12/3/2023 – Vaishali Rameshbabu became the third Indian woman player (after Humpy Koneru and Harika Dronavalli) to earn the grandmaster title. Vaishali obtained the title by scoring a win against FM Tamer Tarik Selbes at the 2023 El Llobregat Open. Since her brother Pragganandhaa is also a grandmaster, Vaishali and Pragg became the world’s first-ever brother-sister grandmaster duo! | Photo: ChessBase India

12/3/2023 – Three decisive results in round 2 of the London Chess Classic left three players tied for first place with 1½ points each. Andrei Volokitin joined round-1 winners Dommaraju Gukesh and Michael Adams in the lead of the event after beating underdog Shreyas Royal with the white pieces. Meanwhile, Mateusz Bartel and Amin Tabatabaei bounced back from their losses on Friday and returned to a fifty-percent score. Gukesh barely escaped with a draw in his game against Nikita Vitiugov. | Photo: Abhyudaya Ram

12/2/2023 – Welcome to the ChessBase India Winter Chess Solving Championship, an initiative to promote chess composition and creative-logical thinking through chess. This introductory article serves as the curtain-raiser to the event: Satanick Mukhuty give you the rules, the details of the prizes, and the first six of the twelve problems to solve. This is a serious challenge.

12/2/2023 – As described in the article "The Never Ending Saga of Moroccan Chess" (Part 1 and Part 2), the International Prix Mohammed VI tournament had an unfortunate end, as the winners did not receive their prizes. That incident did not take away from the players' efforts and performances, though, as shown here by Diana Mihajlova. | Pictured: Rising star Kevin Michael George with his parents and his coach, GM Bassem Amin

12/2/2023 – Today some elementary endgame tactics. In the diagram position, the constellation on the kingside with the far advanced pawn h3 secures Black's advantage. But how to exploit this?

12/2/2023 – Dommaraju Gukesh and Michael Adams got off to winning starts at the 13th edition of the London Chess Classic. Gukesh defeated Mateusz Bartel’s French Defence, while Adams showcased his positional virtuosity playing white against Amin Tabatabaei. Both Gukesh and Adams will play black in the second round, against Nikita Vitiugov and Hans Niemann respectively. | Photo: Abhyudaya Ram

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

11/28/2023 – Do you know who the current World Chess Champion is? Can you name him and tell us which country he is from? If you can do this you belong to an absolute minority in the world of chess enthusiasts. Try to estimate how many of them can answer the two questions correctly. You are wrong! A recent survey, conducted by YouGov and World Chess, tell us the sad truth.

11/28/2023 – Wesley So scored his second victory in this year’s Sinquefield Cup by beating Levon Aronian with the white pieces in Monday’s sixth round. Moreover, wins for Leinier Dominguez (over Anish Giri) and Fabiano Caruana (over Alireza Firouzja) greatly increased So’s chances of qualifying to the Candidates Tournament either by rating or via the FIDE Circuit. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

11/28/2023 – Creating passed pawns is a strong weapon in the endgame. In the diagram position Black can turn her majority into a passed pawn - a passed pawn on the b-file or a passed pawn on the a-file. What would you play?

11/28/2023 – Grandmaster Kevin Goh Wei Ming is both the CEO of the Singapore Chess Federation and an 8-time national champion at the Southeast Asian city-state. Kevin recently shared a post on X, showing his experience teaching chess at the Singapore Prison Services. IM Sagar Shah interviewed him on the topic. “Most importantly, chess has brought joy to [the inmates] in a way that perhaps serious, competitive players may never understand”. | Photos: Kevin Goh Wei Ming’s X account

11/27/2023 – In the Endgame Magic Show #256 Karsten Müller shows highlights from the European Team Tournament Budva, focusing on rook endgames. | You can watch the Endgame Magic Show on-demand with a ChessBase Premium account.