12/10/2020 – The 11th edition of the Danzhou Tournament took place on December 3-9, with half the participants playing online from the Country Garden Havana Holiday Hotel in Danzhou and the other half playing from home. It was an 8-player double round robin with a time control of 15 minutes for the game and 10-second increments from the start. Hungarian GM Richard Rapport was the clear winner after collecting 8/14 points. Ding Liren got sole second place. | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

12/10/2020 – Round 5 of the Open Tournament of the Russian Championship brought five draws and one win: Maksim Matlakov defeated Maksim Chigaev but this did not affect the standings at the top. With 3.5/5 Ian Nepomniachtchi and Sergey Karjakin still share the lead. In the Women's Tournament Polina Shuvalova extended her winning streak and won her fifth game in a row and now leads with with 5.0/5. | Photos: Eteri Kublashvili

12/10/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/10/2020 – After Belarus has withdrawn its application to organise the Chess Olympiad 2022 in Minsk due to political uncertainty, and the Chess Olympiad 2020 in Moscow has been postponed to 2021, FIDE now decided "to have just one Olympiad during this period", in Moscow 2022. The Chess Olympiad 2024 will take place in Budapest. | Photo: FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich | Photo: Vladimir Barsky

12/9/2020 – Four parallel tournaments were organized at La Palma, the most north-westerly island of the Canary Islands, Spain. Besides a Scheveningen match in which five Spanish players are facing a multinational squad, three 10-player single round robin tournaments took place, with local talents looking to get GM, IM and WGM norms. The strongest of these events was won by IM Julio Suárez (pictured), who tied atop the standings table with Alexandr Fier on 6/9 and got first place on tiebreaks. | Photos: Spanish Chess Federation (FEDA)

12/9/2020 – In his "Game of the Week" show, Merijn van Delft takes a look at a fantastic attacking game by the young Spanish Grandmaster Jaime Santos Latasa. | Merijn's show is available at 16.00 UTC (17:00 CET, 12:00 EDT) and on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

12/9/2020 – St. Augustine, Florida, is America’s oldest continuously inhabited, European-established city. At its center is a pavilion, now called the Plaza de la Constitución but historically known as the slave market. Estelle Thibodeau reintroduced chess to that plaza and to a pizzeria, as told to Woman International Master Alexey Root. | Pictured: Estelle Thibodeau | Photo: Jennifer Jordan

12/9/2020 – After four rounds Ian Nepomniachtchi and Sergey Karjakin share the lead at the Russian Superfinals. In round 4 Nepomniachtchi scored a fine win with Black in the Najdorf, while Karjakin drew. In the Women's Tournament Polina Shuvalova continues to win and now leads the field with 4.0/4. | Photos: Eteri Kublashvili

12/9/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/9/2020 – One year of top level chess and top level training materials: six issues (a one-year-subscription) of the ChessBase Magazine, that is the first prize in the 7th tournament of the Autumn Series on Playchess, a nine round Swiss blitz tournament that will start on Wednesday, December 9, 20.00 CET (19:00 UTC, 14:00 ET). As in all tournaments of the Autumn Series, the games will be played under real names.

12/8/2020 – In his "Weekly Show" IM Lawrence Trent takes a look at the Russian Superfinals and presents a fine game by Polina Shuvalova. | Lawrence's show is available at 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET, 14:00 ET) on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

12/8/2020 – ASD stands for Autism Spectrum Disorder, a complex developmental condition that leads to challenges in social interaction, speech and nonverbal communication, and restricted or repetitive behaviors. People with autism or Asperger's often have special interests to which they apply themselves with great dedication. One such interest can be chess, and that provides opportunity and benefits – as described from personal experience by a young man with ASD. | Illustration by Bobby Lopez