12/19/2024 – The World Championship match between Ding Liren and Gukesh in Singapore ended with a blunder: In a drawn position, Ding wanted to simplify and allowed his opponent to liquidate into a winning pawn ending - making Gukesh the youngest World Champion ever. In the latest episode of "Two Knights Talk", Arne Kähler and Johannes Fischer use Ding's mistake as a starting point to talk about incredible blunders, errors and inexplicable oversights in the history of the World Chess Championship.

12/19/2024 – Day 2 of the Champions Chess Tour Finals saw Magnus Carlsen take the sole lead, but the spotlight was on Alireza Firouzja, who won all three of his matches to join Ian Nepomniachtchi and Denis Lazavik in shared second place. As the battle for direct semifinal spots heats up, the fight to avoid elimination is just as fierce. With one round of the round-robin left, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Vincent Keymer and Levon Aronian are all vying for survival. | Photo: Maria Emelianova / chess.com

12/19/2024 – The World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships for boys and girls in the U14, U16 and U18 age groups were held over three days at Terme Čatež (Slovenia). The most successful nation was Vietnam. | Photos: Luka Rifelj

12/19/2024 – ChessBase 18 has many spectacular new features, but also hidden innovations: The new superpower in the reference search provides knowledge you need: Do you know the best way to prepare your team-mates for a team match? How do you find typical draw variations? Which opening variations are currently played in amateur chess?

12/19/2024 – The Kasparov Chess Foundation is thrilled to announce the lineup for the KCF Academy Premium Package Lecture Series in January 2025! This month’s program features an extraordinary roster of world-class chess legends who will share their insights, strategies, and personal experiences to help elevate your game to new heights.

12/18/2024 – Despite the ongoing war with Russia, the Ukrainian Chess Federation is holding its 92nd national championship and 82nd women's championship in Lviv. Around 150 Ukrainian players are taking part. The venue in Lviv is the Dnister Premier Hotel. | Photos: Lana Chess Photography

12/14/2024 – The new ChessBase Training Course ‘Modern Classics’ by GM Dorian Rogozenco presents 33 important games from modern chess history (1935-1999) and offers an excellent basis for deepening your own understanding of chess through detailed explanations, background information and interactive tools. He continues the tradition of his predecessor course and makes important parts of chess culture accessible to players of all levels.

12/14/2024 – In the diagram position Black played 26...d4! and after 27.Rc1 he found a remarkable way to save his skin. The art of drawing - half a point, all the fun!

12/13/2024 – Completely new possibilities for strategy training: ChessBase 18 searches games for you according to 30 (!) different strategic themes! In the new search mask you can select strategic themes from 3 categories. In the category ‘Structure’ you will find topics such as ‘Space advantage’ or ‘Majority on the queenside’. The ‘Pieces’ section deals with the value of individual pieces, i.e. ‘opposite coloured bishops’ or ‘strong rooks’. And under ‘Plans’ you can search for ‘Attack weakness’, ‘Successful defence’ or ‘King's attack’. ChessBase 18 then provides a list of games sorted according to the importance of the strategic theme and when you click on it, ChessBase 18 jumps to the relevant part of the game! Chief developer Matthias Wüllenweber shows in the video how quick and easy it is!

12/13/2024 – The young Russian grandmaster Andrey Esipenko (photo) won the highly competitive Qatar Masters with 7½ points after 9 rounds of play. Second and third place were shared by Arjun Erigaisi and Nodirbek Abdusattorov, each with 7 points. Arjun missed the opportunity to overtake Fabiano Caruana in the FIDE Circuit. Whoever has the most FIDE Circuit points at the end of the year will qualify for the 2026 Candidates Tournament. | Photo: Anna Shtourman / Qatar Masters

12/13/2024 – The Kasparov Chess Foundation Academy has announced the start of its second season, featuring an enhanced format with more instructional hours and additional lessons from top players and trainers, including special sessions from the Legendary World Champion, Garry Kasparov himself. The KCF announcement contains twelve instructive endgames for you to study.

12/13/2024 – The mainline in the Yugoslav attack, is constantly played on a higher level. But what happens, if instead of moving the queen to d2, it goes to e2? Chris Ward says, shows us how to play against this attempt, and gain a good advantage for Black. Furthermore, the English GM has a recent, super entertaining game for us, where two chess legends battle it out - dragon style! | Photo: John Upham