12/12/2020 – After beating Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave reached the final of the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship, when he will face blitz specialis Hikaru Nakamura. The match consists of 90 minutes of 5+1 blitz, 60 minutes of 3+1 blitz, and 30 minutes of 1+1 bullet chess, and starts at 18:00 CET, 9:00 Pacific Time. Follow the games live, with commentary. | Picture: Chess.com

12/12/2020 – What is a good gift for a passionate chess player? ChessBase has a huge variety of nice digital presents, which make even more sense in these weird times, no doubt! But there might be something else as an option - something physical. Chessplus has been on the market since a couple of years, but this time it is easier than ever to get a hold of it. | Photos: from Chessplus

12/12/2020 – Hikaru Nakamura qualified to the final of the Speed Chess Championship on Wednesday with a narrow victory over Wesley So. On Friday, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave became the other finalist. The Frenchman defeated none other than world champion Magnus Carlsen with a 13:11 score after playing 24 blitz and bullet games (which were played with three different time controls). The final will be played today (Saturday) at 18:00 CET, Noon ET. | Image: chess.com

12/12/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/12/2020 – Mikhail Botvinnik became world champion for the first time in 1948. After defending the title twice, he lost it to Vasily Smyslov in 1957. Botvinnik reclaimed the title with a clear victory in a rematch the very next year. In game 14, he played what he called “maybe his most subtle rook ending”. Endgame specialist Karsten Müller now wonders whether a few mistakes have not been discovered yet. You can help him solve the historical riddle! | Pictured: Botvinnik v Smyslov on April 19, 1957 | Photo: Fotograaf Onbekend / Anefo

12/11/2020 – The Spanish Chess Federation organized a training match in which five of the strongest players from the Iberian country faced an international squad over ten days in La Palma, one of the Canary Islands. The double-round Scheveningen tournament came to an end on Wednesday, with the international team getting a 27:23 victory. | Pictured: Ivan Cheparinov facing Jaime Santos | Photos: Spanish Chess Federation (FEDA)

12/10/2020 – Round 5 of the Open Tournament of the Russian Championship brought five draws and one win: Maksim Matlakov defeated Maksim Chigaev but this did not affect the standings at the top. With 3.5/5 Ian Nepomniachtchi and Sergey Karjakin still share the lead. In the Women's Tournament Polina Shuvalova extended her winning streak and won her fifth game in a row and now leads with with 5.0/5. | Photos: Eteri Kublashvili

12/10/2020 – This year we are launching our "Christmas Fritztrainer Calendar". For the next 24 days, you can open one of our Fritztrainer doors daily, and guess: Which Fritztrainer is this? If you send us the correct answer by email, you are participating in a raffle to win plenty of prizes, including our big Christmas surprise packages!

12/10/2020 – After Belarus has withdrawn its application to organise the Chess Olympiad 2022 in Minsk due to political uncertainty, and the Chess Olympiad 2020 in Moscow has been postponed to 2021, FIDE now decided "to have just one Olympiad during this period", in Moscow 2022. The Chess Olympiad 2024 will take place in Budapest. | Photo: FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich | Photo: Vladimir Barsky

12/9/2020 – Four parallel tournaments were organized at La Palma, the most north-westerly island of the Canary Islands, Spain. Besides a Scheveningen match in which five Spanish players are facing a multinational squad, three 10-player single round robin tournaments took place, with local talents looking to get GM, IM and WGM norms. The strongest of these events was won by IM Julio Suárez (pictured), who tied atop the standings table with Alexandr Fier on 6/9 and got first place on tiebreaks. | Photos: Spanish Chess Federation (FEDA)

12/9/2020 – In his "Game of the Week" show, Merijn van Delft takes a look at a fantastic attacking game by the young Spanish Grandmaster Jaime Santos Latasa. | Merijn's show is available at 16.00 UTC (17:00 CET, 12:00 EDT) and on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

12/9/2020 – St. Augustine, Florida, is America’s oldest continuously inhabited, European-established city. At its center is a pavilion, now called the Plaza de la Constitución but historically known as the slave market. Estelle Thibodeau reintroduced chess to that plaza and to a pizzeria, as told to Woman International Master Alexey Root. | Pictured: Estelle Thibodeau | Photo: Jennifer Jordan