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 MoreMore Articles
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 MoreWhy 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 MoreWhy 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 MoreWhy Life Does Not Imitate Chess King: How bloodily the sun begins to peer Above yon bosky hill! The day looks pale …
Read MoreWhenever the popular press presumes to write with authority about chess, the self-appointed custodians of the game (that’s us) get sniffy, usually with good reason. When chess hits the headlines it tends to trigger a reflex in newspapers. They (tabloids especially) reach for their trusty…
Read MoreJohn L. Watson [This withering indictment of the stupidity and arrogance of chess players was written over 16 years ago. It is still relevant today and lends weight to Sarah Hurst’s recent observation that ‘chess brilliance has nothing to do with high intelligence in other areas,…
Read More‘If all players were as intelligent, voluble and linguistically assured as Gary Kasparov, the game could print its own cheque-books.’ Julian Barnes, ‘TDF: The World Chess Championship’ The New Yorker (December 1993) reproduced in Letters from London 1990-1995 (Picador, 1995), p.273 See also…
Read MoreColin Crouch, who has died at the tragically young age of 58, had a magnificently mischievous sense of humour. He contributed several pieces to Kingpin, serious and funny, and wrote one of the wittiest parodies of a chess writer you are likely to read. An affable,…
Read More
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