World Chess Weekly: All Eyes On Tata Steel, But Naroditsky Autopsy Stirs Up Kramnik
One event is dominating the sporting headlines in chess right now: the imperious, the incredible 2026 Tata Steel Chess Tournament in the Netherlands.
It started at the weekend with an environmental protest that forced a 90-minute delay and chess badboy GM Hans Niemann to scale a fence to get in. However, after that early kerfuffle, the action swiftly got interesting.
Round 6 of the 13-round Masters starts on Friday with the lead contested three ways. GMs Javokhir Sindarov, Niemann and Nodirbek Abdusattorov all sit on 3.5/5 points. All three are showing their stellar form in 2025 was not temporary.
Round 5 on Wednesday saw World Champion GM Gukesh D grab first win over GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen. Gukesh is now within half a point of the leaders. Thursday was a rest day.
But there's just as much focus on the Challengers event where 12-year-old super-prodigy IM Faustino Oro is going for a third GM norm.
Oro beat China's teenage star IM Lu Miaoyi on Wednesday to move into another three-way tie at the top, alongside home hope GM Max Warmerdam and the American GM Andy Woodward.
Round 6 starts at 14.00 CET on January 23. You can watch the event live with full commentary on the Tata Steel Chess website here.
Naroditsky's death
But while attention has turned to Wijk ann Zee, sad but important news broke this week across the Atlantic: GM Daniel Naroditsky's official cause of death was made public.
An autopsy report released by the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner's Office in North Carolina ruled the 29-year-old's death was due to an accidental overdose.
A medical examiner recorded Naroditsky died of probable cardiac arrhythmia, an abnormal heartbeat, caused by an underlying condition known as systemic sarcoidosis.
Hopes that this report would put to bed some of the wild speculation about how he died were immediately dashed, however, as GM Vladimir Kramnik entered the discussion.
We reported on Kramnik's extraordinary tirade which effectively accused the authorities in North Carolina of faking an autopsy.
Kramnik, the respected former world champion who now lives in Switzerland, offered no evidence to support his claim. You can read about it here.
Carlsen's Calendar
On a more happier note, this was also the week that world number-one GM Magnus Carlsen was confirmed in another classical tournament for 2026.
After confirming last week he will play Norway Chess—which was surely no surprise—Carlsen has added another tournament to his classical calendar: the 2026 TePe Sigeman Chess Tournament in Malmo, Sweden, which runs from May 1 to 7.