Lath Gbongbe

Commercial Banker. Golf Amateur. Chess Zealot. Traveller. Francophile. Comedian. Tweets are mine.

[Norway Chess @NorwayChess]

🚨 History in motion!

🇦🇷 11-year-old Faustino Oro has clinched his first GM norm with two rounds to spare at the Legends & Prodigies 2025 tournament, becoming the second youngest ever to do it, only behind World Champion Gukesh D 🇮🇳

It has been a week of milestones for the Argentinian prodigy:
♟️ Crossed 2500 on the live ratings
♟️ Now enters the record books with his GM norm achievement

The chess world is watching.

📷 FIDE / Michal Walusza

[Chess.com @chesscom]

A hero's welcome for Ediz Gurel after beating Gukesh 🇹🇷👏

[Chessdom @chessdom]

Teimour Radjabov 🇦🇿 plays chess with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc before the F1 Baku Grand Prix

For the https://t.co/Foi4W2OuZ1 readers, Leclerc and Hamilton's love of chess is no surprise 🚗 ♟️

[GM Abhimanyu Mishra @ChessMishra]

Enjoyed playing in #grandswiss The time control is unique, and personally, I prefer it more than the traditional ones as it allows for higher quality games, especially move 40 onwards.
Remained unbeaten with a performance rating of 2828! Live rating is 2652.
Unfortunately, I couldn't pose enough problems to my opponent in the last round as black and missed the candidate spot.
There is so much to learn.
Looking forward to it!

[Mehmet Mars Seven 🐴 @MehmetMars7]

🧵1/n BIG Congrats to Anish Giri on winning the FIDE Grand Swiss 2025🏆👏
Highlights from a deep analysis of 60k moves in 600+ games!
🥇 TPR: Giri (2833), Mishra (2823)
🥇 Accuracy: Narayanan 0.16 missed points
🥇 GI Score: Bluebaum & Sevian: 166

[Grand Chess Tour @GrandChessTour]

Wesley So Wins Second Title Amid Fierce Competition,
Top Four Headed to Grand Chess Tour Finals in Brazil!
Read the full press release ⬇️
https://t.co/CNqGxGDs1l
Photo by Lennart Ootes for #grandchesstour

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

Wonderful game by Rapport! And I thank him for refreshing some fond memories of my own games with 15..Nxd5! similar to what I played against Jan Timman in two games (Moscow 1981 & Linares 1992). As Miracle Max said in The Princess Bride, the King's Indian is only mostly dead! 😂

[Sportsnet @Sportsnet]

Greatness defined 🇨🇦

[Justin Trudeau @JustinTrudeau]

Last night reminded us why hockey means so much to Canadians — it’s in our blood, our hearts, our history.

No matter what corner of the country you tuned in from, we all cheered as one. Proud of this team. Proud of Canada.

[NHL @NHL]

What a photo 📸 #4Nations

[Justin Trudeau @JustinTrudeau]

What she said.

[Chess.com @chesscom]

VINCENT KEYMER WINS IN WEISSENHAUS 🇩🇪

On home soil, @VincentKeymer04 produces an incredible run through the opening #FreestyleChess Grand Slam to earn the #1 spot 🏆

[Chess.com @chesscom]

GM Wei Yi was the only undefeated player at Tata Steel, with a mindboggling 98.2% average accuracy across 525 moves! 🤯

[Judit Polgar @GMJuditPolgar]

Hastings in England is special for me. On this day in 1993, I won the prestigious Hastings Tournament, tied with Evgeny Bareev (see the pic).🏆
Four years earlier, I had won the Hastings Challengers ahead of Matthew Sadler - it was a tournament bond with a life lesson. As one of the last 'tactical' elements of my preparation, I always left my accommodation the day before the tournament to go to the venue for two reasons. Since neither smartphones nor navigation apps existed in the late 1980s, I wanted to know the route and how long it took to get there from the hotel. I also wanted to see the venue's conditions. The elegant building on the hill was a 15-minute walk from the hotel.
The next day, I left the hotel with my mother, who had accompanied me to the Challengers tournament. It took us 15 minutes to get up the hill - but we could not find the building we were looking for. We went up another hill...
At first, I panicked, then I calmed down.
We went back to our hotel, and I found the point where I had lost the way. I was finally able to start my first game ten minutes late. After this incident, I paid even more attention and never got lost or late again. Life lesson?
If you make a mistake, try to stay calm, go back to the starting point, and plan again.🙂❤
#ChessConnectsUs #Hastings #tournaments #mystory #lifelessons #chess

[ChessBase India @ChessbaseIndia]

We saw Volodar Murzin in 2019 at the World Blitz Championships with his head in his hands. He was crying at the board. The 13-year-old had just lost an equal endgame against an experienced GM and couldn't come to grips with the loss. He composed himself by sitting there for nearly 3 minutes and went on two beat two 2500+ GMs in the next rounds. This is when we realized what a strong character this youngster has.

In the next 5 years the Russian boy has grown from strength to strength and now at the age of 18, he has become the World Rapid Champion in New York ahead of players like Caruana, Nakamura, Nepo, So, Giri and so many stalwarts. Murzin's endgame skills have always been high class and his solidity has never been in question, but at the Wall Street, he layered his game with new facets and the results are here for all of us to see - wins against Caruana, Nakamura, Praggnanandhaa, Duda - absolutely stunning.

The boy next aims to cross 2700 Elo and eventually would like to become the Classical world champion. It's amazing that in the world of chess we have the classical and rapid world champions - both 18 years old (born in 2006). The interesting story here is that when Gukesh won the world under-12 title in 2018 in Santiago, Spain, he scored 10.0/11 to become the champion. There was only one game he lost and that was against Volodar Murzin!

Photos: Sagar Shah, Lennart Ootes

#chess #chessbaseindia #volodarmurzin #talent #prodigy

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

My congratulations to @DGukesh on his victory today. He has summitted the highest peak of all: making his mother happy!

[Viswanathan Anand @vishy64theking]

Congratulations! It's a proud moment for chess, a proud moment for India, a proud moment for WACA, and for me, a very personal moment of pride. Ding played a very exciting match and showed the champion he is.
@FIDE_chess
@WacaChess

[International Chess Federation @FIDE_chess]

🇮🇳 GUKESH D WINS THE 2024 FIDE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP! 👏 🔥
#DingGukesh

[International Chess Federation @FIDE_chess]

🇮🇳 Arjun Erigaisi has become the 16th player in history to break the 2800 Elo barrier in classical chess ratings!

@ArjunErigaisi joins five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand as the second Indian to achieve this milestone. In the December 2024 #FIDERating list, his rating stands at 2801, and he is currently ranked #4 in the world!

Earlier this year, this 21-year-old also delivered a stellar performance at the 45th #ChessOlympiad, winning both team gold and individual gold! 🌟

📷 Michal Walusza

[Mehmet Mars Seven 🐴 @MehmetMars7]

📢Massive Stockfish analysis of all World Chess Championship matches 1886 - 2024 🧵
▶️#DingGukesh match is the most accurate one so far (least missed points)
Excluding the ongoing match,
▶️Anand is the most accurate player
▶️Carlsen has the highest game intelligence score 1/n