Success for Jesper & Magnus

Our Danish star Jesper Thybo recently won an international tournament in Serbia with a fantastic rating performance of 2700+. Now he has done it again with a solid tournament win in Budva, Montenegro. Also, world champion Magnus Carlsen managed to qualify for the knockout stages of the FTX Crypto Cup.

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Let's hear from the man himself - Jesper Thybo.

I continued my tour in the Balkan, now going to play in Montenegro Budva, which had some of the best playing conditions I have experienced so far. I kept my good spirit from the last tournament in Belgrade, and managed to score 7½/9, with 6 wins. Next up is the European Hybrid, where it is possible to qualify for the World Cup!


Jesper's scoresheet from the game against grandmaster Nikcevic


Thybo - Nikcevic (1-0)

Full results are available here.

Next up for Jesper is the European Hybrid World Cup Qualifier where fellow Offerspill member Frode Urkedal also participates.

The European Hybrid Qualification Tournament is held from May 24th-30th.

A whopping amount of 288 players will be reduced to 36 players after three knockout rounds, tiebreaks for prizes will be played between the top 36 players who also qualify for the FIDE World Cup. From the World Cup it is possible to qualify for the Candidates - maybe we will get an Offerspill match for the world championship title?

Urkedal is one of the best players in Norway and started the World Cup Qualifier in magnificent style with the following win in the 1st round:

Urkedal - Filip (1-0)


Other Norwegians playing in the Hybrid tournament are Benjamin Arvola (Tromsø), Simen Agdestein (OSS), Sebastian Mihajlov (Bærum), Rune Djurhuus (Nordstrand), and Tor Fredrik Kaasen (Vålerenga).

Follow the event on Lichess.

Official website

Standings / Pairings

FTX Crypto Cup

Former world championship challenger Fabiano Caruana cruised to 1st place in his debut in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. The preliminary stage of the FTX Crypto Cup never got especially exciting on his part as he scored 10/15 points to finish a full point ahead of the field.

Caruana will face Ian Nepomniachtchi in the quarterfinals, after the new World Championship Challenger pulled off an unlikely win against Alexander Grischuk in the final round. That almost knocked out Offerspill member Magnus Carlsen, with the World Champion calling it a “massive relief” that he ultimately beat Teimour Radjabov to squeak past the preliminary stage.


Top players Levon Aronian and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov were knocked out at the last second.

Carlsen - Radjabov (1-0)


We'll return with a full update on the FTX Crypto Cup later this week. For now we'll recommend reports by Chess24.