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Volatile Egos

  ‘For decades the world championships had been run by FIDE, the International Chess Federation; but increasingly there were collisions between this entrenched bureaucracy and volatile egos with high financial expectations. Relations between FIDE and the top players deteriorated sharply under the Presidency of Florencio…

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Beauty and Power

  ‘the best chess contains a striving not just for victory but for something beyond: for an ideal harmonious state that produces a perfect mixture of creativity, beauty and power.’ Julian Barnes, ‘TDF: The World Chess Championship’ The New Yorker (December 1993) reproduced in Letters…

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Bad Men

  ‘Garry Kasparov may loathe him, but the grandmaster in him surely has to recognise that Putin operates more like a chess player than most of his fellow world leaders. He has a long-term objective – to rebuild Russian power. His core strategy is the…

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Confessions of a Crooked Chess Master – Part 2

Michael Basman   International Intrigue   It was Hastings 1967-8 at the annual congress run by Frank Rhoden. I had not been doing particularly well after having bullied Frank into giving me a place in the tournament. ‘I’ve got to invite Keene, Hartston and Penrose,…

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Confessions of a Crooked Chess Master – Part 1

Michael Basman   The Slippery Slope My first step along the road to perdition came in the London Under-14 Boys Championship in 1959 (in those days girls didn’t or couldn’t play chess). It was round 5 and I was playing J.N. Eyres of Colfe’s School…

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Luck

  ‘Surely in chess there is just you, your opponent, the pieces, and – in Kasparovian terms – an examination of the truth of the position. I put the matter to Colin Crouch, a bearded and amiable International Master who holds one of the strangest…

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Arrogance

  ‘Self-admiration is as a tape-worm of the brain. It particularly infests Chess-players and is rarely eradicated.’  William Norwood Potter British Chess Magazine (July 1883), p.244   ‘I was at a very high peak and felt invincible. Not only did this make me complacent, but it…

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