12/2/2020 – Football star Diego Armando Maradona passed away last Wednesday at age 60. Regarded worldwide as one of the greatest players of all time, he was glorified in his home country, Argentina. After his retirement as a professional footballer, Maradona worked as a manager first in 1994-95 and then from 2011 until his death. In the meantime, among other activities, he was a talk show host — in September 2005, former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov was one of his guests. | Pictured: Lorenzo Insigne, Napoli’s forward, placing flowers at a section of the San Paolo Stadium that donned a picture of Maradona. | Photo: Alessandro Garofalo/LaPresse

12/1/2020 – Wesley So stunned Magnus Carlsen on his 30th birthday to win the Skilling Open, the inaugural event of the Champions Chess Tour. Carlsen admitted that So was a deserved winner, as he showed great nerves to make the most of his chances in the blitz tiebreaker. It was not a great tournament for Carlsen — by his extremely high standards — and in the final he faced a tactically alert opponent, who was up to the task when the pressure was at its highest. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/30/2020 – Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So go into the last day of the Skilling Open with the score tied after trading wins with white in the first four games of the final match. It all comes down to the second 4-game mini-match, while another tied score will lead to a blitz tiebreaker. The deciding confrontation will be played on Carlsen’s 30th birthday. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/29/2020 – Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So moved on to the final of the Skilling Open by drawing their second semifinal mini-matches against Ian Nepomniachtchi and Hikaru Nakamura respectively. It was a tougher day at the office for the world champion, who had to come back from a loss in game 1 and find defensive resources in the remaining encounters to keep things under control. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / frchess.com

11/28/2020 – The semifinals of the Skilling Open kicked off on Friday. Magnus Carlsen beat Ian Nepomniachtchi in their first mini-match after collecting three draws and a win. Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura followed a similar pattern, with So getting ahead in the matchup after getting a single win. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/27/2020 – Three out of the four players that qualified to the semifinals of the Skilling Open did it by coming back from behind in their quarterfinal matchups. The only player to move on without needing tiebreaks was Magnus Carlsen, while Ian Nepomniachtchi, Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura reached the semis despite having lost on Wednesday. Carlsen v Nepomniachtchi and So v Nakamura are the semifinal pairings. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/26/2020 – The quarterfinals of the Skilling Open kicked off on Wednesday. Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Teimour Radjabov won their first mini-matches to go into day two of the confrontations only needing a draw in order to move on to the semis. Carlsen was not all that satisfied with his performance, as his opponent, Anish Giri, missed opportunities from better positions more than once. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

11/25/2020 – The knockout stage of the Skilling Open is about to begin after eight participants qualified from a 16-player single round robin preliminary stage. Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura topped the standings on 9 out of 15; Wesley So, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Levon Aronian finished a half point behind; while five players tied on 8 points, with Teimour Radjabov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Anish Giri advancing to the quarterfinals. | Photo: Levon Aronian

11/24/2020 – Day 2 of the preliminaries at the Skilling Open saw Anish Giri keeping the sole lead by scoring five draws in a row. Three players stand close behind, while the race to reach the knockout is fierce, with some big names — e.g. Levon Aronian and Sergey Karjakin — currently not in the top half of the standings table. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/22/2020 – Vahap Sanal obtained his second consecutive Turkish Chess Championship on Saturday in Kemer, a seaside resort and district of Antalya Province. The 22-year-old was the rating favourite and duly dominated the field by scoring five wins and four draws in the 10-player single round robin. IM Melih Yurtseven finished the tournament in style, winning three in a row to get sole second place. | Pictured: Cem Kaan Gokerkan (3rd), Vahap Sanal (1st) and Melih Yurtseven (2nd) | Photos: Official site

11/20/2020 – Since 2005, fan favourite Vassily Ivanchuk has played ten times at the Capablanca Memorial. Playing in Cuba seems to bring out the best of the Ukrainian genius, who won the event no fewer than eight times, including the most recent edition in 2019. We look back on his two most dominating performances, in 2005 and 2007, when he scored +6 and +7 respectively.

11/17/2020 – The 2020 Turkish Championship is taking place in Kemer, a seaside resort and district of Antalya Province on the Mediterranean coast. The event is a 10-player single round-robin. Defending champion and rating favourite Vahap Sanal is leading the standings table on 4 out of 5. Kivanc Haznedaroglu is in sole second place after beating women’s national champion Ekaterina Atalik. | Pictured: Vahap Sanal facing Ataberk Eren in round 4 | Photo: Official site

11/12/2020 – The last of ten “Chess Classic” events played in Mainz took place on August 6-8 at the Rheingoldhalle of the Congress Centre in the German city. An 11-round open tournament with a rapid time control was the main event. Gata Kamsky kicked off with nine consecutive victories and went on to secure first place with draws in the final two rounds. Vugar Gashimov, Levon Aronian and Evgeny Bareev finished a half point behind.

11/8/2020 – An online blitz tournament was organized on Friday in memory of Yuri Sergeyevich Razuvaev, an enormously respected figure for his work as a coach and an author, besides his great accomplishments as a player. Vladimir Kramnik and Evgeny Tomashevsky finished in the top two places at the 8-player single round robin, and played a final 2-game match to decide the winner — Kramnik won with black and drew with white to take first place. | Photo: Alina l'Ami / Tata Steel Chess

11/7/2020 – Alexander Donchenko is on the verge of winning the Tegernsee Masters 2020, as he currently stands 1½ points ahead of his closest pursuer with two rounds to go. Nonetheless, due to Vincent Keymer’s withdrawal, the leader has a bye round on Saturday. The one player with realistic chances to catch up with Donchenko is Matthias Bluebaum, who will be paired up against Thai Dai Van Nguyen and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu on the weekend. | Photos: Sebastian Siebrecht

11/6/2020 – After twenty years as the world’s highest-rated player, Garry Kasparov decided to quit chess and go into politics in March 2005. His last event was the now legendary Linares Tournament. Kasparov had a one-point lead over Veselin Topalov going into their direct encounter in the last round — Topalov won that game, but Kasparov nonetheless won the tournament, as he had a better tiebreak score (more wins with black). | Photos: Nadja Wittmann

11/3/2020 – Starting October 31 until November 8, the Tegernsee Masters tournament is taking place near the shore of Lake Tegernsee in Bavaria, Germany. The event is a 10-player single round robin with 5 German players and 5 international players hailing from the Czech Republic, Italy, Brazil, India and Belgium. Unfortunately, Vincent Keymer withdrew from the tournament after finding out one of his classmates tested positive for Covid-19. | Photos: Sebastian Siebrecht

10/30/2020 – By scoring two quick draws on the last day of competition, Wesley So secured first place at the 2020 U.S. Championship. The Filipino-born grandmaster had a great run from start to finish and took home the $40,000 first prize after obtaining a remarkable 9/11 score. Jeffery Xiong also had a great performance, finishing in sole second place on 8½, while Ray Robson took third place after collecting 7½ points.