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January 17, 2016 No Comments

Toughing Up at the Top

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…

February 15, 2013 4 Comments

Peter Svidler’s Questionnaire

What is your earliest memory of playing chess? I have quite a few, including the ones my parents have described to me when I grew up, but the very earliest is the recollection of beating some dude a year older than me when at the…

December 5, 2007 No Comments

Kramnik

There is this to be said for being a fan of Vladimir Kramnik – you do a get a better class of insult for your money. Reading Toilet War one is reminded, quite apart from the unmistakable whiff of madness arising from the pages,…

No Regrets: Boris Spassky at 60

November 27, 2007· 8 Comments

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…

Arimaa, Computers and the Future of Chess

February 6, 2015· 7 Comments

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;…

Sarah Hurst: 20 Questions

January 8, 2015· 7 Comments

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…

We Need to Talk about Garry, Part 3

November 16, 2015· 5 Comments

Why 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…

The First Chess Column

July 9, 2021· 1 Comment

The first chess column to appear in a newspaper was published in the Liverpool Mercury on this day in 1813.

Chess the Musical (1836)

April 24, 2021· No Comments

Self-help

January 3, 2021· 1 Comment

Chess Improvement It’s all in the mindset Barry Hymer and Peter Wells 334 pages | Softback | Bibliography | Index | £15.99 Crown House Publishing, 2020 Carl Portman This is not so much a review as a summary of my thoughts as a passionate…

Chess is Never Square in The Queen’s Gambit

October 30, 2020· 3 Comments

Sarah Hurst The Queen’s Gambit is an entertaining Netflix drama based on a novel that presents chess in a positive light and makes all the right points about women’s struggles on and off the board. It’s hard these days not to see all period drama…

Mike Forster

July 25, 2021

There was also an obligation in the 1980s for the Vice President of the Chess Club to leave the record…
→ Commenting on: Self-Sacrifice

player

July 18, 2021

Can anybody make sense of the notation?
→ Commenting on: The First Chess Column

Steve Cunliffe

July 11, 2021

Great story, Stuart. When we moved to Hastings at the end of 1978, I worked in the Post Office just…
→ Commenting on: The Hastings Years: Part 1

Wijnand

May 31, 2021

The "and" before Lasker and the "-" dash after Lasker suggest that these fourteen have played on the board ,…
→ Commenting on: Caption competition

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"If you start playing chess when you're young, you'll grow old and die playing chess." Marcel Duchamp was born on… t.co/e3WJeYa9ci • 22 Hours via Hootsuite Inc.
”There is something to be said for using chess to enrich one’s life instead of using one’s life to master chess.” t.co/uFz3UfGoFR • 3 Days via Twitter for iPad
RT @dsmerdon: CALLING ALL CHESS PLAYERS: Does life get in the way of your chess performance? How do relationships and children affect your… • 3 Days via Twitter for iPad
Rossolimo v Romanenko Saltzburg, 1948 t.co/mR94VOzE20 • 5 Days via Twitter Web App
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