Recent: Vladimir Fedoseev replaces Quang Liem Le in the Biel Chess Masters 2025

Grand Chess Tour blitz records

15.5 pts – Fedoseev (Poland 2025)
15 pts – Firouzja (Saint Louis 2022) and Carlsen (Croatia 2023)
14.5 pts – Carlsen (Belgium 2017)
14 pts – Carlsen (Poland 2023 & 2024)

More: Grand Chess Tour Croatia 2025 LIVE rapid / Grand Chess Tour 2025 Rapid Zagreb information / Grand Chess Tour 2025 – Zagreb Blitz information / Pairings Day 1: Four players tied at the top Day 2: Gukesh defeats Carlsen, leads the Grand Chess Tour Day 3: Gukesh tops the Grand Chess Tour Croatia after the rapid stage Day 4: Carlsen in beast mode, defeats Gukesh and leads Grand Chess Tour blitz

Stockfish has played 260 games in the period with 61% score against opposition with average rating of 3625 ELO. That translates into a rating jump from 3672 to 3707 ELO, gained mainly during the events of TCEC Season 27 – Leagues, Cup, and Swiss. (replay TCEC S27 Superfinal here)

More about the ELO record of Stockfish and the upcoming TCEC S28 events at the Chessdom newsletter. This month of April, Chessdom is launching a newsletter that you get DAILY to your mailbox for FREE (signup in the box below)

The closest opponent to Stockfish is the Alpha Zero young sister Leela Chess Zero. It is currently second on the rating list with 3670 ELO. While 37 points are a solid distance in computer chess, Leela Chess Zero actually maintains the pace and stays in the race (see the graph below)

Third is Berserk with 3617 ELO, which briefly interrupted its development, but now is back with fresh power. The biggest danger for Stockfish might come from the 4th engine on the list – lurking from behind is Obsidian with 3612 ELO. This might be close to 100 ELO below the playing strength of the leader, but Obsidian is relatively new engine and is developed by the 16 years old (!!!) Gabriele Lombardo.

This graph shows the progress of Stockfish from the time around the year 2021 to today. It compares the engine to Leela Chess Zero, Stoofvlees, KomodoDragon, and clearly shows the rapid rise of Obsidian. Each Top Chess Engine Championship season is marked on top, with the graph spanning from TCEC Season 19 to TCEC Season 27.

How does Stockfish compare to Stockfish from the past

Stockfish 13 was released February 19, 2021. It is the engine used as a benchmark in the computer rating list. Stockfish 13, which was unbeatable monster back in 2021, currently sits at 17th position in the rating list with 3522 ELO. This is close to 200 ELO less than the current version of Stockfish in just four years!

Furthermore, engines like Clover, Stoofvlees, Seer, Rofchade, Viridithas, Rubichess, Caissa, Ethereal, KomodoDragon, Ceres, Obsidian, Berserk, and Leela Chess Zero all sit ahead of Stockfish 13 in this list, showing the rapid growth and development of the whole computer chess sector

At this moment we have 4KiB (4096 bytes) size engines with playing strength 3100+ (see it to believe it)

More about the Top Chess Engine Championship

The new season of the strongest computer chess championship, where Stockfish will defend its title and ELO record is about to start (Official website / TCEC Twitch TV)

Top Chess Engine Championship, or TCEC for short, is the premier computer chess tournament that has been running since 2010. The use of long time controls high-end hardware results in exceptionally high-quality chess games. The tournament pits the best chess engines – software programs designed to play chess – against each other to determine the strongest among them.

A Top Chess Engine Championship season is a multi-month event that features a series of competitions, typically lasting around 3-4 months, with matches played continuously 24/7 and broadcast live online at the official website. Each season is structured to include several distinct tournaments, testing the engines across various formats and conditions. As of the current format, a season contains:

1. Leagues Season: This is the core event where engines compete in a tiered league system. It starts with lower divisions (like a Qualification League) and progresses through higher divisions, culminating in the Premier Division. Engines move up or down based on their performance, with the top two from the Premier Division advancing to the TCEC Superfinal – a 100-game match to crown the “TCEC Grand Champion.”
2. Cup: A knockout-style tournament featuring 32 engines. It consists of five single-elimination rounds, offering a different competitive dynamic from the league format.
3. Swiss Tournament: A Swiss-system event where all participating engines (often 44 or more) play a set number of rounds (e.g., 11 rounds). Pairings are determined by performance, allowing for exciting matchups and opportunities for underdog engines to shine.
4. Fischer Random Chess (FRC) Tournament: A competition using Chess960 rules aka Fischer Random, lately called and branded as Freestyle chess by Magnus Carlsen, where the starting positions of pieces are randomized. It typically involves preliminary leagues, semifinals, and a final league, with the top two engines advancing to a Superfinal of 50 games.
5. 4k event – included in recent seasons, the TCEC 4k Event is a special competition within the Top Chess Engine Championship that challenges developers to create highly efficient chess engines with a strict size limit of 4 kilobytes (4KiB, or 4096 bytes). This constraint applies to the engine’s executable file or script, making it a unique test of programming skill, optimization, and creativity in computer chess. The idea is to see how strong a chess engine can be when stripped down to an extremely small footprint, harking back to the spirit of early computing challenges like those seen in demo competitions or even the minimalist systems used in the Apollo missions.

In 2019 Carlsen won 10 events, and this year he manages to equalize his own record and is on track for record number of tournament wins in a year. Until the end of 2024 he still has to play:

December 17-21: Champions Chess Tour Finals, Oslo
December 26-28: World Rapid Championship, New York
December 30-31: World Blitz Championship, New York

Before that Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana are set to compete in an exciting Freestyle Chess match in Singapore, just days before the World Chess Championship 2024 (More: Preview / Schedule / Venue / Live / Promo video) between Ding Liren and Gukesh. Organised by Jan-Henric Buettner, the match is part of a broader effort to popularize Freestyle Chess, or chess960, as Buettner’s company prepares for the 2025 Freestyle Chess Grand Slam.

No matter what the final count of the year 2024 will be, Carlsen has had a fantastic year, where he also won the individual gold medal at the European Team Championship, the team gold at the World Rapid & Blitz Team Championship, and a medal on board 1 at the Chess Olympiad

The previous record was set by John Burke, who achieved it at 14 years and 2 months old. He achieved it ahead of other prodigies like Abhi Mishra, Pragg, Wei Yi, Abdusattorov, and Carlsen.

Throwback: 12-year-old Abhimanyu Mishra becomes the youngest GM in chess history

Tarjei Svensen from Chess.com says, “The Turkish Grandmaster now has around 2.5 years if he wants to break Wei Yi’s record as the youngest-ever 2700 player, which Wei achieved when he was aged 15 years and nine months. Firouzja, Gukesh, and Carlsen had all turned 16 when they broke the barrier.”

The prodigy has already secured backing from Turkish investor Evren Ucok, co-founder of one of the world’s top e-commerce companies, and he has been coached by a number of grandmasters. Among them is world-class GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, who previously told Chess.com:

“I am very pleased to work with Yagiz. I see him as a player who can reach 2800 and become a future world champion.”

In a historic move toward inclusivity, the 2024 Chess Olympiad will welcome a team of refugees, as officially approved by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This groundbreaking decision aims to promote diversity and support displaced individuals, reinforcing chess as a tool for positive change.

More about Chess Olympaid 2024 : Chess Olympiad 2024 live games / Participants open / Participants women / All news about Chess Olympiad 2024 / On Twitter/X here

That is the record for longest decisive chess game, and longer can only be found between computers here at TCEC. The longest decisive game at TCEC is between Lc0 and Fritz, total 308 moves

Carlsen is currently playing the Norway Chess 2022 which commenced today with the Blitz tournament. The classical and main part of the event kicks off tomorrow and could be a chance for Magnus to improve his rating. However, not even the perfect 9/9 score will make Carlsen reach 2900, but he would be six points close to that achievement. To avoid dropping rating points, Carlsen needs to score 6/9 points in the event.
Read more: Carlsen wheels out 1.a4 against Wesley So

Chessdom.com will provide daily news coverage, interviews, and live games from Norway Chess 2022.

In the previous Chess Olympiad held in Baku in 2018, the participation record of team numbers was set with 176 countries, 184 teams in Open section, and 150 teams in the Women’s section. With more time left before the registrations are closed for Chennai, it is almost ensured that the new participants record will be broken.

A number of countries already revealed the composition of their teams for Chennai, such as: Norway, Germany, Spain, Serbia, Monaco, Kenya, India, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Malawi, South Sudan, Mongolia, Argentina …

All information related to the 44th Chess Olympiad 2022 can be found here.

More than 250 students and pupils listened to 35-minute lecture of the International School Chess Union president, PhD Aleksander Kostiev about the first chess world champion Wilhelm Steinitz with a demonstration of chess great’s games.

The record was verified by official representative of the World Guinness Records Christelle Bitrong. She handed a relevant certificate to RSSU rector, doctor of economics, member of RASN Natalia Pochinok.

The necessary conditions were: lesson duration should have been more than 30 minutes and more than 250 people should have participated in the lesson.

– Our university is a forge of chess players and teachers, who organise chess activities, while RSSU Cup is the biggest tournament in Europe, the most powerful and interesting festival. And of course, the Festival like that must be accompanied by bright records and victories. Nomination for “The largest chess lesson”, which we’ve set a record at, is a union of university activities and our flag-sport – chess.

Photos by Galina Popova

Aleksander Kostiev