12/1/2023 – With a final-round win over Richard Rapport, Fabiano Caruana secured tournament victory at the Sinquefield Cup in Saint Louis. This was Caruana’s third victory in this event, as he had previously won it in 2014 (when he famously grabbed seven wins in a row) and in 2018. Sole second place went to Leinier Dominguez, who drew Levon Aronian with the black pieces on Thursday. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

12/1/2023 – On October 7th, in their brutal attack, Hamas took 240 hostages from Israel. After tough negotiations some of them are being currently released. In world-wide actions people showed their support – including in chess circles. In Savion, Hungarian-Israeli IM Sofia Polgar held a simultaneous exhibition in order to show concern and solidarity. Sofia has sent us a report with some very moving pictures.

12/1/2023 – From 9 to 16 February 2024, the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort on the Baltic Sea in Germany will be the venue for a super tournament in "Freestyle Chess", also known as Chess960. Seven world-class players, including world champion Ding Liren and Vincent Keymer, will challenge the G.O.A.T (Greatest of all Times), Magnus Carlsen, in a Chess960 tournament with classical time control.

11/30/2023 – Hans Niemann won the Tournament of Peace in spectacular fashion. The US grandmaster secured tournament victory with a round to spare, but nonetheless checkmated rating favourite Anton Korobov in the final round. Korobov, Ante Brkic and Vasyl Ivanchuk finished in shared second place, a whole 3 points behind the winner. | Photo: Official website

11/30/2023 – The Sinquefield Cup is taking place on November 21-30 at the World Chess Hall of Fame in Saint Louis. The 9-round classical tournament is the last event in this year’s Grand Chess Tour. It also plays a key role in the fight for the last two spots still up for grabs in the 2024 Candidates Tournament. | Follow the games live with expert commentary starting at 20.00 CET (14.00 ET, 0.30 IST)

11/30/2023 – In his Game of the Week show #595, Merijn Van Delft takes a closer look at the marquee matchup between Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So from the Sinquefield Cup in Saint Louis. | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

11/30/2023 – The recently published articles "The Never Ending Saga of Moroccan Chess, Part 1" and "Part 2" described the sorry state of Moroccan chess and the unfortunate end of the International Prix Mohammed VI tournament, where the winners did not receive their prizes. This bizarre end of the tournament overshadowed the success of the young Lithuanian GM Paulius Pultinevicius, who won the event convincingly. | Photo: Paulius Pultinevicius after winning the Riga Technical University Open 2022 | Photo: RTU Open Facebook.

11/30/2023 – All four games ended drawn in the penultimate round of the Sinquefield Cup, which means Wesley So, Fabiano Caruana and Leinier Dominguez continue to share the lead. However, So has already played eight games in the event and will get a rest day on Thursday. In the final round, Caruana will play white against Richard Rapport, while Dominguez will play black against Levon Aronian. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/30/2023 – A 4-player multi-format tournament is taking place from November 27 to December 6 in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Yu Yangyi, Sanan Sjugirov, Nihal Sarin and Saleh Salem first face each other in double round-robin tournaments in classical and rapid chess, and then in a triple round-robin blitz event. After three rounds of classical games, Yu leads the standings with 15/18 points (in classical, a win grants 6 points). | Photo: Aditya Sur Roy

11/29/2023 – Endgame studies don’t need to be perfect to be entertaining. Prizes are to be awarded to endgame studies that meet the highest standards. Honorable mentions are for endgame studies of great but not the highest quality. Special awards should be for those that can’t compete with other studies. Let us examine what this means.

11/29/2023 – Fabiano Caruana and Leinier Dominguez both scored back-to-back wins in rounds 6 and 7 of the Sinquefield Cup to join Wesley So in the lead of the standings. Caruana, in fact, defeated So on Tuesday, and he did it in remarkable style. By beating the former sole leader, Caruana also secured first place in the Grand Chess Tour and crossed the 2800-mark in the live ratings list! | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/28/2023 – In some sports, being a lefthander might give you a substantive advantage over your opponents. In table tennis or in tennis, for example, lefthanders score better over their right-handed opponents. Why? Approximately 90 percent of professional table tennis players are right-handed. Therefore, a left-hander plays a right-hander in 9 out of 10 matches, whereas a right-handed player plays a leftie only in 1 out of 10 matches. Left-handed players therefore have 9 times more experience with such a match, and therefore score consistently better. | Photo: John McEnroe, one of the most famous and successful left-handed tennis players | Photo: Wikipedia, Nrbelex