John Saunders reports: Round nine of the FIDE Grand Swiss, played at the Villa Marina, Douglas, Isle of Man on 3 November 2023, saw the group of leaders increase from four to six. Those six are Fabiano Caruana, Bogdan-Daniel Deac, Vidit Gujrathi, Andrey Esipenko, Hikaru Nakamura (who beat Ivan Cheparinov) and Parham Maghsoodloo (who beat Alexey Sarana). They have 6½/9, with a further six players half a point behind them: Alexandr Predke, Yuriy Kuzubov, Arjun Erigaisi, Vincent Keymer, Samuel Sevian and Vladimir Fedoseev on 6. The FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss now has a sole leader, Rameshbabu Vaishali, who beat Antoaneta Stefanova, and leads on 7/9, with Tan Zhongyi and Anna Muzychuk trailing her on 6½. Two rounds remain. Round 10 is scheduled for the normal time of 1430 GMT on Saturday 4 November.