FIDE and Global Chess will introduce many changes to the FIDE website in the first quarter of 2009 and readers would have already noticed we have been making incremental changes to the front page and menus. This process will be complete in the next few days and ask your patience should there be some broken links, etc.

The Elista FIDE Office is pleased to publish the 1st January 2009 FIDE Rating List which includes tournaments up to 15 December 2008 and FIDE events such as the Grand Prix in Elista, Kalmykia which ended 28 December. Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria retained first place with a rating of 2796, an increase of 5 points from his performance in the Dresden Olympiad . His victory in the Pearl Springs tournament in Nanjing, China, which ended 22nd December, will be rated for April 2009, according to FIDE regulations. Viswanathan Anand climbed to second slot with 2791, an increase of 8 points from October after his victory in his World Championship Match with Vladimir Kramnik last October in Bonn, Germany

Grand Master Sergey Karjakin might be the highest ranked chess player in the ongoing Asian Chess Champions League but he is still a teenager accompanied by his proud mother Tatania to all the international chess tournaments he takes part in. Sergey made history and headlines when he became the youngest ever chess Grandmaster at the age of 12 years and seven months. With an elo rating of 2730, Sergey is the highest ranked chess player and shoulders the hopes of the hosts to win the title.

The FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov sincerely congratulates all National Chess Federations, chess players and chess friends on the occasion of the coming New Year! Best wishes of health, prosperity and happiness. Let the coming year bring all of you success and more victories! The Elista FIDE Office joins these warmest wishes and would like to inform that the office will be on vacations for the period 1 - 10 January 2008. Thank you for your understanding.

The long term plans and ideas that guide play beyond what a player can calculate in the short-term.

A terrible chess move.

Chess is not simple, but it can seem uncomplicated compared with the issues swirling around the governance of the game.

Rustam Kasimdzhanov the only winner, other games drawn After a torrent of decided games on Thursday, 11th round of the Elista Grand Prix finished with draws in all but one game. Nevertheless, the players were still in the fighting mode and majority of the games continued deep into the second time control.

by Lakhdar Mazouz In the big and beautiful facilities of the Al Ain Sport arena, many people have gathered to witness the start of the first Asian Club Championship. Long before the start of the Competition, a friendly and joyful atmosphere could be noticed: players and officials happy to meet again and to greet each other, pleased to exchange views, remembering past Events they experienced, moving tired less around the hall. In the , spectators, mostly wearing traditional white gowns, most of them teenagers, filled the seats, thrilled by the Event, surely busy talking and speculating excitedly about the Competition.

Merry Christmas to all the chess players out there reading this blog! For Christmas, I thought I’d try something different for today’s post. This is the season for giving, and…