12/23/2023 – The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) on October 31, 2003 and designated December 9 as the International Anti-Corruption Day. Commemorating the twentieth anniversary, this year’s theme for the International Anti-Corruption Day (IACD) was “UNCAC at 20: Uniting the World Against Corruption”.

12/23/2023 – The Chessable Sunway Sitges Festival took place in the municipality of Sitges, not far from Barcelona, directly on the Mediterranean. The main event, a large open tournament, came to an end on Friday after ten rounds of play with the victory of Abhimanyu Puranik. The 23-year-old Indian grandmaster was the only one of the 329 participants to achieve a score of 8½/10, leaving a four-player chasing pack half a point behind. | Photo: David Llada

12/23/2023 – Alireza Firouzja’s attempt to reach the Candidates via rating at a series of matches in Chartres failed at the last hurdle. After scoring five wins in a row, the strongest junior in the world was held to a draw by Sergey Fedorchuk, thus losing 2.8 Elo points and again falling behind Wesley So in the live ratings list. The draw was followed by Firouzja disappearing from the lineups of the World Rapid and Blitz Championships. He still has a week before the year ends — will he try desperately to gain some rating again?

12/23/2023 – We’ve all experienced the evils of time trouble in our chess life. Time is ticking, panic is rising, and we make moves that we wouldn’t consider if we had more time on our clock. From winning to losing – all our effort is wasted because we couldn’t manage our time more efficiently. What is worse – we keep repeating this mistake over and over again.

12/23/2023 – In view of his hanging rook on c6 Black needs a good idea in the diagram position - or should I say the right gift idea? Feel free to be generous!

12/22/2023 – In this video course, GM Surya Ganguly joins IM Sagar Shah and drawing from his colossal experience, shares some uncommon endgame wisdom. The material mostly features positions with rook against rook and a pawn, and starts by covering the fundamentals: Lucena, Philidor, and Vancura. But it quickly enters non-trivial territory, likely to challenge even masters: the slippery theoretical nuances of dealing with doubled pawns and pawns on the f- and h-files.

12/22/2023 – In the "Way to the Candidates" match series, which takes place in Chartres, France, and was designed to help Alireza Firouzja to reach the Candidates, Firouzja has won five of the six scheduled games, overtaking Wesley So on the live-ranking list. However, Firouzja still has to win his second game against Sergey Fedorchuk today. Many chess fans criticised the event, and the US federation asked the FIDE not to rate the games played in these matches.

12/22/2023 – Today's episode is about two Dutch grandmasters playing the French defence. Friso Nijboer is facing Jan Timman, and the position is quickly advancing to a very interesting middle game. A tactical masterpiece is ready to be solved by the viewer!

12/22/2023 – Davide Nastasio loves chess - and when he had a weekend off to play, he was delighted to have the new Fritz 19. In a review he describes what you can do with the engine: "The new Fritz 19 has given me endless hours of fun, thanks to games played against it, as well as games played against other engines and chess bots on the internet."

12/21/2023 – D Gukesh drew his final-round game against Pentala Harikrishna. Arjun Erigaisi defeated Sanan Sjugirov. Both Gukesh and Arjun ended up with the same 4½/7 score. Gukesh won the Chennai Masters on tie-breaks, Arjun was placed second. Pavel Eljanov drew against Levon Aronian. Thus, Harikrishna and Eljanov finished with 4/7 each. Harikrishna secured third place. The objective of organizing this event was certainly a huge success. The top three places were claimed by Indian players. This triumph has moved Gukesh ahead of Anish Giri in the FIDE Circuit leaderboard. Sai Akhil Anand designed and helped with the 'Draw of Lots' in the opening ceremony and the closing ceremony was graced by the one and only Vishy Anand. It goes without saying that the tournament brought a lot of Anand (meaning joy) to all. | Photos: Shahid Ahmed

12/21/2023 – The chess year 2023 will end with a particularly exciting event: the World Rapid and Blitz Championships, which will take place from 26 to 30 December in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Almost the entire world elite will be competing, with Magnus Carlsen the favourite in both tournaments. | Photos: Lennart Ootes, Maria Emelianova/Chess.com

12/21/2023 – It is totally accepted that the 20th FIDE World Champion Magnus Carlsen makes any ending look like a piece of cake! And this is simply based on good knowledge and understanding, two great assets that are wrongly interpreted as intuition and sometimes, even magic! A world leading chess trainer and analyst, GM Efstratios Grivas, shows us how Magnus handles the endgame. You can learn from it!