James 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 More
Latest in Articles
More Articles
It 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 More
A 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 More
In 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
Mikhail 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…
Read More
A Soviet film about Alexander Alekhine Sarah Hurst Talking about Alekhine with chess friends recently, someone mentioned White Snow of Russia (1980), and it occurred to me that the film might be available on YouTube, like so many Soviet films – and it is. The…
Read More
‘Session of the FIDE presidential council. FIDE president proposes temporarily suspending himself from duty until the next council.’ See also Chess, Murder, Fraud Saddam’s Friend The Man Who Bought Chess
Read More
Remembering the Murder of Larisa Yudina under Ilyumzhinov Valery Badmayev editor-in-chief of newspaper Sovremennaya Kalmykia (7 October 2015) A couple of days ago I was sent a link to an interview with Ilyumzhinov on Ekho Moskvy, but I only found time to read it today….
Read More
Why Life Does Not Imitate Chess Part 3: The Visionary Followers of Garry Kasparov on Facebook will have noted that he has taken to styling himself as a ‘politician’. What’s his track record? All chess players will know about his campaign for FIDE president…
Read More
Why Life Does Not Imitate Chess Garry Kasparov is an archetypal winner: one that every ambitious person should learn from. So says Alastair Campbell. And he should know: he’s written a book on this subject!i ‘Running through everything Kasparov says is the idea that winners…
Read More
- 10 Seconds with 7
- About Us 1
- Archive 227
- Articles 99
- Back issues 48
- Cheating 28
- Creative chess 96
- Features 224
- FIDE 51
- Front Page 119
- Games 90
- Hack Attack 54
- History scrapbook 141
- Homepage 114
- Interviews 41
- Kirsan 43
- Letters 10
- Nosher 11
- Private Eye 4
- Quotes 131
- Reviews 92
- Shop 30
- The Penguin Files 38
- The Poisoned Pawn 6
- Uncategorized 10
Gary Kenworthy
→ Commenting on: Tim Krabbé: 20 Questions
Jon Manley
→ Commenting on: No Regrets: Boris Spassky at 60
IchessU
→ Commenting on: No Regrets: Boris Spassky at 60
S.B. Cohen
→ Commenting on: Chess and Sex – The Survey