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
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
‘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 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
‘Fifty years have passed since Pillsbury’s great triumph. Governments have fallen, tyrannies have been crushed, the energy of the atom has been harnessed, the Empire no longer has the self-assured power of 1895, but a chess tournament is again in progress at Hastings, just as…
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
What is your earliest memory of playing chess? Being told by my father not to allow e4, Bc4, Qh5 and Qxf7 mate. What is your most memorable game? Beliavsky–Nunn, Wijk aan Zee 1985. What was your worst defeat? Nunn–Lemachko, Lugano 1984. Which living player do…
Read More
Jimmy Adams, Baden Baden 1925 International Chess Tournament: The Arrival of Hypermodern Chess (Yorklyn: Caissa Editions, 1991) Alexander Alekhine, My Best Games 1924–37 (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1939) Frank Brady, Endgame: Thee Spectacular Rise and Fall of Bobby Fischer (London: Constable. 2011) David…
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