Tomorrow (4 December) marks the official start of the Freestyle Finals in South Africa. The opening press conference at The Silo Hotel in Cape Town will be followed by a diving chess competition. From 8 December, the Grand Slam Finals will begin at Grootbos Private Nature Reserve, featuring Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Vincent Keymer and […]
Monthly Archives: December 2025
At the second Jerusalem Chess Festival, Arseniy Nesterov and Evgeny Alekseev qualified for the Masters as the best players in the Open and faced ten invited participants there. Svidler, Anand, Nepomniachtchi and Erigaisi advanced from the round-robin tournament of the Masters to the knockout stage. The semi-finals and finals will be played today. | Photos: […]
Ed Schröder, pioneer of chess engine programming, has in his retirement turned his attention to a new and very exciting project: to extract games from a database collection that are especially aggressive – that are short and have daring sacrifices and king attacks. He shows us the kinds of result you can get. Best of […]
Nodirbek Abdusattorov secured at least a share of first place at the London Chess Classic by earning his sixth straight win in round seven, defeating Luke McShane in a hard-fought Ruy Lopez. With a two-point lead over Alireza Firouzja and only two rounds remaining, the Uzbek grandmaster is close to securing overall victory. The remaining […]
In the 100th edition of the “Campeonato Argentino Superior” in Buenos Aires, seven-time national champion Diego Flores, 12-year-old prodigy Faustino Oro and 2021 champion Federico Pérez Ponsa are locked in a battle for first place. Flores is leading the standings, with Oro and Pérez a half point back. To get his second GM norm, the […]
A six-game classical match in Monte Carlo will see Maxime Vachier-Lagrave face 14-year-old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus from 3 to 8 December, in an event organised by the Monaco Chess Federation with support from Evren Ucok. The encounter brings together an established top-20 grandmaster and Türkiye’s leading junior. The format mirrors the match Erdogmus played against […]
145 years ago, on 1 December 1880, Akiba Rubinstein was born, perhaps the strongest player of his time who never had the chance to play a World Championship match. For more than 20 years, Rubinstein was one of the leading players in the world, but his life took a tragic turn.
Ed Schröder is a pioneer in chess programming. In the 1990s his program Rebel won a number of World Championships in computer chess, and always had a special place in the community, due to its playing style. In 2003 he retired from competitive computer chess, only releasing freeware versions of Rebel. Now Ed has come […]
Round six of the London Chess Classic saw Nodirbek Abdusattorov extend his lead with a fifth consecutive win, capitalising on a single mistake by Sam Shankland in a dynamic Scotch Opening. Alireza Firouzja drew against Abhimanyu Mishra after early tactical complications gave way to a simplified position, while Pavel Eljanov earned his first victory by […]
FIDE has just published its new World Ranking List. Vincent Keymer, Germany’s top player, has established himself in fourth place on the Elo list and firmly among the world’s elite. Magnus Carlsen, the world’s highest-rated player, also gained Elo. The best women come from China, and the best juniors from India.