1/8/2010 – Before the final round of this prestigious Italian tournament seven-time Hungarian champion Zoltan Almasi was a full point ahead. But he had to face his main rival, Gata Kamsky, with the black pieces. The US grandmaster played a dashing exchange sacrifice on move 17 to take the game and the overall tournament victory. Second was Almasi, third Fabiano Caruana. Final report.

1/7/2010 – Professor Kenneth Rogoff is a strong chess grandmaster, who also happens to be one of the world's leading economists. In a Project Syndicate article that appeared this week Ken sees the new decade as one in which "artificial intelligence hits escape velocity," with an economic impact on par with the emergence of India and China. He uses computer chess to illustrated the point.

1/7/2010 – He became a grandmaster at the age of twelve years and seven months – the youngest in history. Sergey Karjakin, who turns twenty next Tuesday, is ten months older than Magnus Carlsen, the current number one in the world rankings. In the magazine Segodnja Sport the former Ukrainian, who is lives in and plays for Russia, tells us about his chess programme, marriage and life in Moscow.

1/6/2010 – With one round to go the seven-time Hungarian champion Zoltan Almasi has scored 6.5/8, a full point ahead of his nearest rival, Gata Kamsky. Almasi has won five of his last six games, including a key game against Viktor Bologan in round six. His performance: 2859. Kamsky and Almasi face each other tomorrow in the final round. Pictorial report.

1/6/2010 – The 2009-10 Hastings Masters ended in a fourway tie for first place, between Mark Hebden of England, British Champion David Howell, Andrei Istratescu of Roumania, and Romain Edouard of France. In the final round Hebden and Istratescu halved out in 11 moves, but Howell had to fight for a black victory. Our report on the last two rounds includes a big pictorial of lesser-known players.

1/6/2010 – In 1910 Emanuel Lasker was World Champion, but the arguably strongest player in the world was the Polish master Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein (1882–1961), a dominant figure in tournament chess who was winning most events and in glorious style. In this week's Playchess lecture Dennis Monokroussos looks at a game or two of his from the 1911 tournament in Karlsbad. 9 p.m. ET

1/5/2010 – According to the current FIDE rankings Magnus Carlsen is the strongest player in the world. But his rating of 2810 is not the highest ever. That was achieved by Garry Kasparov, who in the July 1999 FIDE list reached 2851 points. Two other players have at some stage had higher ratings than Magnus. Here's a list of all Super-GMs (over 2700) and their top ratings.

1/5/2010 – An active king often plays a decisive part in rook endings. If it can support a passed pawn in its advance, then the king and pawn form an extremely deadly duo. So the ability of the rook to cut off the king horizontally or vertically from one of the theatres of war and thus to restrict its activity is an important weapon in the arsenal of endgame technique. Karsten Müller has selected a recent endgame in which the theme of the barrier and the struggle against it are in the foreground.

Analysis of Brynell-Popov for ChessBase Magazine Online.

1/4/2010 – A Ukrainian, Czech, Romanian, and thank heavens three Brits lead at the traditional Hastings International Chess Congress. David Howell lost a winning position after a blunder in round five, but picked up two points in the next two rounds to join the leaders. Our correspondent in situ, Steve Giddins, continues to taunt us with Latin phrases, but has at least the kindness to provide translations. Of sorts.

1/3/2010 – The 52nd Reggio Emilia tournament 2009-10 is taking place from December 28th 2009 to January 6th 2010. After five rounds Zoltan Almasi and Gata Kamsky are in the lead, with 3.5/5 points each. But the hero is Viktor Bologan, who lost his first two games and won the next three. That is fighting spirit and contributes to the low drawing average of 44%. Pictorial report.

1/2/2010 – Lucidity is the hallmark of good chess instruction, but what happens if the teacher has no conception of intelligibility? The Editor of Chess Notes dips into the wordy world of the ‘grand left oblique aligned en appui with major crochet’, where ‘designations for posting disparity are u lead and (u) lag’. Recommended for code-breaking practice...

1/2/2010 – With serious corporate sponsors coming in to support the most exciting sporting hero Norway has had in decades (or ever?) Magnus Carlsen has closed his previous blog, run mainly by father Henrik, and started posting, mainly himself, on the web site of Arctic Securities, one of his sponsors. The old blog informs visitors of the switch and thanks all associates who have helped Magnus in his career.