Luke McShane

There is a persistent contrarian view that the world’s top players maintain their high ratings by being part of a closed shop. According to that theory, the same players get invited to all the same tournaments, where they face each other repeatedly, and the prevalence of draws between closely matched players means that nobody’s rating ever changes very much. There is a kernel of truth in this, as a few elite events do become turgid drawfests, but the broader claim is nonsense: there is no closed shop. Most top players also face ‘rank-and-file’ grandmasters regularly, in national leagues, international team events, and the occasional large open tournament.

Jan Timman, the Dutch grandmaster who at his peak reached second place in the world rankings, died in February at the age of 74. For much of the 1980s, when Soviet players (especially Karpov and Kasparov) dominated the game, Timman was regarded as the ‘Best of the West’. As a young man, Timman was drawn to the bohemian lifestyle that the life of a professional chess player readily affords — itinerant, living off one’s wits and unburdened by the tyranny of early mornings. In his best games collection, Timman’s Triumphs (New In Chess, 2020) he recounts attempting a more ascetic approach in the lead-up to the 1971 IBM tournament in Amsterdam, striving to begin the event in optimal form.

Since Magnus Carlsen abdicated his classical world championship crown in 2022, the international chess federation (Fide) has faced a persistent headache: the world’s strongest player has no interest in their flagship event. Fide has responded by adding new formats in which world titles are contested, to encourage Carlsen’s participation. Early in 2026, they sanctioned the first Fide Freestyle World Championship. Later this year, the ‘Total Chess’ World Championship pilot arrives – a combined fast-classical, rapid, and blitz format developed with Norway Chess, the prestigious Norwegian tournament organisation, that will crown a single ‘combined’ world champion across all three disciplines. Both initiatives seem designed to keep Carlsen within Fide’s orbit.

‘This is why you don’t do puzzles, kids,’ drawled Magnus Carlsen, after a lucky escape in a recent blitz game played on Chess.com. ‘Because if this is a puzzle you see it immediately. But in puzzles, you’re trained to see puzzles, while in games, you’re not.’ No doubt Carlsen has done his fair share of puzzles over the years, but he had a point. He was talking about the position below, in which he had just played 33…Kf8-g7. His opponent, David Anton Guijarro is Spain’s strongest grandmaster, and if the position were presented to him as a puzzle, he would certainly spot the strongest move in a couple of seconds. White can win with 34 Qxe5+!! with a beautiful finish after 34…dxe5 35 R1xf7+ Kh8 36 Rh7+ Rxh7 37 Rxh7 mate.

The 2026 Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee saw a commanding performance from Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who claimed outright victory with nine points from 13 games. It’s a pity, then, that the young Uzbek won’t be competing in the upcoming Candidates Tournament – the event that will determine Gukesh’s next world championship challenger. Abdusattorov’s recent form would put him among the favourites in Cyprus in April. In December, he won both the London Chess Classic and silver at the World Blitz Championships in Qatar. With his dominant display in Wijk aan Zee, he ascends to world no. 5 in the live rating list. But since he failed to peak in the qualifiers, he will remain on the sidelines. His younger compatriot Javokhir Sindarov, however, will be playing.

The ‘Wimbledon of Chess’ is underway in the Netherlands. Meanwhile in Spain, there’s a gaming industry expo. Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, the world’s no. 1 and no. 2, are at the trade show, where they had a fireside chat with YouTuber Levy Rozman – better known as GothamChess. One theme was how much chess has changed since the pandemic. The landscape has shifted away from classical formats toward rapid events, online play and streaming. Both players have shaped that change and thrived in it. But the calendar remains fragmented, with no unified circuit incentivising the top players to compete at the same events. The Barcelona event was a case in point.

The January 2026 Fide junior rankings tell a remarkable story: at the top sits Gukesh Dommaraju from India, who in 2024 became the youngest world champion in history. Still just 19 years old, he will defend the title later this year. The real shock is that the second-place spot now belongs to a 14-year-old: Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus from Turkey, recently described by Magnus Carlsen himself as the best 14-year-old the world has ever seen. Having been coached by the Azeri grandmaster Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, who peaked at world no. 2, Erdogmus is already adept at fighting against world-class opposition. When he faced the elite veteran Peter Svidler in a ‘Clash of Generations’ match held in Marseille in July 2025, Erdogmus was a clear underdog on paper.

British chess has lost an inspiring figure. Grandmaster Jonathan Hawkins, two-time British champion, author and coach, died on 22 December at just 42 years old after battling a neuroendocrine carcinoma, an aggressive form of cancer.    Hawkins’s achievements in chess are remarkable for answering a perennial question: can adult improvers really aspire to significant progress? As a young adult, his rating was that of an average club player and, living in northeast England, he had limited access to strong competition or coaching. But his dedicated study over more than eight years was transformative, as set out in his acclaimed 2012 book, Amateur to IM [International Master].

Magnus Carlsen’s relationship with Fide is frayed, all the more following the spat at the 2024 World Rapid and Blitz Championships in New York, when the world no. 1 was penalised for wearing jeans. The Norwegian said it was his good relations with the Qatari organisers, and his domestic fans, for whom following the event has become a seasonal tradition, that motivated him to participate at the 2025 event, held in Doha between Christmas and New Year.     Carlsen dominated the rapid event, finishing a full point clear of the field, despite suffering an early setback on the second day of play, when he was beaten by the Russian grandmaster Vladislav Artemiev, who eventually took the silver medal.

When I lose a game of chess, I tend to know exactly where it went awry. Take the following position, where I faced Alireza Firouzja at the XTX Markets London Chess Classic, held at the Emirates Stadium in December. Firouzja, rated in the world top ten, was the top seed at the Elite section, and his canny middlegame play had taken me out of my comfort zone. In the position below, my first instinct was 21 Bxd5, but I was nervous: after 21…Nxd5 22 Qxe5 Bd6 23 Qd4 his active pieces, and my wayward horse on a5, seemed to offer ample compensation for the sacrificed pawn. But then the thought crossed my mind – why trade off my bishop at all? Before I knew it, I had played a howler. Luke McShane-Alireza Firouzja London Chess Classic, December 2025 21 Qxe5??