Isaac Boleslavsky was a Soviet Grandmaster and a well-known opening theorist (you can check out the Chessopedia for more details of his life). He helped train Petrosian and was his second when Petrosian beat Botvinnik for the world champions...
In March-April 1843, Howard Staunton, the best player in England, decided to play Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint Amant, the best player in France. It was a casual match, held in London, of six games and the prize money was one guinea. ...
In 1995, the World Chess Championship (Players Chess Association - PCA) was held in New York between Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan (Vishy) Anand. The match started on September 11 (9/11), 1995 on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center.&n...
George Henry Mackenzie was born on March 24, 1837 in North Kessock, Scotland. In 1856, at the age of 19, he purchased a commission in the 60th Rifles (the King’s Royal Rifle Corps). He served as a Lieutenant in the British army i...
John Barry (1873-1940) was a Boston lawyer and a strong amateur who played at Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania in 1904. He drew his games with Lasker, Marco, Showalter, Schlechter, and Mieses, He defeated Richard Teichmann. But hi...
Carl Schlechter (1874-1918) was one of the top 7 players in the world from 1900 to his death by starvation in 1918. He learned the game when he was 16 and soon gave up his studies to devote himself to chess. In this game, Carl was 19 y...
In 1934, the New York State Chess Association sponsored the New York State Chess Championship in Syracuse, New York. It has held at the Hotel Onondage from August 13th through August 25th. In round 11, Samuel Reshevsky met Arnold Denke...
Here is an index of all 110 articles at www.chess.com as of August 7, 2007 and excluding the Amazing Games. NAME &nbs...
The Staunton chessmen is the standard pattern for chess pieces used in all world chess federation and United States Chess Federation events. On March 1, 1849 the pattern was first registered by Nathaniel Cook. Prior to that, the pieces most commo...
On July 6, 1919 the German city of Sorup-in-Angeln issued paper money with a chess motif. It had a chess table with a woman seated. Paper money replaced coins, which became rare in Germany since metal was being used for armaments. In mid-1921 St...
Searching for Bobby Fischer really begins in 1972 when Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky in the World Chess Championship Match in Reyjavik, Iceland, then disappeared from chess. Many people got interested in chess and picked up the game, even b...
Chess was probably introduced in Russia in the 9th century AD through the Caspian-Volga trade route. At the time, there was a Volga trade route to Baghdad. In the 10th century, chess reached Russia from Byzantium and from the Vikings. Arou...
Fred Reinfeld was born in New York City on January 27, 1910. Reinfeld wrote over 100 chess books in his lifetime, and perhaps over 260 books total. He also wrote about geology, history, numismatics, checkers, and astronomy. He was said to have...
George Washington (1732-1799) may not have played chess, but there is the story of Washington crossing the Delaware to attack the British army. Earlier, a boy had given a spy report to the British commander that Washington was about to attack. The...
In 1974 Gerald Abrahams wrote an interesting book called Not Only Chess. He called it a selection of Chessays. Here are some interesting items from his book. On page 15 Abrahams conjectured that Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Karl Marx ...
I did a little survey of chess opening frequncies from several chess databases. After looking over a million games or so and keeping tabs of the first few moves, this is the result. 1.e4 was the most common opening, representing 70% of the samp...
n 1607, the first ballet with a chess theme was Ballet des Eschecs, performed for Louis XIV of France. Francois-Andre Danican Philidor (1726-1795) was a famous music composer. He was exposed to chess by the musicians in the French king's co...
In 1877 chess players met at the Cafe Logeling, 49 Bowery Street in lower Manhattan. Mr. Logeling was a chess enthusiast and eventuallu built a room in the back of the cafe for chess. On November 24, 1877, it was decided to form a chess clu...
In 1949 Fred Reinfeld and Irving Chernev published a book called The Fireside Book of Chess. Here are some interesting items from the book. On page 69 is the claim of the shortest master game. It is between Gibauld and Lazard and played in Pa...
he first world team competition took place in Paris in 1924 to coincide with the Olympic Games. There were 54 players from 18 countries. Czechoslovakia won the Gold Medal. The Silver went to Hungary and the Bronze went to Switzerland. The individu...
In 1945 Alan Turing (1912-1954) used chess-playing as an example of what a computer could do. Turing himself was a weak chess player. In 1946 Alan Turing made his first reference to machine intelligence in connection with chess-playing. In 1...
Compositions are chess positions other than which arises during a chess game, usually, but not necessarily, composed for solving. The chess problem and the composed chess ending are the true art forms of chess. Orthodox compositions co...
Here is an interesting game in which White sacrificed his Queen to force mate. It's a familiar pattern - get the Bishop on Bishop 6 and threaten to put the Rook on Rook 8 for mate.
Victor Knorre was an amateur chess player (he was an astronomer) who beat some of the strongest players in the world. Here is a game in which he defeats Johannes Zukertort, one of the strongest players in the world. Knorre sacrificed a piece...
