Well, well, well. After rampaging his way through many of the finals and opponents throughout the 2023 Champions Chess Tour, Magnus Carlsen’s “final boss” reign came to a screeching halt in what proved to be an enthralling AI Cup Grand Final on Friday, as the favourite was beaten not once but in three games, and over two matches, by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who sensationally grabbed the last remaining spot in the Champions Tour Final in December. Earlier, Carlsen had defeated MVL in the final of the winners’ bracket, before the Frenchman gained the right to a rematch in the double-elimination contest by beating Ian Nepomniachtchi in the final of the losers’ bracket. In the Grand Final, buoyed up and firing on all cylinders, MVL beat Carlsen by a 2½-1½ score.

The self-proclaimed “final boss of chess” does what the final boss of chess does best of all: Magnus Carlsen beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the final of the AI Cup winners’ bracket, the sixth and final leg of the 2023 Champions Chess Tour regular season, to reach yet another Grand Final in the novel double-elimination contest. But it wasn’t without an epic bare-knuckle street fight from both players, as MVL proved to be a worthy opponent for what looked to be an unstoppable Carlsen, who narrowly prevailed in the Armageddon to take the match 3-2. "This is the sort of thing that happens when you play Sicilians in every game," said a magnanimous Carlsen in victory after four fighting Sicilians left the match tied at 2-2.

Fans were treated to arguably the greatest online rivalry in chess history recently, with the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship Grand Final showdown between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura seeing the Norwegian narrowly snatch victory by a solitary win to end the American speed maven’s hopes of a sixth successive victory. But Carlsen’s narrow win left the salivating fans feeling they’d been denied seeing this epic gladiatorial speed contest going into overtime - but they didn’t have to wait long for the rivalry redux, as a couple of days later, both Carlsen and Nakamura went head-to-head yet again in the opening day of the AI Cup, the sixth and final leg of the 2023 Champions Chess Tour regular season.

Magnus Carlsen more than lived up to his self-proclamation of being “The Final Boss of Chess” with a revenge-is-sweet narrow victory over fellow chess influencer Hikaru Nakamura, as he denied his long-time arch-rival a sixth successive Chess.com Speed Chess Championship title last Friday. Last year, it was Nakamura who narrowly squeaked home by one point - this time, in yet another thrilling match consisting of three different speed limits - 5+1, 3+1 and 1+1 (more commonly known as ‘bullet’) - between the two speed titans, it again ended with the same scoreline, though this time seeing Carlsen triumph by a solitary win after two pulsating hours of thrilling play, as he took the $150,000 2023 Speed Chess Championship presented by Coinbase, 13.5-12.5.

With a smorgasbord of online chess events out there now, the granddaddy of them all is surely the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship , with a $150,000 prize fund that determines just who is the best blitz and bullet players. It has become the perennial fan-favourite with arguably the best viewing experience - and the fans are set for yet another spectacular finale later today, as the two rivals who dominate the roll of honour, Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, get set for another explosive showdown in the 2023 final. Friday’s final and commentary, free to view, starts at 14:00 ET (11:00 PT; 20:00 CEST; 23:30 IST) on Chess.com. Carlsen and Nakamura have won each edition since the inaugural Speed Chess Championship event in 2016 - Carlsen won the first two speed titles before taking a hiatus, only for Nakamura to rule the roost, winning four more times.

India today is a land of amazing young talents and prospects in chess, with the country seemingly having a never-ending production line of prodigies rolling off the factory conveyor belt. But for some countries, such as Argentina, prodigies only seem to come around with all the regularity of Halley’s Comet . One of the first notable post-war chess prodigies was Oscar Panno from Buenos Aires, who became the first world-class player born in South America. In 1953, at the age of 17, he became only the second World Junior Champion , having won the coveted youth title ahead of a strong cadre of future elite-level Grandmasters such as Boris Ivkov (who in 1951 was crowned the first World Junior Ch), Bent Larsen, and Fredrik Olafsson.

“Chess is a cruel game. We all know that feeling when your position has gone awry and everything seems hopeless. You feel like resigning. But don’t give up! This is precisely the moment to switch to swindle mode. Master the art of provoking errors and you will be able to turn the tables and escape with a draw or sometimes even steal the full point!” So wrote David Smerdon, an Australian chess grandmaster and one of his country’s leading behavioural economists, on the back cover of his witty and wickedly entertaining, not to mention the much-lauded and deserving 2020 ECF Book of the Year winner, The Complete Chess Swindler (New in Chess).

With the top teenage talents being overshadowed in the Tata Steel Chess India Rapid in Kolkata by a dominant performance from seasoned veteran Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, there were hopes of a homeland comeback in the follow-on Blitz tournament - and one looked to be on the cards, only for another “old guy”, this time Alexander Grischuk, crashing the teenage party by capturing the second, even faster speed title. Early doors, all eyes were firmly on Rameshbabu “Pragg” Praggnanandhaa, with his flying start of a perfect 5/5 on the opening day of the two-day double-round contest. But that was as good as it got for the 18-year-old Candidate-qualifier, who could only finish the day on 6.5/9, and despite being the sole leader, he held what looked a very slender half-point lead over nearest rivals Santosh Vidit and Grischuk, ominously the only unbeaten player.