Mikhail Tal monument, Riga
I'm on a holiday vacation in Latvia, so just couldn't miss this.
Russian Championship Stats
The comments for the Russian championship results are closed for some reason, so I'll correct the things a bit in my blog. Both Botvinnik and Tal won six Soviet championships, and the record of most Russian SFSR championship wins in the Soviet t...
Peter Svidler and Sergei Shipov discuss Alpha Zero
What do you think of Alpha Zero destroying Stockfish? I'd like to clarify a few things first. For instance, I read that Alpha Zero played on much stronger hardware than Stockfish. But other people write that Alpha Zero trained on much st...
Crazy Double King Hunt
As those who read my blog are aware, I sometimes actually play chess instead of translating some obscure Soviet books. Today I had probably the craziest game of my life.
The Most Dominant Players in History, post-Sinquefield
Refer to the previous version for rules of admission to this table. However, I decided to throw in some wild cards this time - Ian Nepomniachtchi, who's had an excellent run recently, and three Chinese players - Ding Liren, Wei Yi a...
Mikhail Chigorin Club
Russian chess statistician Vitaly Gnirenko has compiled a list of all players who defeated a reigning classical world champion in a game with classical control. Below is the chronological table of players joining the club. For the sake of convenie...
Pioneers of Soviet women's chess
Small biographical articles written by Elizaveta Bykova in the early 1950s for her book Sovetskie Shakhmatistki, with relevant games and interviews if there were any included. Games annotated by Bykova unless noted otherwise. Players listed in th...
The Conspiracies of Valery Salov, Part 2
Continued from Part 1. Surov: I'll try to go to that. I've got a "fresh head" here on the platter, and I've been trying to attach some wires to it to make it talk. Evgeny Sidorov, hello! Evgeny Sidorov: Hi! Surov: What questions do you have ...
The Conspiracies of Valery Salov, Part 1
The interview I'm going to show you is... controversial and bizarre, to say the least. GM Valery Salov at one time was among the world championship contenders (and has a good score against many of his contemporaries), but in the late 1990s, he beg...
"We Want to See This Eccentric Russian again!" Kirill Zangalis interview
Yuri Golyshak from Sport-Express interviews Kirill Zangalis, Sergei Karjakin's manager. http://www.sport-express.ru/chess/reviews/v-1999-m-bolel-za-myu-i-sulshera-v-2016-m-sulsher-sam-podoshel-so-mnoy-znakomitsya-1242441/ In 1999, I was r...
Assessing the Players' Dominance with Rating
I've already compiled stats on the most dominant players in history. But during the long discussion in the CAPS thread ("Who was the best world champion?"), I also thought about rating inflation over the years. Fischer was head and shoulders ahead...
Nona Gaprindashvili. Fighting for Equality
A chapter from Nona Gaprindashvili's 1977 book I Prefer Risk. Many of her thoughts on women's chess still seem to be relevant even now, 40 years later. I've included some chess games to divide the wall of text somewhat. Fighting for Equal...
The Most Dominant Chess Players in History, 2016 version
About three years ago, I made a statistical table about the most dominant world champions in history. Now I feel that it deserves an update - there are even more players in it now, and some results have changed accordingly. Carlsen continues his a...
Who Is Mr. Dubov? An interview with Daniil Dubov
I've already translated one interview by Daniil Dubov, but now that he'd finished third in the World Blitz Championship, I feel that the English-speaking chess community deserves to know more about this young Russian grandmaster. So here's another...
Sergey Karjakin: "Carlsen is the Cristiano Ronaldo of chess"
Karjakin's first interview upon returning to Russia, for the Sport-Express newspaper. http://www.sport-express.ru/chess/reviews/sergey-karyakin-karlsen-shahmatnyy-ronaldu-1072655/ I BOUGHT A NEW SIM CARD AND DIDN'T GIVE MY NUMBER TO ANYON...
Karjakin's first interview after losing to Carlsen
Source: https://russian.rt.com/sport/article/337524-karyakin-shahmaty-intervyu "When we prepared for the match, we haven't thought much about the possible tie break", Karjakin admitted. "We thought that everything would end in the classical...
"Ten Funny Stories about Mark Taimanov", by Evgeny Gik
This article was written by Gik in early 2016. Since then, both Gik and Taimanov have died... Mark Taimanov (right) and Evgeny Gik in 2015. How the Central Committee Fought Against the Bourgeoisie In the summer 1955, there was a USSR vs. ...
How World Champions Did It
The classical "did it" joke with chess champions. I'm probably not the first one to come up with a variation on this theme, but still. Steinitz did it strategically. Lasker did it by partner analysis. Capablanca did it with such ease...
R.I.P Evgeny Gik
Evgeny Gik was a hugely popular Soviet and Russian chess author. He died yesterday, seemingly of a sudden stroke, aged 73. I grew up on Gik's books. His writings covered much more than chess - he wrote about many popular number, word and board g...
Sergei Karjakin: "Chess Is Way Cooler Than Cybersport"
Interview with the Izvestia newspaper. The high-performing grandmaster talks about his impending match against Magnus Carlsen, his most angry reaction after a loss, his love for beach volleyball and dangers of virtual space. For the first...
Dice Chess - for those who think that modern chess is too boring
I've seen many people lamenting the "boring and drawish" modern chess. Allow me to introduce you to a joke variant of chess that incorporates the tabletop RPG mechanics - the Dice Chess. As we all know, all captures in chess are without a fight:...
Maya Chiburdanidze proposes a new tournament system
Part of an interview by Evgeny Surov, chess-news.ru, 13th June 2016 I met Maya Chiburdanidze in the Tbilisi Chess Palace, where an experimental tournament is held, using a system she'd come up with. Maya Chiburdanidze: Let us start ...
Boris Spassky new interview. "Lokomotiv Society Saved Me Twice"
Original here. Interview conducted by IM Igor Lensky. Lokomotiv Society Saved Me Twice On July 19th, it's been 50 years since the legendary grandmaster, Honoured Master of Sports of the USSR and tenth chess world champion, Boris Spassky, recei...
My shortest chess.com win
As usual in such games, I was given a lot of help by my partner.
