11/23/2020 – For Magnus Carlsen, the Skilling Open began with a setback. In a winning position, his queen was placed on the wrong square due to a mouse slip and was captured by his opponent. The world champion had a good first day nonetheless. However, it was Anish Giri who finished as the sole leader after five rounds. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/21/2020 – Netflix’s ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ has been praised by viewers and critics as the best chess movie in history. The series is set in an orphanage in the United States and in tournament halls in Paris and Moscow. But where was the film shot? To a large extent, in Berlin! | Photo: Netflix

11/20/2020 – In the first third of the quarterfinal Speed Chess Championship match between Wesley So and Jan-Krzysztof Duda, the young Polish player kept his own in the 5+1 blitz games, and in bullet he was even slightly better. But this was not enough because So dominated Duda in the 3+1 blitz games, which helped So to win the match 16-10 and to qualify for the semifinals. | Picture: Chess.com

11/17/2020 – In the last match of the round of the last 16 at the chess.com Speed Chess Championship Vladislav Artemiev played against Anish Giri. The blitz matches were close but the bullet games helped Artemiev to win the match and to qualify for the quarterfinal. | Picture: Chess.com

11/16/2020 – The Sunday chess.com Speed Chess Championship match between Fabiano Caruana and Jan-Krzyszof Duda ended with a surprisingly clear win of the young Polish player who won 17-9 against the world's number two. Duda particularly dominated in the bullet games. | Picture: chess.com

11/13/2020 – Hikaru Nakamura was simply a bit too strong for the Armenian Haik Martirosyan in their Speed Chess Championship match on chess.com. Nakamura won the blitz and bullet match 21-5, and lost only one of the 26 games. Despite the short time controls and the lopsided result the match offered many interesting and instructive games.

11/9/2020 – 35 years ago today, Garry Kasparov won the 24th game of his second World Championship match against Anatoly Karpov, and the 22-year old became the youngest World Champion in the history of chess. But Kasparov's road to success was anything but easy. | Photos: Kasparov.com

11/5/2020 – A team of scientists from Germany, the Netherlands and the USA studied the development of cognitive abilities in humans and evaluated them using chess games. The result: cognitive skills only increase up to a certain age and today's chess players play better than those of previous generations. | Picture: Pixabay

11/5/2020 – In the last months only a few over-the-board tournaments took place, but in October 30 of the top 100 players were active again and played in FIDE-rated "real" tournaments. Magnus Carlsen is still the clear number one but it was Alireza Firouzja who made the biggest jump ahead by gaining 20 Elo-points in Stavanger.

11/4/2020 – Co-leaders Matthias Bluebaum and Alexander Donchenko met in the fourth round of the Tegernsee Masters. At the end of the day they signed a disputed draw. Thai Dai Van Nguyen (photo) mated Ashot Parvanyan from a pure knight and bishop versus king endgame. | Photos: Official site

10/30/2020 – For many years Chinese women have dominated the chess scene, and since 1991 no less than six Chinese have been Women's World Champion. The the first one was Xie Jun who celebrates her 50th birthday today. In a short interview Xie Jun answers questions about her career.

10/15/2020 – "Chess in Art" is a large-format illustrated volume for all chess enthusiasts with a penchant for art. The book takes its reader on a journey through time, exploring the world of art and showing its connection with chess on over 300 colourful pages. And every single image has a story to tell.

10/14/2020 – Before the last day of his match against Nigel Short, the 18-year old Czech Grandmaster Dai Van Nguyen was trailing in the match, but a strong finish and two wins helped him to decide the match in his favour. The event was organised by the Prague Chess Society.

10/12/2020 – From October 8 to October 29, the St. Louis Chess Club organizes the U.S. Championships, but this year all Championship tournaments are played online and in rapid format. The series began with the U.S. Girls' Junior Championship, and with a smooth and convincing performance Carissa Yip won the tournament and her third title in a row.

10/12/2020 – In the sixth round, Fabiano Caruana took down former leader Levon Aronian. The beneficiary of the defeat was Alireza Firouzja, who won against Aryan Tari and thus took the lead. Magnus Carlsen bounced back from his loss on Saturday and defeated Jan-Krzysztof Duda — the world champion is in third place. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

10/8/2020 – The Penrose family's passion for chess can be traced back to Lionel Penrose, a famous professor of genetics, whose legacy also includes a number of chess problems and studies. Of his four children, Jonathan Penrose showed the greatest talent for chess: he was ten-time British Champion, an International Master, a Grandmaster of Correspondence Chess, and in 1993 the FIDE made him an Honorary Grandmaster. On October 6, his brother Roger Penrose won the Nobel Prize in Physics. | Image: Pioneer Works (Screenshot)

10/7/2020 – The 1. Austrian Internet Championship turned into a race between Stefan Kindermann and Felix Blohberger and was only decided in the last round - by a mouse slip. Blohberger became champion. Elisabeth Happala smoothly won the women's tournament. | Photos: Chess.at

10/6/2020 – Despite the ongoing corona pandemic, the organisers of the Fagernes Open in Norway decided to go ahead with their tournament, which is played live and under strict hygiene regulations. Evgeny Postny, Simen Agdestein and Frode Urkedal are the top seeds in the A-Open, which also functions as Norwegian National Championship. | Photos: Tom Eriksen, Malgorzata Kopaczek-Styczen (Tournament page)