Welcome to another chess review where we comment on last week’s news from our own, county, country and the world. We will also take a look at what to expect next week.

In our own club we had an amazing week for the first team which remains undefeated this calendar year with three wins out of three games. Our top-rated players defeated Heathcote Arms 1 with a crushing 4-0 with all players showcasing amazing resilience. For more information on the match, follow this link. Two of our most promissing players, Hal and Julian, took on another challeng today as they participated in the Nottingham Rapid tournament, with both having both good and bad games. Nevertheless, an amazing experience for both, from which they will only learn.

The upcoming week will feature another home league game for our club, with our second team facing Ashby 3 in an expected eight-board match. We wish our second team success in what is scheduled to be a true celebration of the game.

In the county, there were a few games played last week. In Division 1, Shepshed 1 defeated the next in the table Braunstone 1. In the second division Ashby 1 got back on the winning track after 3-1 against Wigston 3 who are surprisingly two places above Wigston 2. In Division 3 Syston 2 secured another important win, this time against Market Harborough 2 which puts pressure on our first team as our top players are eyeing the first two places in the table. In the fourth division Melton Mowbray 3 conceded another loss this year, this time against Loughborough 2.

In the country, the ECF has announced an England vs Sweden Challenge Match in which GM David Howell will take on GM Nils Grandelius in London this March. For more information on their website, follow this link.

Worldwide, the first leg of the FIDE Grand Prix 2022 finished with GM Hikaru Nakamura claiming the top spot after amazing final games against GM Levon Aronian. The victor did not spend much time in celebrations and went straight into the Rapid Chess Championship, currently taking place on chess.com. The American Grandmaster even made it to the final but was denied a second crown in a row by his countryman GM Fabiano Caruana. On the topic of online chess, the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, the competition with the richest prize pot in online chess, has started on Saturday, 19^th February and is currently taking place with the preliminaries ongoing. The current leader in the standings is the last World Championship challenger GM Ian Nepomniachtchi who decided that he is done with playing bad after losing the first game and won the following five games, finishing round 8 with 19 points, four points clear of the second GM Ding Liren and the third GM Eric Hansen who appears to be the pleasant surprise in the tournament so far. It is worth mentioning that the World Champion in classical chess GM Magnus Carlsen lost his game against the 16-year old GM Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa. You can follow all of the action on our own website on this link.

Lastly, better late than never, we missed to mention in the last Sunday chess review that the oldest Grandmaster, GM Yuri Averbakh turned 100 years and is officially the only GM to reach a centenary. We wish him strong health and many years to come!