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Armenian Grandmaster Ashot Anastasian suddenly passed away on 26th December at the age of 52.

Anastasian was one of the strongest players in the country, having won the Armenian Chess Championship eight times: 1983, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1992, 1994, and 2005.

As a member of the national team Anastasian had won two team bronze medals (1992, 2002) and one individual gold medal (2000) at Chess Olympiads.

Condolences to his family and friends.

The 2016 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships (Open and Women) will take place in Doha, Qatar, from 25th of December (arrival) to 31st of December (departure).

Live games with analysis will be daily on Chessdom.com and ChessArena.com with the TCEC engines Stockfish, Houdini, and Komodo.

World Rapid Chess 2016 live games (men) here

The 2016 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships (Open and Women) will take place in Doha, Qatar, from 25th of December (arrival) to 31st of December (departure).

The Rapid event will be held over three days (26-28th December) at a time control of 15min+10s and the Blitz Championships will continue during next two days (29-30th December) at a time control of 3min+2s.

Japan and Singapore could bid for the right to hold the next World Chess Championship Match in 2018, FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov stated for TASS agency.

The 5th Torneo Internacional de Navidad Ciudad de Lorca is taking place from 26-30th December at the Hotel Jardines de Amaltea in Lorca, Murcia, Spain.

The event is organized by the Club Ajedrez Lorca and will be completed over 9 rounds of Swiss system.

174 players from 22 federations are signed to participate, including 15 Grandmasters and 15 International Masters.

Official website

The 26th Annual North American Open will be held at Bally’s Casino Resort, 3645 Las Vegas Blvd S, Las Vegas, Nevada.

The event has 7 sections: Open, Under 2300, Under 2100, Under 1900, Under 1700, Under 1500 and Under 1250.

The Open Section is a 5-day tournament (December 26-30) with FIDE norms possible. The Under 2300 to Under 1250 Sections have either a 4-day schedule (December 26-29) or 3-day schedule (December 27-29) to participate in.

The 35th Annual Empire City Open will be held from December 27-29, 2016, at the Hotel Pennsylvania, 401 Seventh Ave, New York.

The 40th Zurich Weihnachtsopen will take place from 26th to 30th December, 2016, at the Crowne Plaza Zürich in Zurich, Switzerland.

The Master Tournament (for players rated over 2000) and General Tournament (U2050) will each be played over 7 rounds of Swiss system.

World Championship challenger Sergey Karjakin held a creative workshop in the conference hall of the Law Faculty of Moscow State University on 19th December.

After opening the chess school with MSU, Karjakin became the regular guest at the University. The two-hour workshop was attended by more than 600 people.

Chess was mentioned during the Russian President’s press-conference in Moscow.

During the annual press-conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin answered a question about state support of chess and Sergey Karjakin’s performance in the World Championship match against Magnus Carlsen.