Well according to me anyway. 

I always hated chess-results final crosstables because it only gives the basic information like standings and total scores of the winners. I want to know who each player played with at a glance without clicking more links. 

Hence I came out with my own web app - "Catur Skor". It takes the results and let's you mouse over the name to see all the names of the opponent that particular player has played against and what is the result. 

mouse over reveals opponents and results

Ok, if you want, it's easier to just go to a sample page to see it in action here:

https://catur.org/skor/?fed=MAS&tnr=tnr1402077

To try out for yourself go to:

https://catur.org/skor

Breakdown of this steps:

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The core concept

No boards, no clocks, no arbiters walking the aisles - well maybe at least one arbiter to walk around to see no engines are used. Every player brings a phone. The platform — Lichess, Chess.com, or PlayChess — becomes the arbiter, the clock, the board, the pairing system, and the anti-cheat engine simultaneously. 

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Online qualifier phase

Registration opens on the platform of choice. Players get assigned to a time-control bracket — bullet, blitz, or rapid — and the platform seeds them by their live ELO or rapid/blitz rating. Nobody needs to do anything manually. When a round starts, the server pairs players and pushes the game link directly to both phones. The players just tap "accept" and play.

Time control specifics matter a lot here:

Bullet (1+0 or 2+1) is the most spectator-friendly online but requires impeccable pre-move discipline on a phone screen — fat-finger errors become real tactical events. Blitz (3+2 or 5+0) is the sweet spot: fast enough to be exciting, slow enough for phone interfaces to be reliable. Rapid (10+0 or 15+10) is better suited to serious qualifiers or the later bracket stages where deliberate play matters more than speed.

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Swiss rounds

Swiss is good here because it doesn't eliminate anyone early, maximises the number of games each player gets, and produces a clean ranked leaderboard at the end. Even weak players get to enjoy the rounds and not kicked out immediate. 

Tiebreaks like Sonneborn–Berger (SB) or Buchholz score, both calculated automatically by the platform, resolve ties. No arbiter needed. The platform posts live standings between rounds.

Anti-cheat is non-trivial in a phone-based format. Chess.com's anti-cheat engine and Lichess's Irwin/Kaladin systems flag suspicious move correlation with engine lines in real time. And that would be more than enough. Supplementary rules — all games must be played at the venue for the knockout stage, phones must be visible on camera, no earbud use, etc.

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Qualifying for the live stage

After Swiss rounds conclude, the top 8 or top 16 players — depending on the event scale — receive invitations to the live stage event ala esports!

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Live knockout stage

With a nice big monitor and chairs for spectators to watch - way better than the typical thing that happens at any local tournament where a huge group of people crowd around one table suffocating the players.

The spectator experience:

• The evaluation bar swings dramatically during tactical complications - of course monitors placed facing the spectators but behind the players.
  

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I am posting it here first because I know such a format is easily picked up as the overhead is low and the rewards is high. When (not if) this becomes popular, I can say "See - I called it first" :)

 CaturVerse (found at catur.org) is Malaysia's Chess Gateway — a community-driven hub for chess enthusiasts in Malaysia and beyond. The word CaturVerse essentially means "Chess Universe".

Here's what the platform offers:

• CaturNews — the latest headlines from across the Malaysian chess circuit. 
• CaturCal — the definitive Malaysian chess tournament calendar and event dates. 
• CaturDB — a select database of games played in Malaysia
• CaturBlogs — expert strategies and curated Malaysian chess community writings. 
• CaturFestival — a hub for local chess festivals, large-scale news, and celebrations. 
• CaturAkademi — structured lessons, daily puzzles, and an official learning syllabus (available at academy.catur.org). 

It's essentially a one-stop platform for the Malaysian chess community — covering news, events, learning, game databases, and community blogging all in one place.

It's main purpose to exist:

Malaysia historically had fragmented chess information spread across social media, club pages, and separate organizers. CaturVerse appears to be aiming to unify those resources into a more modern and searchable infrastructure for players, coaches, organizers, and fans.

The Injury and Attempts to Continue

Alireza Firouzja suffered an ankle injury after Round 3 of the Super Chess Classic Romania 2026 (part of the Grand Chess Tour) in Bucharest. The exact circumstances of how the injury occurred were not publicly disclosed by tournament organizers, though GM Anish Giri mentioned after their Round 3 game that both players were "very shaky" during the match and that he heard Firouzja "even fell over".

Fortunately, medical evaluation confirmed the ankle was not broken or fractured. However, the injury was severe enough that Firouzja could not play his scheduled Round 4 game against Fabiano Caruana.

Accommodation Efforts

This impressed me about the organisers on how they made really extraordinary efforts to allow Firouzja to continue playing. After consulting with his doctor, team and the organizers, Firouzja decided to play from a specially arranged hotel room with the agreement of his opponents and in the presence of an arbiter. Extraordinary and of course made good chess content for the media as pictures of a grandmaster playing from a bed in a high stakes chess tournament is rare and only 2 other incidents in the history of chess come close like Tal playing a friendly game vs Fischer in a hospital bed and Tony Miles playing on a bed because of a back injury.

For his Round 5 match against Javokhir Sindarov, Firouzja played from bed wearing a T-shirt and sports shorts, with his injured right foot elevated on a pillow and wearing a protective boot. A small table with a chess board and clock was positioned in front of him while Sindarov sat across from him in the hotel room. Despite being under serious pressure throughout the game, Firouzja managed to salvage a draw.

🔄 Rescheduled clash: The postponed Round 4 game against Caruana was rescheduled for the rest day (Tuesday). Firouzja again appeared wearing a protective boot and played from bed in the hotel setup. However, he made a critical mistake on move 37 and lost the game.
Fabiano Caruana later commented on the surreal experience:
“It had kind of vibes of a World Championship match, except my opponent was on the bed, in a cast.”

Final Withdrawal

After completing five rounds with a score of 1 out of 5, Firouzja made the difficult decision to withdraw before Round 6. In his statement, he said:

"Unfortunately, due to an ankle injury sustained during the event, I have decided to withdraw from the tournament. Thank you to the organisers for their support and accommodations, and thank you to everyone following the games. I wish the players and organisers the best for the rest of the tournament."

Since Firouzja withdrew after Round 5, his past results counted toward tournament standings, and his remaining opponents were awarded forfeit wins with a full point. Tournament officials thanked Firouzja for his efforts to continue competing despite the injury and wished him a speedy recovery.

Controversy Over Withdrawal

FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky criticized the withdrawal as "unfair to Praggnanandhaa and Sindarov", suggesting that players who faced Firouzja in his injured state may have been disadvantaged compared to those who received forfeit points after his withdrawal.

The incident sparked debate about fairness, medical accommodations, and tournament regulations.

My 2 cents: it's a delicate balance between player welfare and competitive integrity. And if given to the chess community I think it would be 50-50 split. I agree with Sutovsky here in that none of the people who got a free point would have gotten it that easily against the World no. 9 (draw maybe but not all wins).

 

From the video :

 The inaugural Naroditsky Memorial Rapid and Blitz shows that there is incredibly strong group of grandmasters gathered in Charlotte from July 3rd to 5th, 2026. Also it is a magnificent tribute to Danya.

FunMasterMike's breakdown highlights the top 7 elite grandmasters and fan favorites confirmed for the main field:

• Hikaru Nakamura [00:35] – World No. 2, lethal rapid/blitz speed demon, and top seed.

• Fabiano Caruana [04:52] – The calculation machine and multi-time US Champion.

• Dommaraju Gukesh (Javakhir) [08:07] – The current World Championship Challenger keeping up a fiercely active competitive schedule.

• Hans Niemann [10:33] – Ready to bring maximum tension and headlines directly to Charlotte.

• Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus [13:21] – The phenomenal teenage prodigy tearing past the 2700 ELO mark.

• Nihal Sarin [15:21] – A world-class speed demon and ultimate blitz specialist.

• Robert Hess [17:11] – In a highly anticipated twist, Danya’s long-time streaming and broadcast partner is coming out of competitive retirement just to play in this memorial!

The Bonus Field [19:38]: As if the top seven weren't enough, Mike also dropped a massive list of additional heavy hitters confirmed to play, including:

• Wesley So

• Leinier Dominguez

• Boris Gelfand (Former World Championship Challenger)

• Ruslan Ponomariov (Former FIDE World Champion)

• Alexei Shirov (Legendary attacking genius and former Candidate)

• Andy Woodward (The brilliant young American GM)

There will also be a dedicated Creators Event [20:00] running parallel to the main tournament featuring 10 prominent chess personalities.

I don't follow chess much nowadays but this event will certainly be in my calendar and I will look out coverage on in, which should be good.