandan, triple world champion and the youngest player ever to score a WIM norm. Third on the list is Attila Orman, the son of WGM Turkan Mamedjarovaand nephew of GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

It's not the first time Ethan Pang has been in the spotlight. In April, WFM Anna Cramling published an entertaining video of her informal blitz game against Ethan in Menorca, Spain. To date, it has reached more than 375,000 views.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it did not go well for the Swedish content-creator and streamer.

Asked about goals for the future, his father says Ethan jokes about becoming the youngest-ever FM in the next few months, adding:

"We dont have any expectations for Ethans chess progress. Our main priority is supporting his continuous commitment to the game. As long as he remains enthusiastic to play chess, we will be there to support him."

We dont have any expectations for Ethans chess progress... As long as he remains enthusiastic to play chess, we will be there to support him.

Raymond Pang

For Pang, the chess journey is just beginning. His next tournament is the British Chess Championship later in July, where he has received a wild card.

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9-Year-Old Ethan Pang Breaks Faustino Oro's Record To Become Youngest Ever 2200-Player - Chess.com