1/9/2023 – From Friday, 6 January, to Sunday, 8 January, the 32nd Keres Memorial was held in the Estonian capital Tallinn and featured a blitz and a rapid tournament. GM Vitaliy Bernadskiy from Ukraine won the blitz, GM Yuriy Kuzubov (also from Ukraine) won the rapid event.

1/9/2023 – The Covid pandemic in the last two years have led to a chess boom online, and the young guns have benefited the most from having ‘extra time’ on hand due to being at home a lot throughout the years 2020 and 2021. They seem to have done well to widen their learnings of the game, making large gains on the rating scale. Edwin Lam Choong Wai, chess enthusiast and coach, has a suggestion how FIDE should handle this. We would be interested to hear you opinion on the subject.

1/8/2023 – The new generation of chess stars is here, with no fewer than nine players aged 19 or younger rated above 2650 at the time. In a 7-part series, we will look at the performances of the top juniors in 2022. Former world rapid champion Nodirbek Abdusattorov is fourth in the list. At 18, he has proven his mettle as a leader, playing top board for Uzbekistan in an astounding run to Olympic gold in Chennai. | Find here analysis of a remarkable victory by Abdusattorov, annotated by Ivan Sokolov.

1/8/2023 – 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 107th 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

1/8/2023 – The first FIDE workshop organized by the FIDE Commission for Women’s Chess in 2023 took place on January 5 in Stockholm, Sweden, during the Rilton Cup. Swedish living legend Pia Cramling was among the speakers, and emphasized how chess takes away any prejudicial social boundaries based on age or gender. | Photos: Anastasiya Karlovich

1/7/2023 – Lithuanian grandmaster Sarunas Sulskis was the only player, out of the 95 participants, to achieve an 8/10 score at the 96th edition of the traditional Hastings Masters. In second to fourth place finished Bence Korpa (Hungary), Oleg Korneev (Spain) and Mark Hebden (England), each with 7½/10. Rating favourite Romain Edouard (France) finished fifth on 7/10. | Photo: Official site

1/5/2023 – Can a unit of our army be a friend or foe depending on the circumstances? From experience, we know that the answer is a resounding yes! GM Sundararajan Kidambi explains the beautiful concept of using your opponent’s piece to your advantage instead of always being bent on automatically going for the recapture.

1/4/2023 – The 3rd World Chess Championship between Wilhelm Steinitz and Isidor Gunsberg that ran from December 9, 1890 to January 22, 1891 was a closely fought match. At the end of 19 games, Steinitz emerged victorious, 6-4, to retain his title. Gunsberg's good result in this match was no coincidence. Gunsberg was one of the strongest players of his time though today he is almost forgotten. Eugene Manlapao takes a look at the life and career of this relatively unknown World Championship challenger. | Photo source: Wikipedia

1/4/2023 – The theme of “decision-making” is an essential part of every chess game. At every moment of the game, you must make a decision that is not only tactical; as psychology, structural preferences, positional basics and good variation calculation are all part of the process of making the right decision.

1/4/2023 – October saw the start of the new Bundesliga season. In ChessBase Magazine #211 participants from various teams comment on their games from the first rounds, including the stars from the cover - Pavel Eljanov, Loek van Wely and Luke McShane - as well as Nils Grandelius, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Ivan Saric, Ivan Cheparinov, Gawain Jones, Nikita Vitiugov, Erwin L'Ami, Dennis Wagner, Daniil Yuffa, Georg Meier, Jan-Christian Schröder, Thai Dai Van Nguyen and Michael Prusikin. In addition, David Navara presents his game against Luke McShane in a detailed video analysis and Rustam Kasimdhzanov reviews his Black victory against Julian Kramer, also in the video. "The Analysis" of the issue comes from Erwin l'Ami – A Queen’s Gambit Accepted in which the Dutch GM actually had his opponent perfectly pegged out. Enjoy!

1/4/2023 – The cosmopolitan city of Almaty saw Magnus Carlsen adding two world titles to his collection, while Tan Zhongyi and Bibisara Assaubayeva took home gold medals in the women’s events. With so much chess being played in a span of five days, Karsten Müller had no trouble finding remarkable endgames to share with us. Find here six instructive positions to learn and enjoy! | Pictured: Vincent Keymer trying to make the most of his good knight against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave’s bad bishop. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

1/3/2023 – Of all traditional chess tournaments that still take place, the Chess Congress in Hastings has the longest tradition. This year, it sees its 96th edition. To celebrate the event, James Bacon, the mayor of Hastings, opened the tournament in his official attire. After the first six rounds Sarunas Sulskis from Lithuania leads with 6.0/6.