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Fiendish Moves #2

 Kupper – Leepin Basel, 1954 White to play   Black has nothing to fear from 27 Qd8+ Kh7 28 Nf8+ Kh6 29 Qd4 Re2 when the position is equal.      27 Nf8! A brilliant move, and the only decisive one.      27…Bh7 27…Qxe5 fails…

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The Dilettante

‘There is no need to play chess well at all. The dilettante who treats it almost completely as a game of chance doesn’t necessarily derive less pleasure from it than the grandmaster who strives for perfection.’  J.H. Donner NRC Handelsblad, 13 April 1981, reproduced in The King: Chess…

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Chess, Murder, Fraud

‘Everything about our situation was a riddle. Why would Karpov and three of his colleagues jump on a plane and fly hundreds of miles to Kalmykia to open a criminal case against me just for revenge?’ Bill Browder, Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No….

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Has Karpov Lost His Marbles?

Tony Miles As it happens I am in a position to reveal exclusively to Kingpin readers (unless, of course, someone else actually offers to pay me) the true and tragic story of why the invincible Anatoly failed to dispose of that young upstart Kasparov. I…

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King of the Coffee House

This line as yet has no official name (except ‘Zaitsev line with 8 Bc4’); it is generally referred to as simply ‘The Hack Line’, or for reasons which are rather obscure, the The Nescafé® Frappé Attack or NFA for short. Graham Burgess, Attacking the Benko: The Nescafé® Frappé…

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Sports Writers

‘In other sports, the persecution of some players, coaches or officials by the press not rarely offers a sad spectacle. With chess, the main problem is that the game is too esoteric by nature to satisfy the interest of the public at large . ….

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Startling Castling

‘Security passes were something I never felt the need to wear, particularly when coupled with Rambo [John Stevens]. The way we were viewing it was, “If our hairdos aren’t our pass, well, we’ll pass on the gig, thank you.” Rambo and I got into so…

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Fiendish Moves #1

 Eliskases – Henneberger Bad Liebwerda, 1934 Black to play   Walter Henneberger (1883–1969) was a Swiss master whose career as a school teacher afforded him few opportunities to compete in  international tournaments. In the early 1900s he won the Swiss Championship four times but was…

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The British School

‘The British School is characterized by a great show of brilliancy. No idea is too bizarre for them, no concept too fantastic. They are hard workers, to be sure, but rather bent on finding new sensational effects than on constructing something useful. For the main…

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That’s the Spirit!

Jonathan Rowson A polished pine bedroom in a convent school, Tallinn, Estonia, September 1997. A bottle of whisky, unpacked suitcases, and three drunken chess players playing blitz. Andrew Martin, Simon Williams, Jonathan Rowson. And, our invisible friend, ‘The Spirit’. It is intriguing. It is intriguing…

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