1/7/2011 – It's the place where the Pope spends his holidays – a small hilly village in the affluent outskirts of Rome. It is also the venue of a day-long nine-round rapid tournament, with more than 140 participants, organised by Caissa Italia, a publishing house of quality chess books in Rome. The guest of honour this year was Judit Polgar, who went on to win the tournament. Diana Mihajlova reports.

1/6/2011 – Bishop endings when both are of the same colour are often extremely drawish, since after all the bishop can only go on to half of the squares on the board. Thus in this game from the Schaakfestival in Groningen a draw would have been unavoidable after  40...b3? 41.Bc1 Bxe5 42.Bb2. But over the board the Dutch grandmaster Sipke Ernst found a much better move, which leads by force to a position in which the choice of the correct route for the king is decisive. Can you also see which liquidation he chose? You will find analysis of the endgame by GM Dr. Karsten Müller at ChessBase Magazine Online.

1/6/2011 – In a dramatic last round at the Sussex seaside it was the Indian players Deep Sengupta and Arghyadip Das who emerged as joint winners of the 2010/11 Hastings Masters. The first-named faced the overnight leader, Romain Edouard, on top board and played a splendid attacking game against the French GM's Sicilian. Steve Giddins reports on rounds 7-9.

1/5/2011 – After watching Vallejo Pons take off with a 3.5/4 start, and the rest of the field parked at a squalid 50%, it seemed as if the Spaniard was all but assured of the tournament victory. However, Azerbaidjani Gashimov had other ideas and scored 3.5/4 in the last rounds including a shattering win over Paco himself to tie for the lead. It is anyone's guess for the last two rounds. Illustrated report.

1/5/2011 – Garry Kasparov, who requires no introduction on the news page, and Peter Andreas Thiel, a German-born American entrepreneur and venture capitalist who was instrumental in founding or promoting companies like PayPal, Facebook and LinkedIn (and is a 2300 strength chess player). The two spent a day together in New York, and the European TV network Arte recorded the event.

1/5/2011 – The new ChessBase Tutorials have been top sellers in this Christmas season. Rather than focusing in great detail on a particular variation or opening, each opening tutorial offers a broad overview of an entire family of openings. The discs include 24 video clips (actually, 48: 24 in English and 24 in German) running approximately five hours. Review by Dennis Monokroussos + video sample.

1/4/2011 – Last week we told you about the ChessBase Christmas party – but left one part of the report pending: the special guest we had invited to give the our staff, friends and business partners a seasonally heart-warming musical experience. The guest was an actress, singer, composer and book author, who gave us a preview of songs from her next album. Vaile at ChessBase.

1/3/2011 – Rook endings in which both sides have passed pawns can be very sharp, and today's example from recent tournament praxis is hard to evaluate.  White can

- play 54.h6 and bet on the race between the passed pawns, 
- send his g-pawn forwards with 54.g5
- or else put Black in zugzwang with 54.Re8. Which move would you choose?

You can find the analysis by Dr. Karsten Müller in ChessBase Magazine Online.

1/3/2011 – Round 5 of the 2010/11 Hastings Masters saw a thoroughly bloodthirsty day's play, including an absolute thriller in which David Howell won his fifth game in succession. In the sixth round, however, the young Brit played a feeble Benoni and lost to rating top seed Romain Edouard. Both players now share the top of the score table with two Indian IMs. Report by Steve Giddins.

1/2/2011 – While Nigel Short had seemed constantly to rise from the ashes in his games, Vallejo-Pons had been the most inspired player so far. Their game confirmed the Spaniard's great form as he played an exceptional game, winning with a beautiful middlegame melee. On the rest day, Morozevich started his year with a win over Navara, joining Short and five others on 50%. Illustrated round four report.

1/1/2011 – Just three months and two days after his 14th birthday the Ukrainian prodigy held GM Abhijeet Gupta to a draw. It was the penultimate round of the Groningen Chess Festival, but young Illya had enough points to secure his final GM norm, making him the currently youngest grandmaster in the world, and the eleventh youngest in history. Illustrated report.

1/1/2011 – Magnus Carlsen was the world's top player from January to November 2010, when he was overtaken by World Champion Viswanathan Anand. In the past two months Anand gained six more points, but the 20-year-old picked up twelve to regain his top ranking. Magnus' perennial rival Sergey Karjakin gained 16 points to enter the top-five bracket. January 1st 2011 FIDE rankings.