12/4/2025 – Arjun Erigaisi claimed the Jerusalem Masters title after a tightly contested knockout stage that featured four seasoned competitors emerging from the round-robin phase. The tournament winner edged Viswanathan Anand in a blitz tiebreak after their rapid games ended level, while Peter Svidler secured third place by defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi. | Photo: Official website / Yoav Nis

12/3/2025 – The public release of "War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko" marks the first opportunity for general audiences to view the award-winning animated short outside festival and academy screenings. The film, created by Dave Mullins and Sean Ono Lennon, blends an anti-war message with a story centred on correspondence chess in an alternate First World War setting. Its release also supports War Child, raising funds for children affected by armed conflict. | Image: ElectroLeague

12/3/2025 – Tomorrow (4 December) marks the official start of the Freestyle Finals in South Africa. The opening press conference at The Silo Hotel in Cape Town will be followed by a diving chess competition. From 8 December, the Grand Slam Finals will begin at Grootbos Private Nature Reserve, featuring Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Vincent Keymer and Javokhir Sindarov, among others. | Photos: Freestyle Chess

12/3/2025 – At the second Jerusalem Chess Festival, Arseniy Nesterov and Evgeny Alekseev qualified for the Masters as the best players in the Open and faced ten invited participants there. Svidler, Anand, Nepomniachtchi and Erigaisi advanced from the round-robin tournament of the Masters to the knockout stage. The semi-finals and finals will be played today. | Photos: Tournament website/ Alon Shulman

12/3/2025 – Ed Schröder, pioneer of chess engine programming, has in his retirement turned his attention to a new and very exciting project: to extract games from a database collection that are especially aggressive – that are short and have daring sacrifices and king attacks. He shows us the kinds of result you can get. Best of all: you can download the utility and use it on your databases.

12/3/2025 – Nodirbek Abdusattorov secured at least a share of first place at the London Chess Classic by earning his sixth straight win in round seven, defeating Luke McShane in a hard-fought Ruy Lopez. With a two-point lead over Alireza Firouzja and only two rounds remaining, the Uzbek grandmaster is close to securing overall victory. The remaining games were drawn, including an enterprising effort by defending champion Gawain Maroroa Jones against Michael Adams. | Photo: Amruta Mokal (Freestyle Chess Grand Slam)

12/1/2025 – The first half of the London Chess Classic was dominated by Nodirbek Abdusattorov (photo). In round 5 he defeated Nikolas Theodorou with White, reaching 4.5/5 at the halfway mark and pulling a full point ahead of Alireza Firouzja. Firouzja drew with Black against Gawain Maroroa Jones and now stands on 3.5/5. Abhimanyu Mishra and Luke McShane also drew, as did Pavel Eljanov and Michael Adams. The second win of the round went to Nikita Vitiugov, who won a theoretically interesting game against Sam Shankland.| Photo: Tennis legend Andy Murray (center) makes the ceremonial first move | Photo: Tournament page

12/1/2025 – The European Rapid and Blitz Championships in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, brought together more than 350 players from 38 federations. Lithuanian GM Paulius Pultinevicius won the rapid title with a 10/11 score after a final-round victory over Vasyl Ivanchuk (who lost on time in an endgame with an extra pawn), while Jorden van Foreest secured the blitz crown by finishing on 11/13. | Photo: European Chess Union

11/30/2025 – At the next Candidates Tournament, in spring 2026 in Cyprus, eight players will compete to determine the challenger to world champion Gukesh Dommaraju. Five of the players are in the current world top ten, while three are far from it. Several top players who one might have expected to see in the Candidates failed to qualify by any route. Has FIDE put forth a fair World Championship format? | Photo: Larneg (Pixabay)

11/30/2025 – Round four of the London Chess Classic saw Nodirbek Abdusattorov keep his sole lead with a third straight win, this time over Michael Adams in their first classical encounter ever. Alireza Firouzja also scored, outplaying Pavel Eljanov in a lengthy rook endgame, while Luke McShane defeated Gawain Maroroa Jones after a promising position for Black collapsed around move twenty. The remaining games were drawn, leaving Abdusattorov ahead on 3½ points. | Photo: Official website

11/30/2025 – The European Blitz and Rapid Chess Championships are being held in Pristina, Kosovo, from 28 to 30 November. The Rapid Championship concluded on Friday and Saturday; the Blitz Championship follows on Sunday, with thirteen rounds of blitz chess (3+2) on the schedule. Vasyl Ivanchuk, Baadur Jobava, Jorden Van Foreest, Rasmus Svane and Christian Bauer are among the many top European players in the field. Follow the action live with commentary from 10:30 local time.

11/29/2025 – In his new Fast & Furious show, Robert Ris looks into the FIDE World Cup which has seen a lot of interesting games, featuring spectacular openings as the KO-format forces players to take a lot of risks.| Fast & Furious is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.