After he was crowned the world champion, Gukesh named Vincent Keymer as one of the players who was a part of his back-room team. In The the SPIEGEL news magazine Vincent revealed behind-the-scenes preparation that led to World Championship win. At the same time GM Efstratios Grivas looks at some games of the German super-talent. | Photo: Marcus Brandt/dpa

Gukesh made history by becoming the world chess champion at 18 years of age. Grzegorz Gajewski has been training Gukesh for the past two years. In this in-depth interview with Sagar Shah, Gajewski reveals the story behind forming Team Gukesh – how every member was carefully chosen, the strategies they employed and the collaborative effort that led to this historic win. He also sheds light on Gukesh's mental resilience, the crucial role played by his parents and an insightful analysis of the games. | Photo: Maria Emelianova

Some fun and challenging positions, as well as a brain-teasing dose of trivia from Graham Phythian to help you while away the festive period. We bring you some of his chess problems on our live boards, which will defend against your attempts to defeat them. We wish you A Very Happy Problem-Solving Christmas.

Gukesh D became the youngest-ever undisputed world chess champion after beating Ding Liren in the last classical encounter of their 14-game match in Singapore. Ding voluntarily entered a pawn-down endgame which was objectively drawn, but a blunder by the Chinese GM on move 55 meant Gukesh would take the title by winning the match with a 7½-6½ score. | Full report to follow shortly.

Yes, it is that time of the year again. Time to leave your copy of CHESS Magazine open, ‘non-suspiciously’, hoping that the family will take the hint and place a big order at Chess & Bridge. If the hint is not taken, then just order one or more of the items yourself, safe in the knowledge that there are much worse things you could be doing.

This ESPN article describes how former World Champion Viswanathan Anand created the Gukesh-Grzegorz team that's shaken the chess world. Grzegorz who, you ask?

The London Chess Classic elite section is an 8-player all-play-all tournament taking place from 29 November to 7 December at the Emirates Stadium, home to Arsenal Football Club. Four English players and four international representatives make up the lineup, which includes Azerbaijani star Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, living legend Michael Adams and women's world champion Ju Wenjun. | Follow the games live and with commentary by Peter Svidler and Lawrence Trent, starting at 17.00 CET (11.00 ET, 21.30 IST)

The book was originally published in German, has now been published in English by ChessBase India. The luxury hard cover version, printed in full colour, is available for less than $12, and the eBook version for just $9.50 – with all proceeds going to the HelpChess Foundation. Advanced copies of the book were given to former World Champions and other notable personalities in Singapore.

A remote engine does not run on your computer but in a data center. Here you’ll learn why the new remote engine is a smart addition to our proven cloud engines. How to run a remote engine without spending ducats? Why did our Helsinki machines give us quite a scare before the autumn discount day? And how did Fritz wreck a server rack?

In the Spotlight article of the ECU magazine we were introduced to the women but also men working behind the scene, doing a fantastic work to support women in chess. They play a key role as players, arbiters, coaches, volunteers, says Antonina Gora from Ireland.

Finally, in this three-part series, we come to the first full Babson task endgame study, composed by Gady Costeff. Many thought it was not possible to fulfil this extremely difficult task. Harold van der Heijden describes the full story. But one problem remains: the position is not legal. Costeff had already constructed it in 2011 and tried in vain to find a legal version. So this is still an open problem. Maybe you can give it a try?

There are tactical motifs which are continuously repeated and can be learned exactly like we learn opening theory. I feel that the correct approach is to collect thematic, nearly identical positions which are involved on similar patterns which you should look for. In this survey I will present an often met tactical motif I call the "Shirov Killer." It was wonderfully demonstrated by legendary GM Alexei Shirov in an Internet blitz game.