A candid portrait of England’s second GM
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CHESS. ___ TO CORRESPONDENTS. ANOTHER SUFFERER−We have so repeatedly warned Chess amateurs against the gentry known as the “shilling sharks” of vulgar divans, that those who now play with them have only their own folly to blame for the consequences. Take it as a rule, whenever…
Read MoreStuart Conquest The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal M. Tal Cadogan, 1997, 496 pp., £17.99 I recently had the good fortune to pass the night chez one of the strongest Swiss players of all time. Drooling over his amply stocked bookshelves I came across…
Read MoreOn the eve of the press conference to announce the Kasparov-Kramnik match, David Levy addressed a remarkable billet-doux to Raymond Keene, his life-long business partner and former brother-in-law. An open letter to Raymond Keene: Raymond, We have known each other for 37 years. We have…
Read MoreJames Plaskett Complex games may demand intense scrutiny. Thirty-seven years after this one was played in the penultimate round of the world’s most prestigious Open, I offer my final verdict. Early in 2023, Shirov contacted me to say that analysis with Stockfish 15 had revealed…
Read MoreIt is hard to estimate how many newcomers to chess this book turned into lifelong devotees of the game; hundreds certainly, but probably thousands. ‘When I was a young player, I read The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev which made chess seem extremely…
Read MoreA landmark in chess magazine publishing passed unnoticed this week – and it wasn’t the relaunch of the BCM (that’s next week). After 56 years in print, Dragon, the bulletin of the Cambridge University Chess Club, finally entered the digital age with its 100th issue….
Read MoreIn a wide-ranging interview in 2003 Loek Van Wely talked to Dutch journalist Renzo Verwer about his life. This excerpt reveals much about the pressures of playing chess at the highest level and the gamesmanship of leading players. ‘. . . Man, in those top…
Read More‘Soup that was too cold, seven years ago now; an old game lost to an up-and-coming youth champion with a completely different opening, but with exactly the same brand of chewy caramels beside the board; a botched perpetual motion machine you saw somewhere. Six new…
Read MoreMikhail Botvinnik: The Life and Games of a World Chess Champion by Andy Soltis 284 pages | hardback | 12 photos | S49.95 Jefferson: McFarland, 2014 Nagesh Havanur The Patriarch never had an official biographer. He didn’t want one. His autobiography…
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Gary Kenworthy
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