Poignant news from thirty years ago. Poignant because this month marks the sixteenth anniversary of Tony Miles’ premature death. The reasons for his defection became clearer four years after this story appeared when the Sunday Times published Nick Pitt’s investigation. Sharing the front page of a…
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Jeremy Silman As a child (in conservative San Diego), I recall thinking about Omar Khayyam’s ‘A jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou.’ Having never imbibed anything other than milk, I couldn’t quite understand what Omar was trying to say. Now we jump…
Read MoreOn the eve of the press conference to announce the Kasparov-Kramnik match, David Levy addressed a remarkable billet-doux to Raymond Keene, his life-long business partner and former brother-in-law. An open letter to Raymond Keene: Raymond, We have known each other for 37 years. We have…
Read MoreJames Plaskett Complex games may demand intense scrutiny. Thirty years after this one was played in the penultimate round of the world’s most prestigious Open, I offer my final verdict. And that of Fritz9. Plaskett – Miles Lugano 1986 1…
Read MoreTony 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…
Read MoreZapata–Anand Biel, 1988 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 Nxe5 d6 4 Nf3 Nxe4 5 Nc3 5…Bf5?? 6 Qe2 1-0 Nick Pelling explains Anand’s mishap in his entertaining Chess Superminiatures: ‘While looking through the Informator chess journal, he found a Petroff’s Defence game…
Read MoreWith his sharp eye for the unusual and the bizarre, Tony Miles offered this ‘candidate for the most absurd combination of the year award’. Bellon–Sosonko Amsterdam 1978 Having been positionally outplayed Bellon now produced the incredible 21 Bxa6!!??? The ‘justification’ lying in the variation 21…Bxa6 22…
Read MoreShort–Trent Gibraltar Masters 2014 (5) position after 14 cxb4 Commentator Simon Williams described White’s tripled isolated b-pawns as the ‘Irish pawn centre’ but was at a loss to explain where the term originated. As Alex Baburin points out in his article ‘Winning with the Irish…
Read MoreVideo interview with Sarah Hurst. My introduction to chess photography was at the 1986 World Chess Championship, Kasparov v Karpov, where I took some photos for a small booklet on the sideshows at the event. At that time there was a lot of interest…
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