In 1968, the American magazine Chess Review introduced Michael Basman as ‘another bright B’ in the tradition of famous British chess players represented by Bird, Blackburne and Burn. That’s some billing for a 21-year-old. Basman would never be the brightest chess star in this firmament…
Read More
Latest in Tony Miles
More Articles
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…
Read More
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 More
On 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 More
James 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 More
Tony 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 More
Zapata–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 More
With 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 More
Short–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 More
- 10 Seconds with 7
- About Us 1
- Archive 227
- Articles 99
- Back issues 48
- Cheating 27
- Creative chess 94
- Features 219
- FIDE 51
- Front Page 116
- Games 90
- Hack Attack 55
- History scrapbook 137
- Homepage 114
- Interviews 41
- Kirsan 43
- Letters 9
- Nosher 11
- Private Eye 4
- Quotes 130
- Reviews 90
- Shop 29
- The Penguin Files 38
- The Poisoned Pawn 6
- Uncategorized 7
Moyra Ashford
→ Commenting on: The Chess Player and the Train Robber
Danny Nakamura
→ Commenting on: Buy all the back issues
Big Fan
→ Commenting on: Buy all the back issues
Paul Dargan
→ Commenting on: Poetry Corner