Labor Day Weekend Wrap-Up

Editor’s note: Since becoming Digital Editor for Chess Life Online, I have dreamt of publishing more regular wrap-ups of the sorts of events that are eligible for our Plan Ahead Calendar (as well as invitational tournaments).

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NYC Chess Norms 2025 Marshall Chess Club GM/IM Labor Day Invitational

Games | Results | Official Website | MSA

Canadian IM Sai Krishna won the GM section with a 6½/9 score, finishing just shy of a GM norm. Krishna got off to a red-hot 5½/6 score before consecutive losses to IM Tani Adewumi and IM Josiah Stearman.

In the IM section, IM Mykola Bortnyk kept the norm-seekers at bay, finishing first with a 7/9 score. FM Zachary Tanenbaum’s 6/9 score was good for clear second, and should result in a healthy rating bump.

Charlotte Chess Center 2025 Labor Day Norm Invitational

Games | Results | Official Website | MSA

The Charlotte Chess Center (CCC) hosted both an invitational and an open over the holiday weekend. In the GM Norm section, FM Gauri Shankar finished a half-point shy of his 12th IM norm with a 5/9 score. However, Shankar entered just three points shy of the 2400 FIDE rating threshold, and his 10-point gain pushes him over 2400 for the first time in his career, making him eligible for the IM title. Odds are, he’ll take that over a 12^th IM norm any day. Here’s the game that got him over 2400:

FM Rose Atwell earned her second IM norm (X) with her 6½/9 first-place finish in the IM section, good for over 50 FIDE rating points. Here’s a complete game from Atwell, where strategic dominance in the early stages led to a space advantage that she ushered into a smooth endgame conversion:

2025 Southeastern FIDE Championship

Games | Results | MSA

GM Sergey Erenburg won the Southeastern FIDE Championship, an open event held by CCC concurrent to the norm invitational. His 5/5 score was good for a $1,000 first prize, and he produced some instructive gems along the way. In addition to the “pop quiz” he gave his third-round opponent in rook-and-two-pawns-versus-rook, he also showed remarkable calm against WGM Dina Belenkaya’s aggressive approach to the Exchange Slav:

2025 Illinois Open

Games | Results | Official Website | MSA

University of Chicago’s GM Praveen Balakrishnan went 7½/9 to claim clear first in the Illinois Open, a half-point ahead of FM Ochirbat Lkhagvajamts. The top two finishers earned $2,000 and $1,000, respectively. Balakrishnan’s tactical prowess was on display all weekend, exemplified in this game over the eventual fifth-place finisher:

2025 Louisiana State Championship

Games | Official Website | MSA

You might have heard about this one. About an hour before Saturday’s first round, the internet was ablaze with rumors that GM Hikaru Nakamura had registered for the Louisiana State Championship. A seven-round, FIDE-rated event, this tournament offered Nakamura an opportunity to get games under his belt as he pursues the rating qualification spot ahead of the next FIDE Candidates.

According to FIDE’s regulations, a player is eligible for the ratings spot if they have played at least 40 FIDE-rated games from February 2025 through January 2026. Then, the spot is determined by highest average rating over the six rating lists beginning in August 2025. Since February, Nakamura had only played 18 FIDE-rated classical games.

After his 7/7 sweep in New Orleans, Nakamura is up to 24 games*. In the live ratings, he enjoys a 23-point lead over third-rated GM Fabiano Caruana. But Caruana already qualified via last year’s FIDE Circuit, so Nakamura’s 28-point lead over GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu is what really matters.

*One of Nakamura's games was played at a faster time control, so only six counted for FIDE classical rating. Thanks to Michael A. Mulford for this piece of information.

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Nakamura (L) against Mark Schulingkamp before their fifth-round encounter (Photo by Leila D'Aquin)

There’s no need to annotate any of Nakamura’s games here, because there’s nothing that could be said that hasn’t already been summed up by the Super-GM himself on his YouTube channel.

Vijay Srinivas Anandh and Ralph Tan tied for second with 6/7, with Tan being the top-scoring finisher who crossed paths with Nakamura. 

2025 Harvey Lerman Florida State Championship

Games | Results | Official Website | MSA

CM Marvin Gao is the new Florida champion. The 17-year-old went 5½/6, finishing a half-point ahead of Raghav Venkat and GM Julio Becerra. Gao earned $1,400 for his victory, with Venkat and Becerra taking home $650 apiece. Gao’s fourth-round victory over veteran FM Corey Acor is below:

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Marvin Gao during his fourth-round game against Corey Acor (Photo courtesy of the organizers)

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Marvin Gao (R) with organizer Jon Haskel (Photo courtesy of Jon Haskel)

2025 Southern California Open 

Games | Results | Official Website | MSA

The 2025 Southern California Open boasted a robust prize fund of over $30,000 across all sections (and over $10,000 in the Open section alone). This tournament has developed a reputation for being particularly well-run (and providing chess sets for all boards!), thanks to experienced organizer Armen Ambartsoumian, who is also the President of American Chess Academy. 

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Organizer Armen Ambartsoumian, winner Viktor Matviishen, and former Mayor of Glendale Elen Asatryan (Photo courtesy of City of Glendale)

IM Tatev Abrahamyan (it feels very nice to write the "IM" part) reached out to tell me about the hard work Ambartsoumian has put into this tournament, and, particularly, into working with the city of Glendale to attract sponsors and increase visibility for the event. Both the current and one former mayor were even in attendance! 

In the Open, GM Viktor Matviishen won $5,000 and the title of Southern California champion with his 5½/6 performance. The wins didn’t come easy, though, as evidenced by IM Bohdan Bilovil’s third-round effort:

Matviishen finished a half-point ahead of IM Sebastian Kostolansky, who finished clear second and won $2,000. GM Tigran L. Petrosian won the blitz tournament.

91st Southwest Open

Games | Results | Official Website | MSA

GM Aditya Sachin Samant won the International section of the 91^st Southwest Open with a 7½/9 score in the ten-player round robin. The 18-year-old University of Texas at Dallas student took the professional approach to the event, drawing his three games against fellow grandmasters and winning his remaining six games. Even when he was met with resistance, he managed to come out on top:

Fujairah Global 2025

Games | Results | Official Website

Zooming out and looking at international events, GM Brewington Hardaway had a tremendous result in the Fujairah Masters, finishing clear first with 7½/9 ahead of 149 competitors. Hardaway did not lose a single game, boasting a 2696 performance rating and gaining 19 FIDE points. His fearless blend of attack and defense is on display below, where he played the final 20 moves of the game with an enemy pawn lodged on his seventh rank:

Alongside the 150-player Masters, two Americans had strong showings in the 44-player Fujairah Superstars. India’s GM Pranav V won the tournament with 7/9, but GM Brandon Jacobson tied for second with 6/9 and GM Abhimanyu Mishra was in good company in the eight-way tie for fifth place with 5½/9. Jacobson picked up 20 points for his 2762 performance, which included a first-round win over GM Nikolas Theodorou (and a transitive win over GM Fabiano Caruana, as a result).

FIDE Grand Swiss 2025

Games | Official Website

Other top American players were traveling to Samarkand, Uzbekistan, over the holiday weekend. Wednesday marked the opening ceremony for the 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss, where two qualification spots are on the line for each of the FIDE Candidates and Women’s Candidates.

A total of 116 players are competing in the Open section and another 56 are competing in the Women’s section. Some notable Open participants include GM Divya Deshmukh, who opted to compete in the Open after booking her Candidates trip earlier this Summer, and GM Aleksandra Goryachkina, who was nominated by the FIDE President.

Ten American players are competing in the Open, including experienced players like eighth-seeded GM Levon Aronian and youthful talents like Mishra and GM Andy Woodward, who was also one of the President’s nominees.

Only two Americans are competing in the Women’s section, so our focus there will be on IM Carissa Yip and GM Irina Krush.

There’s serious competition for the Candidates spot in both events. In the Open, GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu enters alongside Olympiad teammate GM Arjun Erigaisi as the highest rated players. In the Women’s section, GMs Anna Muzychuk and Bibisara Assaubayeva are the ratings-based favorites to win a trip to the Candidates.

Of course, some players in each section are playing for the prize fund and not the qualification spot. Current World Champion GM Gukesh Dommaraju is the third seed in the Open, and former Women’s World Champion GM Tan Zhongyi earned her Candidates trip in Georgia at the Women’s World Cup.

Games began today, September 4, at 5:15 a.m. CDT. Highlights from day one included GM Jeffery Xiong holding Praggnanandhaa to a draw on board one, and GM Sam Shankland’s nice win over GM Dennis Wagner. Heartbreaking moments included Yip’s loss after missing a forced win against IM Eline Roebers and GM Anna Muzychuk forgetting about her clock in a better position. Keep an eye out next week for highlights courtesy of WGM Sabina Foisor.