‘Another twenty years of Ilyumzhinov’ – Mikhail Golubev talks to Sarah Hurst Mikhail Golubev became a grandmaster in 1996, the year he won the Ukrainian Championship. He has won or shared first prize in 17 international tournaments and has assisted former world champions Anatoly…
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those who are unfamiliar with Kingpin are missing out on a real delight: there are many good chess magazines around, but in my opinion Kingpin is the best out there
very, very entertaining . . . some of the back issues of Kingpin were instant classics
Scurrilous, funny, sometimes serious, sometimes libellous
the ‘Private Eye’ of the chess world
unquestionably the funniest chess magazine in the world
In the chess satire stakes @KingpinEd are masters of the art form … a veritable feast: irony, sarcasm, hyperbole
Both serious and funny, I recommend it to anyone who wants to smile as he reads
a new kind of whiteness I never thought possible with my old Chess Magazine – and without boiling
razor sharp
I actually paid good money for No.9
Lev Khariton The attractive countryside of Meudon is a 15-minute train ride from Paris. Here I came to interview Boris Spassky just three days before his 60th birthday. He reminiscences about his life, his chess career, his rivals and friends. Dear Grandmaster, I should…
Sarah Hurst was a regular contributor to CHESS magazine in the 1990s and also edited the British Chess Federation’s newsletter, ChessMoves. Her fine book Curse of Kirsan: Adventures in the Chess Underworld is now available on Kindle at a bargain price. Since 2002 she has been translating…
Andy Lewis A common Arimaa starting position Anyone for a variation on chess? Is chess played out? This concern has been voiced periodically over the history of the game, and the challenges has never been more profound: over-refinement of opening-theory; perfection of endgame technique;…
“a must-read for everyone who doesn’t take chess too seriously; it’s especially a must-read for everyone who does take chess seriously!” ChessVibes “. . . very, very entertaining . . . some of the back issues were classics and I have some of them at home ….
Jimmy Adams, 1947–2026
FIDE Master Jimmy Adams, who has died aged 79 after a long illness, was one of the great chess storytellers. He was cast in the mould of Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld – lively, versatile and cultured writers he admired, emulated, and surpassed. He honed…
Machiavelli on Ice
The Brain Games Scandal click below Brain Games First published in Kingpin 40 (Autumn 2009)
A Creature without Counterpart
Sir George Thomas wrote more about badminton than chess, which makes this article (published in 1927) something of a rarity. In it he compares chess with his favourite sports, tennis and badminton. ‘the true chess fiend is a creature without counterpart’ Chess Fiends! By…
Chess and the Nazis
Tim-Jake Gluckman Chess in the Third Reich How the Game Was Played, Glorified, and Abused in Nazi Germany, 1933–1945 Taylor Kingston vi + 285 pages | 98 photos, appendix, notes, bibliography, indexes hardback | €49.95 Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2025 Taylor Kingston (TK) is…
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Amatza Avni
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Alan Crombleholme
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Epawn
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