A new issue of the world’s premier chess magazine full of new content.

8 NIC’s Café
Robert Hübner (1948-2025).

10 Singapore
18-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju from India crowned a stupendous year to become World Champion. He defeated defending champion Ding Liren from China in a 14-game match, with three wins, two losses and nine draws.

21 Celeb 64
Danny DeVito.

46 Carlsen’s Game Notes
Magnus Carlsen posted a video recap of every game of the Ding-Gukesh match on YouTube for Take Take Take, the new chess company he co-founded. Carlsen’s comments are insightful, instructive, and entertaining.

59 Fair & Square
‘FIDE introduced the dress code at the Candidates matches in St. John, 1988. Valery Salov, my opponent, wore jeans and sneakers, which was against the rules. When asked about this, the organizer said: “They look quite cute on him”. They were not keen on enforcing the rules back then.’ (Jan Timman)

60 Rapid and Blitz
Ian Nepomniachtchi and Magnus Carlsen decided to share the World Blitz Championship and were allowed to do so by FIDE. In the World Rapid, 18-year-old Volodar Murzin was the surprise winner, leading an all-Russian podium with Alexander Grischuk and ‘Nepo’.

76 Two Asian Winners
Carissa Yip reports on the Women’s section of the Rapid and Blitz.

80 The FIDE Circuit
Fabiano Caruana clinched the first spot for the 2026 Candidates tournament.

86 James Altucher
The key to adult improvement is to be self-aware of what age has given you and what age has taken away.

88 How to Improve
Nate Solon explains how to convert a winning position. When you understand what can go wrong, you will be able to recognize the difficulties that you will have to overcome to bring home the full point. For example, be aware of your king’s safety.

91 The Killer Blow
Puzzles selected by Jacob Aagaard.

94 The scoresheet
Carlsen-Kramnik, Stavanger 2016

96 Sadler on Books
In one of those chess books without chess in it, Peter Doggers manages to serve the contingent of new chess fans who started as Netflix watchers or YouTube subscribers. It is a worthy introduction to chess and the world behind it.

102 Jan Timman
Long before computers transformed our understanding of chess, the great Alexei Troitzky (1866-1942) demonstrated his own deep insights into difficult and elusive endgames. His brilliant studies remain an inspiration to this day.

106 Just Checking
When was the last time Kostya Kavutskiy cried?