12/28/2023 – Problemists love to construct problems in shapes that symbolize something auspicious. The great composer (and World Championship candidate) Pal Benkö sent us a problem shaped like a candle. Today we bring you two problems shaped like Christmas trees. They are not too hard, which we cannot say about the third problem, which taxes the brain.

12/28/2023 – Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Fedoseev and Yu Yangyi are sharing the lead in the open section of the World Rapid Championship after nine rounds. Carlsen and Fedoseev could have gone into the third and final day of action a half point ahead of Yu had them converted superior endgame positions in round 9. In the women’s tournament, Anastasia Bodnaruk climbed to sole first place after scoring 3½/4 points on Wednesday. | Photo: FIDE / Lennart Ootes

12/27/2023 – Should there ever be an underrated underdog, it would be Shreyas Royal. In the London Chess Classics, the 14-year-old IM, had to face nine Grandmasters! With his ELO rating of 2404, he had a rating 200-350 lower than all other players. Still, he ended up with 4/9 points, finishing ahead of players like Moussard, Vitiugov, and McShane. Robert Ris shows us the game the young Brit played against Jules Moussard!

12/27/2023 – Alireza Firouzja has not given up. After failing to surpass Wesley So in the ratings list in a series of matches in Chartres, the youngster withdrew from the World Rapid and Blitz Championship and registered to participate in an open tournament in Rouen, France. The tournament is a 7-round Swiss Open, with Gata Kamsky (rated 2634) and Li Min Peng (2562) the second and third seeds, respectively. In the meantime, FIDE published a reviewed tournament registration procedure. | Photo: Europe Echecs

12/27/2023 – Let's say you find an interesting mating motif. Now you want to use it as the final position of a chess problem you will compose. The moves leading to it must be imaginative, clever and not very easy to find. But they must also be unique. There mustn't be alternative sets of move that lead to the final (or any) mate. For amateur composers, here's an example of a fellow amateur making a valid problem out of the position displayed.

12/26/2023 – Five players ended day 1 of the World Rapid Championship sharing first place with 4½/5 points. Magnus Carlsen, who assessed his play on the first day as “so-so”, heads the leading pack, which also includes Yu Yangyi, Vidit Gujrathi, Arjun Erigaisi and Ivan Cheparinov. In the women’s section, Zhu Jiner and Nurgyul Salimova are sharing first place with perfect 4/4 scores. | Photo: FIDE / Lennart Ootes

12/23/2023 – The Chessable Sunway Sitges Festival took place in the municipality of Sitges, not far from Barcelona, directly on the Mediterranean. The main event, a large open tournament, came to an end on Friday after ten rounds of play with the victory of Abhimanyu Puranik. The 23-year-old Indian grandmaster was the only one of the 329 participants to achieve a score of 8½/10, leaving a four-player chasing pack half a point behind. | Photo: David Llada

12/23/2023 – Alireza Firouzja’s attempt to reach the Candidates via rating at a series of matches in Chartres failed at the last hurdle. After scoring five wins in a row, the strongest junior in the world was held to a draw by Sergey Fedorchuk, thus losing 2.8 Elo points and again falling behind Wesley So in the live ratings list. The draw was followed by Firouzja disappearing from the lineups of the World Rapid and Blitz Championships. He still has a week before the year ends — will he try desperately to gain some rating again?

12/23/2023 – We’ve all experienced the evils of time trouble in our chess life. Time is ticking, panic is rising, and we make moves that we wouldn’t consider if we had more time on our clock. From winning to losing – all our effort is wasted because we couldn’t manage our time more efficiently. What is worse – we keep repeating this mistake over and over again.

12/23/2023 – In view of his hanging rook on c6 Black needs a good idea in the diagram position - or should I say the right gift idea? Feel free to be generous!

12/22/2023 – In this video course, GM Surya Ganguly joins IM Sagar Shah and drawing from his colossal experience, shares some uncommon endgame wisdom. The material mostly features positions with rook against rook and a pawn, and starts by covering the fundamentals: Lucena, Philidor, and Vancura. But it quickly enters non-trivial territory, likely to challenge even masters: the slippery theoretical nuances of dealing with doubled pawns and pawns on the f- and h-files.

12/22/2023 – In the "Way to the Candidates" match series, which takes place in Chartres, France, and was designed to help Alireza Firouzja to reach the Candidates, Firouzja has won five of the six scheduled games, overtaking Wesley So on the live-ranking list. However, Firouzja still has to win his second game against Sergey Fedorchuk today. Many chess fans criticised the event, and the US federation asked the FIDE not to rate the games played in these matches.