1/19/2022 – The International Chess Federation has declared 2022 the Year of the Woman in Chess. According to the FIDE Women’s Commision, this is a chance to take a leap forward in their mission of forming gender equity policies, practices and programs. | Pictured: Eva Repkova / Chair of FIDE Women’s Commission

1/7/2022 – Parallel to the Rapid and Blitz World Championships in Warsaw, FIDE held its annual congress. Delegates participated mostly online. On its website, FIDE recently published the "results and decisions" of the congress. Despite the Corona pandemic, FIDE is solidly financed, now largely from sponsorship, donations and broadcasting rights, less so from membership fees. The World Chess Federation has reacquired the rights to the World Championships. | Photos: David Llada

12/20/2021 – A pre-requisite for an organization to become world class is to have competent people working for it in key managerial positions. This is exactly what FIDE has done by roping in Dana Reizniece-Ozola as the managing director. A look at her credentials and you can have no doubts about her competency. Dana is a former Minister of Economics of Latvia as well as its Finance Minister! She has a Masters in Business Administration, has been the head of space programs and her list of achievements is quite huge. To add to all of this, she is also a strong chess player - a WGM with an Elo of 2283. At the World Championship 2021 in Dubai, IM Sagar Shah met with Dana and had a detailed interview about her journey of life, becoming FIDE's managing director, her vision for FIDE and much more.

12/10/2021 – A few days ago the FIDE announced that the World Rapid and Blitz Championships due to Corona restrictions could not take place in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan, as was originally planned. Now FIDE announced that they found a new venue: the World Rapid and Blitz Championships will take place in Warsaw on the planned dates (December 25 - December 31, 2021). | Photo: Qbolewicz

12/9/2021 – The FIDE Rapid and Blitz World Championships cannot take place in Nur Sultan (Kazakhstan) in December as originally planned. Due to the tightened Corona security measures imposed by the Kazakh government, FIDE has cancelled the tournament in Kazakhstan and is currently looking at alternative venues.

12/1/2021 – With Alireza Firouzja, the chess world now has a new number two behind Magnus Carlsen. On the new World Ranking from December 2021, which the FIDE just published, the 18-year-old, who was born in Iran but is living in France, is ahead of Ding Liren and Fabiano Caruana.

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