12/10/2020 – After Belarus has withdrawn its application to organise the Chess Olympiad 2022 in Minsk due to political uncertainty, and the Chess Olympiad 2020 in Moscow has been postponed to 2021,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!

12/6/2020 – The now traditional Chinese chess tournaments in Danzhou are taking place this year despite the pandemic. An 8-player double round robin with all male participants is running on December 3-9, while a 10-player single round robin women’s tournament — with a faster time control — was played on Friday and Saturday. Hou Yifan, the rating favourite, finished in clear first place, a full point ahead of Sarasadat Khademalsharieh and Tan Zhongyi. | Photo: Official site, retrieved from chess.com

12/6/2020 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. In the fourth part of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving" Herman takes a look at kings in the corner. | Photo: Hans Hoornstra

12/6/2020 – 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!

12/6/2020 – In "Rapid Interview" I talk with personalities of chess, in the course of us playing a rapid game. Grandmaster Jonathan Levitt is my first victim, and it turns out not being so easy to answer all questions confidently, while facing the Albin's Countergambit. Levitt has done a lot for chess in the 80s and 90s, reaching his Grandmaster title in 1994. He wrote chess books, invented tricky chess puzzles, and coached successfully. Why did he suddenly stop playing chess? And how come he wrote a brand-new book? This, and other questions will be answered in the Rapid Interview.

12/5/2020 – 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!

12/5/2020 – A lot of movies have been made where chess was either a backdrop, centerpiece or just one of the key elements to a mystery or climax. But there has not been any mainstream drama series where chess is the main focal point in a series. Netflix decided to adapt The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis into a seven episode mini-series. Special Consultants are Garry Kasparov and Bruce Pandolfini. So you can be rest assured that there won't be odd chess board orientation or or incorrect checkmates. Photo: Pinterest