Fabiano in the lead in Italian Championship

12/9/2008 – After five rounds he led the field by a full point. In round six Fabiano Caruana, one of the great youth talents in international chess – at 16 he is already rated 2640 – suffered a shock defeat against another 16-year-old, who is three hundred points below him on the rating list. But Fab Fab remains in the lead and looks poised to bounce back and win the championship. Report by Dario Mione.

Ulf Andersson's 'do not hurry' approach

12/9/2008 – Some games require analyzing loads of complicated variations to understand them. No so with the one in this Wednesday's Playchess lecture, which Dennis Monokroussos dedicates to a 2000 win by the Swedish GM over Sergey Ivanov. For this game, he says, we have to use some different tools.

Hou Yifan – the youngest female grandmaster in history

12/8/2008 – In 1991 Judit Polgar became a grandmaster, at the age of 15 years, four months and 28 days – breaking Bobby Fischer's 1958 record of 15 years six months and one day. Now Judit has been surpassed, by a 14-year-old Chinese prodigy: Hou Yifan, born three years after Judit's GM award, has obtained her title at the age of 14 years, six months and two days. Congratulations, Yifan!

Super-GM tournament in Nanjing, China

12/7/2008 – Just when you thought we were in for a Christmas break, the next Super tournament in the category of Wijk, Linares and Dortmund starts. It includes Topalov, Ivanchuk, Aronian, Movsesian, Svidler, and Bu Xiangzhi and will be staged in the beautiful Mingfa Pearl Spring Hotel in Nanjing, a subtropical city that used to be the capital of China. The tournament web site has pictures and videos.

12-year-old in contention in Ukraine Championship

12/6/2008 – The 2008 Ukraine Championship is missing Ivanchuk, Ponomariov and Karjakin, but is still very strong, with 26 participants, including 17 GMs. The player to watch is IM Illya Nyzhnyk. At twelve he sports a 2444 rating, and after four rounds he has three points (two wins, two draws). His performance: 2783. From Poltava we bring you a big pictorial report by Anastasiya Karlovich.

Levon Aronian: FIDE must reverse its decision!

12/6/2008 – "I must request you to critically view and question the GA's latest decisions," writes Levon Aronian, the world's number seven ranked player, to the FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. "Why should we go through several tournaments over several years and fight for a place in a tournament that another player gets by losing a match?" The winner of the second Grand Prix sent us this open letter.

Should kings really decide the result of a game?

12/6/2008 – Which recent report generated the fastest and most vigorous reader responses? Not the new cycle of FIDE, not Ivanchuk's run-in with the doping commission. It was Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh's proposal to force players to play out every game until mate. In 24 hours we received a slew of letters ranging from "silly idea" to "most brilliant proposal since the inception of the game". Feedback.

The future of all databases

12/5/2008 – If you want to compete successfully, you must know the current state of affairs: which variations are played and why some old ideas are just no good any more. In short, you need a database which is up-to-date, complete, reliable, and ready to get going at once. All this is guaranteed by the new ChessBase Mega Database 2009, which is now ready for shipping. Buy it now or read more.

Let kings decide the result of a game on the board

12/5/2008 – Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh is imaginative, innovative, eccentric. In other words: our kind of person. Once a year he approaches us with a radical idea – last year it was video cameras and intelligent object recognition software tracking games and replacing sensor boards. This year at the Olympiad in Dresden he had a proposal to change how a chess game ends. Judge for yourself.

Magnus Carlsen withdraws from Grand Prix

12/5/2008 – After a week of correspondence with the FIDE office in Athens, and after receiving replies he deemed unsatisfactory, Magnus Carlsen, the world's number four ranked player, has decided to withdraw from the 2008-2009 FIDE Grand Prix cycle. Instead, the Norwegian GM, who turned 18 last Sunday, will "concentrate on playing well organised and interesting top level events elsewhere". From Magnus' blog.

FIDE announces bidding procedure for World Championship

12/4/2008 – Are you the mayor of an affluent town or community? The head of PR for a major corporation? If you are seeking world-wide publicity you can obtain it by staging the Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship – or the World Championship itself. The price of the former has been slashed from a million to €400,000; the latter needs a million Euros in prize money. Announcement.

Wijk aan Zee 2009 – players, places, dates and times

12/4/2008 – The annual Wijk aan Zee tournament takes place from January 16th to February 1st 2009. Anand, Topalov and Kramnik are missing, but Morozevich, Ivanchuk, Carlsen, Aronian and Radjabov make for a star-studded field. Groups B and C are also well equipped with interesting players, including a former world champion and the current junior world champions. Full information.

World Champion vs lowly IM – a crush

12/3/2008 – Mikhail Tal was winning Gold for the Soviet team at the Olympiad. In the final round he faced IM Jonathan Penrose. As one might expect, it was a crush – but the "crushee" was Tal. In his Playchess lecture Dennis Monokroussos introduces us to this remarkable player and his remarkable game. Be there at 9 p.m. ET.

Nigel Davies – The English Opening

12/3/2008 – "I don’t know many people who actually enjoy playing against the English Opening," the reviewer writes. "In my experience, club and tournament players are rarely well prepared to meet it. Thus it seems a very reasonable idea to add it to your collection of favourite openings." You can do this with Nigel Davies' trainer DVD. Order it now or read this review by Sean Marsh.

Carlsen on the Grand Prix + readers' feedback

12/3/2008 – The cauldron is on the boil, FIDE has changed the World Championship qualification regulations, Alexei Shirov has lodged a protest. Now Magnus Carlsen, represented by his father Henrik, hints at legal action and withdrawal from the cycle. We bring you a report from his blog and feedback from readers on this and other subjects (including Aronian on women and computers!). A long, interesting read.

Olympiad Dresden: statistics and stories

12/2/2008 – The games are over, but there are still plenty of stories to tell about one of the biggest and most spectacular chess Olympiads ever. We start our series of retrospective articles with one on the Elo winners, a medal-deciding game, on the most unusual results, the stolen diamond, the reception of the winners in their home countries and the trauma of a 0-4 loss against your arch rivals. Enjoy.

Alexei Shirov: 'Let us ban FIDE!'

12/2/2008 – "I don’t know how many times I have said to myself," says the world class GM and world championship runner-up, "that it makes no sense at all to keep getting involved in chess politics and that I should just concentrate on my work. But the recent FIDE 'developments' possibly made many late great champions turn in their graves. That means the living chess players should speak out." Press release.

Olympiad Dresden: The Ivanchuk Files

12/2/2008 – The events surrounding the failed attempt to get Vassily Ivanchuk to submit to a doping test have hit the broadsheets and news services. A number of chess players, most publicly Alexei Shirov, have expressed fears that Ivanchuk may be banned from competitive chess and the medals redistributed. Before you make up your mind where you stand, here are all the details of the case.

Edward Winter's Chess Explorations (13)

12/1/2008 – The famous brilliancy in which Carl Carls defeated Schuster lasted under a dozen moves, but the Editor of Chess Notes points out that there are many complications. These are historical (when did the game occur, and did Carlos Torre score an identical victory the following decade?) as well as analytical (was the combination sound?). A detailed investigation is presented.

Magnus Carlsen – now we are eighteen

11/30/2008 – We first introduced the Wonderboy, the "Mozart of Chess", to our readership back in January 2004. In the meantime countless articles have been written about this super-star of chess, who for a few days in September this year topped the live world rankings. Today he is eighteen – a good opportunity to embarrass him with some baby photos we dug up. Happy Birthday, Magnus!

Bob Wade – eulogies to a well-loved personality.

11/30/2008 – Robert Wade, player, writer, arbiter, coach and chess promoter, passed yesterday at the age of 87. Our report on his life and work found a world-wide echo, and we received dozens of messages from close friends and chance acquaintances. They include Speelman, Nunn, Short, Levitt, Levy, O'Connell – and a long article with annotated games by GM Raymond Keene. A fond farewell to Bob Wade.

Chess legend Bob Wade dies at 87

11/29/2008 – Robert Graham Wade, player, writer, arbiter, coach and chess promoter, was born in New Zealand, where he won the national championship three times. After moving to England he won the British Championship twice and played for England in six Olympiads. He beat Korchnoi and helped Bobby Fischer prepare for his match in Reykjavik. Bob died in the early hours of the morning. In memoriam.

Olympiad in Dresden: Closing ceremony and prize giving

11/29/2008 – 1,270 players took part in the event, hailing from 141 different countries. 722 men and 548 women played a total of 6,050 games. In the end Armenia and Georgia had won Gold in the men's and women's sections. But there were also prizes in different Elo categories, medals for best performances on different boards. We bring you all the winners in this big pictorial report.

Good humour, personal stories, and the champion's best games

11/28/2008 – Vishy Anand's clear victory at the World Championship in Bonn was the chess highlight of the year. During the match one wag suggested Kramnik might have fared better had he watched Anand's DVDs 'My Career'. Steve Goldberg of Chesscafe did just that and enjoyed the great combination of humour, anecdotes and in-depth annotation in volume two. Buy it now or read more.