British Chess Magazine January 2026

The chess world has undergone a significant transformation in recent years. From a game on the fringes of public interest, it has become part of the media mainstream albeit usually for the wrong reasons (not least cheating allegations, “jeansgate”, and alleged Russian political influence in the top level running of the game). It is now widely accepted that the COVID pandemic had a net positive impact on chess – the rise in the number of people taking up the game during lockdown, the boom in online chess and, of course, the Queen’s Gambit effect. While chess has not really made it into the mainstream in the way many in the chess world had hoped (by major media outlets giving regular and prominent coverage to chess events, with chess world headlines…

Carlsen has stepped back from classical chess, yet the board has never been more crowded with hungry young contenders. For the first time since Kasparov’s retirement, the highest-rated player in the world is choosing to play less while a new generation fights on every board and in every format. Caruana and Giri still chase the title in long games. Behind them comes a wave of teenagers and twenty-somethings like Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Keymer, Erigaisi, Wei Yi and Abdusattorov. They are happy to dig into sharp engine lines, to revive old ideas and to suffer for hours in technical endgames. Their presence has changed the landscape. Chess after Carlsen is no longer a story of one dominant star. It is a battle among many. THE SIMILARITY BETWEEN KASPAROV AND CARLSEN Garry Kasparov…

Chess is an individual sport. Team competitions do exist, of course, there are club championships in a lot of countries, the Chess Olympiad is one of the most famous events and the European Club Cup and Team Championships are easily recognisable, too. The attempt to create a world-wide club competition, with the difference from football that teams can be composed from scratch, was undertaken by the Indian company Tech Mahindra in 2023. The first edition took place in Dubai, in 2024 year it was in London and in 2025 – Mumbai (India), where the event took place from 13-24 December. THE CONCEPT The teams consist of six players and each must have a representative of the four categories: Icon, Prodigy, Superstar Men and Superstar Women. The team names and logos…

“I don’t consider myself an active player anymore,” the world number 29 said back in December, in a statement widely reported in Indian and world media. At 31, India’s 30th grandmaster is stepping away from the grind that shaped him. Not a dramatic retirement, but a quiet decision to loosen the grip of professional chess on his life. THREE YEARS OF “BREATHING, EATING AND LIVING CHESS” The turning point was the last world championship cycle. To reach the 2024 Candidates, Vidit put together the best run of his career. He won the 2023 FIDE Grand Swiss and secured his seat in Toronto, then held his own in one of the hardest tournaments in chess, even beating world number two Hikaru Nakamura along the way. Behind that success, there was a…

Grandmaster of Chess Composition Solutions are given on page 62 1 John Rice (Surbiton) Mate in2 ORIGINAL 2 Leonid Lyubashevsky and Leonid Makaronez (Israel) Mate in 3 ORIGINAL 3 Stanislav Hudak (Slovakia) Helpmate in 4 - 2 solutions ORIGINAL 4 Ljubomir Ugren (Slovenia) Helpmate in 6 ORIGINAL SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEMS This month’s originals This month, we have two direct-mate problems and two helpmates. In each case, the first one is solver-friendly, and an inexperienced solver may be able to crack these (remembering that in Stanislav’s helpmate you are looking for two collaborative bwbwbwbw# sequences). The mate in three and the helpmate in six are both exceptionally difficult. Great kudos if you can solve either of them, but otherwise, I can vouch for their being well worth reading on to admire the solutions.…

The annual London Chess Classic is a feast of chess with many tournaments and events. The Elite grandmaster all-play-all tournament featured two top-world players - Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Alireza Firouzja, who both have a rating over 2750. Abdusattorov played very strongly and won the tournament by two points – a magnificent performance, true to his name Nodirbek, which loosely translated means exceptional noble! The British players performed reasonably close to their rating. The FIDE Open featured the Young Indian Star Pragganandhaa, who entered the tournament as part of his 2026 Candidates Qualification. He won jointly with Serbian GM Velimir Ivic and English GM Ameet Ghasi on 7/9. The top placings were as follows The Super Rapid was won outright by Nikolas Theodorou. We start with two games by Abdusattorov in…