12/23/2022 – Chess is fun but it can also be difficult. Being a chess parent is also often fun but sometimes it can also be difficult. Daniel Sokol, chess enthusiast and father of two kids who love to play chess and to compete in tournaments, shares some of his adventures and insights as a chess parent. And concludes: "The chess tournament, with its wealth of emotions and experiences, is an excellent training ground for the challenges of life for the children, and of parenthood for the adults." | Photo: Sebastian Siebrecht

12/22/2022 – In his “Game of the Week” show #547 Merijn van Delft analyses one of Kirill Alekseenko’s victory from the Sitges tournament. Alekseenko combined positional play with good old attacking chess, making chess look easy in the process! | Merijn’s show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

12/22/2022 – On 12 December the Hungarian Grandmaster Ivan Farago died at the age of 76. He was born on 1 April 1946 in Budapest, and in 1974 he became an International Master. The Grandmaster title followed two years later, in 1976. In 1986 he became Hungarian Champion and in July 1993 he reached a peak rating of 2540. In a short obituary FIDE pays tribute to this passionate player. | Photo: LGA

12/22/2022 – The Israeli Championships took place on December 5-13 in the southern city of Arad, with a prize fund of 110 thousands NIS. The surprising winner was 20-year-old IM Ido Gorshtein, while IM Yuliya Shvayger defended her title in the women’s competition. | Pictured: FIDE Arbiter Ilana Glaz, Yuliya Shvayger, Avital Boruchovsky, Gil Boruchovsky (General Director of ICF), Ido Gorshtein, Ori Kochavi, Flory Sterling, Deputy Mayor of Arad. | Photos: Dr. Mark Livshitz

12/22/2022 – The 1972 World Championship match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spasski is regarded as one of the most critical moments in the history of chess, occurring 50 years ago. To present you with this year's Christmas calendar in the proper setting, Arne swiftly constructed a time machine, and went back 50 years. Of course, the 1972 World Cup is the main calendar focus this time! You have the opportunity to guess, count, and conduct research every day for a chance to win one of 90 ChessBase prizes. Your chances of winning one of the major prizes increases, the more questions you can correctly guess. | Photo: Original by World Chess Hall of Fame

12/22/2022 – The Sunway Chess Festival, sponsored by Chessable, is taking place on December 12-22 at the Playa Golf Hotel in Sitges, Catalonia. Two massive open tournaments will be played at the resort southwest of Barcelona. Over 300 players have registered to participate in the main group, with the likes of Andrey Esipenko and Vasyl Ivanchuk in the mix. | Follow the games live with expert commentary. The final round starts at 9.30 CET (4.30 ET, 15.00 IST)

12/18/2022 – At a time often known for excess — and at the end of a year when we’ve had two different monarchs and three different prime ministers in the United Kingdom — Jon Speelman considered it fitting to explore chess positions with more than two queens on the board. Remarkably, these positions arise rather frequently (relative to how rare this situation is) in games involving the ever-creative Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

12/18/2022 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. In the 104th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to explain why it is good to study and to play the Sicilian. | Photo: Pascal Simon

12/18/2022 – After knocking out Nihal Sarin and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave respectively, Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen reached the final of the Speed Chess Championship. Since Carlsen won the inaugural 2017 edition, Nakamura has claimed the last four. A clash of titans! | Follow the action live with expert commentary from 20.00 CET (14.00 ET, 11.00 PT)

12/18/2022 – By beating former co-leader Karthikeyan Murali, Kirill Alekseenko became the first sole leader at the main event of the Sunway Chess Festival in Sitges. After six rounds, the Russian grandmaster still has a perfect score. Standing in sole second place is Karen Grigoryan, who defeated Anton Demchenko on Saturday. Nine players stand a half point further back, including top seeds Yu Yangyi and Hans Niemann. | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

12/18/2022 – The 1972 World Championship match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spasski is regarded as one of the most critical moments in the history of chess, occurring 50 years ago. To present you with this year's Christmas calendar in the proper setting, Arne swiftly constructed a time machine, and went back 50 years. Of course, the 1972 World Cup is the main calendar focus this time! You have the opportunity to guess, count, and conduct research every day for a chance to win one of 90 ChessBase prizes. Your chances of winning one of the major prizes increases, the more questions you can correctly guess. | Photo: Original by World Chess Hall of Fame

12/17/2022 – The Dragon grandmaster is back with an interesting game for all you Sicilian lovers. Two U16 talents battled it out in the last European Youth Chess Championship 2022. But before this game is thoroughly presented by Chris Ward, first, we take a closer look at a recent game between Arjun Erigaisi and Fabiano Caruana. Nonetheless, in the second game, the Topalov Variation is on the board, and the British GM shows us some very interesting lines, plans, and ideas with this system. | Photo: John Upham