11/3/2021 – The 4th FIDE World Chess Championship for People with Disabilities will be held online by Dresdner Schachfestival E.V. under the auspices of FIDE from November 4-14, 2021. To date, 162 players from 37 countries have registered. On its website the FIDE introduces some of the participants. | Photos: FIDE

10/10/2021 – Forty-three teams from 31 countries will play in the 1st Intercontinental Online Championship for Prisoners, a two-day event that starts on October 13, the International Day of Education in Prisons. The championship is a part of the “Chess for Freedom” Program, launched earlier this year.

10/1/2021 – The FIDE world ranking lists in October 2021 are headed by the "usual suspects". With a rating of 2855 Magnus Carlsen is still the clear number one, but though he played 13 rated games in September he did not win or lose any points. Alireza Firouzja is still the best junior, but for the first time he is now also among the world's top ten. Hou Yifan continues to lead the women's ranking list and Polina Shuvalova remains the highest rated player on the "Girls" list.

7/22/2021 – The International Chess Federation recently announced the FIDE Online Olympiad 2021, to be held between August 13 and September 15. The event will follow a format similar to one used last year, with member Federations being represented by their best players and top juniors. The national teams will compete in rapid chess matches played on six boards.

7/20/2021 – On 20 July 1924 the FIDE was founded in Paris, and in 1966 the UNESCO proposed to celebrate this date as "International Chess Day". Of course, you can celebrate chess every day but FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich and David Llada, the FIDE Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, still have some ideas how chess players all over the world can help to make today a very special day for chess.

6/30/2021 – Over 460 female players from 82 countries participated in the individual and team tournaments within the Queens’ festival global chess tournaments run from June 11 to June 27. The ambitious global project aiming at connecting women chess players from around the world of all ages and all rating groups was organized by FIDE Commission for Women’s Chess in cooperation with FIDE Events Commission and with the support of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), as well as Asian Chess Federation, African Chess Confederation, European Chess Union, and Confederation of Chess for Americas. | Pictures: FIDE

6/25/2021 – The final lists of the FIDE World Cup and the FIDE Women’s World Cup’s participants have been published. The knock-out events will be held from July 10 to August 8 2021 in the Gazprom Mountain Resort in Sochi. The two finalists of the open event will qualify for the 2022 FIDE Candidates Tournament, whilst the three best players of the women’s competition will get spots in the FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament. Top seed in the open section is World Champion Magnus Carlsen, top seed in the women's tournament is Aleksandra Goryachkina.

6/17/2021 – The FIDE World Cup in July and the World Champion match in November still have to be played but FIDE and World Chess already plan ahead and just announced the FIDE Grand Prix Series 2022. It will take place from February to April 2022 and will consist of three tournaments, which will be played in one city. The two best players qualify for the Candidates Tournament 2022.

6/17/2021 – Chess is not all about competitiveness, and Gibraltar has become a place that embodies the multi-faceted character of the royal game. Following this vein, FIDE recorded a series of well-produced videos with the participants of the Women’s Grand Prix that came to an end a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy getting to know a bit more about some of the strongest female chess players in the world! | Photo: David Llada

5/24/2021 – The International Chess Federation has published the qualification criteria that will be used to determine who participates in the next Candidates Tournament, scheduled to take place in 2022. Notably, Teimour Radjabov was granted a spot after the Azerbaijani withdrew from the previous edition, rightfully predicting that the sanitary crisis would become a real obstacle for the normal development of the event. FIDE has also eliminated the chance to qualify by rating. | Photo: FIDE

5/21/2021 – The International Chess Federation announced the new dates of the final stage of the Women’s FIDE Grand Prix, to be played in Gibraltar from May 22 to June 2. The best female chess players in the world will be competing in a crucial event in the race for the World Championship title, since the two best players from the Women Grand Prix Series qualify directly for the Candidates Tournament. | Photo: David Llada / FIDE

5/7/2021 – The International Chess Federation will hold an online conference dubbed “Chess for Freedom” on May 11th at 15:30 CET (8:30 US Central Time). The conference will present a newly launched project focused on introducing chess to prisons. This conference will feature FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, the 12th World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, and other invited guests.

4/13/2021 – 13 April 2021, six days before the resumption of the FIDE Candidates Tournament in Yekaterinburg, the FIDE organised a press conference on the FIDE Candidates Tournament in Moscow, at the Rossiyskaya Gazeta Media Center. The speakers answered questions of journalists from all parts of the world, who were attending the event online. A press release by the FIDE has some details.

3/6/2021 – FIDE has announced that, as the epidemical situation remains complicated all over the World, a significant number of qualifiers will be held in the hybrid format. This decision is considered inevitable and exceptional. | Pictured: Ding Liren at the Danzhou Tournament, an online event in which the Chinese participants played from the Country Garden Havana Holiday Hotel. | Photo: Liang Ziming

3/2/2021 – So far, the Tata Steel Tournament in Wijk aan Zee was the only over-the-board top tournament this year. It was played in the second half of January, but its results did not affect the rating list of February 2021. But Wijk changed the rating list from March 2021: Magnus Carlsen and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave lost points, other players gained rating.

1/28/2021 – Originally, the match for the World Championship between Magnus Carlsen and the winner of the Candidates Tournament 2020, was planned for November 2020. But the corona pandemic put a stop to these plans. Now, the FIDE announced a new date for the World Championship match: if everything goes according to plan, it will take place from 24 November to 16 December 2021 in Dubai, as part of the Expo. | Picture: FIDE

1/20/2021 – A few weeks ago, the FIDE Council approved a new set of rules to be applied to official online chess competitions. The document also established the framework for "hybrid" events, a format where the games are played online, but the participants are physically present in a public place like a club, federation headquarters, hotel, et cetera. In this format, all games are played under the supervision of an arbiter present on site.

1/7/2021 – FIDE has a new Managing Director. Dana Reizniece-Ozola, Woman Grandmaster and former Latvian Minister of Economics and later Finance, leaves the world of Latvian politics and dedicates herself to the politics of chess. | Image: Janis Deinats

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

11/5/2020 – In the last months only a few over-the-board tournaments took place, but in October 30 of the top 100 players were active again and played in FIDE-rated "real" tournaments. Magnus Carlsen is still the clear number one but it was Alireza Firouzja who made the biggest jump ahead by gaining 20 Elo-points in Stavanger.

10/23/2020 – The International Chess Federation announced that Gibraltar will host the final stage of the Women’s FIDE Grand Prix, to be played in January 17-29, 2021. The best female chess players in the world will be competing in a crucial event in the race for the World Championship title, since the two best players from the Women Grand Prix Series qualify directly for the Candidates Tournament. | Photo: David Llada / FIDE

10/1/2020 – After the corona lockdown the players gradually play again over-the-board, which led to some movement on the rating lists. However, while World Champion Magnus has been very active online, he did not play a single elo-rated game. But with a rating of 2863 Carlsen is still the world's number one, and he is currently 35 points ahead of Fabiano Caruana who indeed played some over-the-board games in September.

9/8/2020 – The Candidates Tournament 2020 in Ekaterinburg was started when the corona pandemic had already spread around the world. However, after seven of 14 rounds it was interrupted and postponed to an indefinite date. In a press release FIDE now announced that the Candidates Tournament will resume on November 1, 2020, probably in Ekaterinburg, or alternatively in Tbilisi. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

9/5/2020 – Alexei Shirov has been proclaimed the winner of the Gazprom Brilliancy Prize, a special trophy awarded by the General Partner of the Online Chess Olympiad. The game that earned Shirov this prize was his victory with the black pieces against Danyyil Dvirnyy, in which the Spaniard got to show a novelty in the Slav Defence and sacrificed his queen while attacking on the queenside. | Photo: FIDE