Judit Polgar was born July 23, 1976 in Hungary. She has dazzled the chess world since she was a child. In 1991, she became a grandmaster at 15 years and four months. That was the youngest ever at the time. She is the best female player ever. Her ...
Boris Gelfand was born in Minsk, Belarussian SSR (now Belarus) on June 24, 1968. He was Soviet Junior Champion at 17 and European Junior Champion two years later. In 1988, he tied for first in the World Junior Championship, but Joel Lautier was aw...
The English Opening is very flexible for both sides. In many games, the player who is more flexible is the winner. Each move played gives the opponent information and while gaining ground a move can reduce the flexibility of the position. An advan...
Garry Kasparov was born April 13, 1963 in Baku, Azerbaijan, USSR. He began to play chess at the age of six. In 1976, he won the Soviet Junior Championship. In 1980, he won the World Junior Championship. He became a grandmaster in 1980. In 1982, he...
Jose Raul Capablanca (pictured) was born in Havana, Cuba on November 19, 1888. He died March 8, 1942. (For reincarnation fans, that is a year and a day before the birth of Robert James Fischer.) While losing no games (1916-1924), Capablanca was...
Svetozar Gligoric (pictured) was born February, 2, 1923. He was the Yugoslav champion many times and competed to seek the world championship. He first became famous in 1947 for his first place undefeated finish at Warsaw 1947 where he defeated Vas...
My last article showed Miguel Najdorf on the white side of the King’s Indian Defense using the Fianchetto Variation. This line has the advantage of placing the bishop on g2 where it can have considerable influence on the center, but does not exert...
Mendel Najdorf was born near Warsaw, Poland April 15, 1910 and died in Malaga, Spain July 4, 1997. He was instructed in chess by Dawid Przepiorka and Savielly Tartakower. For links to my articles on Najdorf’s teachers see: http://www.chess.com/art...
In my last article, I noted the passing of Zdenko Krnic and presented one of his games. His last completed issue of Chess Informant was #107. There he presented an article on the Gruenfeld Defense featuring the Exchange Variation. The variation wa...
The chess world has lost Zdenko Krnic, the editor-in-chief and director of Chess Informant. He died on July 23, 2010 a week after a motorcycle struck him in a crosswalk. Although he was an international master, he was best known for his work for I...
Ludek Pachman was born May 11, 1924 in Czechoslovakia and died March 6, 2003 in Germany. He played in six interzonal tournaments from 1948 to 1976. He wrote numerous books on chess openings and strategy. When I encountered his 1992 loss to the yo...
Artur Yusupov or Jussupow (pictured) was born February 13,1960 in Moscow, USSR. He won the World Junior Championship in 1977. He became an international master in 1977 and an international grandmaster in 1980. He came first in the Tunis IZ 1985 an...
The opening of a chess game resembles three card Monte or the shell game. The vital difference is that in chess both players see the same things and they both handle the game pieces. After each player moves, the opponent gains information. The ...
A reader sent me the following request: “In the Najdorf … after 6.Bg5 … 15...Bf8 … we have lots of moves like Qh5 and Rg1.… If you could give me some variations to help in my study, or make an article on this opening!”The opening in question is th...
Peter Svidler was born June 17, 1976 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg again). He won the Russian Championship five times from 1994 to 2008. In 1994, he became a grandmaster. Svidler was the Chess960 World Champion three times in 2003, 2004, and 20...
Judit Polgar was born July 23, 1976 in Hungary. She defeated an international master when she was 10 years old and an international grandmaster when she was 11. In 1991, she became a grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months. At the time she...
Bent Larsen (pictured) was born March 4, 1935 in Thisted, Denmark. He won the championship of Demark six times from 1954 to 1964. He became an international master in 1954 at the Amsterdam Olympiad. He became an international grandmaster in 1956 a...
Fridrik Olafsson was born January 26, 1935 in Reykjavik, Iceland. He won the championships of Iceland (1952) and Scandinavia (1953). He became a grandmaster in the interzonal at Portoroz 1958 and advanced to the Candidates Tournament of 1959. He a...
Gregory Kaidanov (pictured) was born October 11, 1959 in Ukraine and moved to the United States from Russia in 1991. In 1988, he had become a grandmaster. In the U.S., he has kept active as a player and teacher of chess. Perhaps, his most impre...
Pal Benko was born July 14, 1928 in Amiens, France to Hungarian parents and raised in Hungary. In 1948, he won the Hungarian Championship. He was an international master playing board one for Hungary in the World Student Team Championship of 19...
Bill Hook was born May 28, 1925 in New Rochelle, New York. He died May 10, 2010. He was a photographer, an artist, a writer, and a translator for writers. While doing these things, he was a chess master. He played in numerous Olympiads from 1968-2...
The Anand-Topalov World Championship Match has seen the use of the Catalan Opening. The following game and notes will show its use by the then future World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik, World Champion Alexander Alekhine, and the great Paul Keres. Bo...
During the current World Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov, observers have commented on how Anand has resorted to the Catalan System as White. It is normal for most players to change their opening choices in order to...
Vladimir Kramnik was born June 25, 1975. This Russian grandmaster defeated Garry Kasparov in a match in 2000 and became the Classical World Champion. He defended his title in 2004 by drawing a match against Peter Leko. In 2006, Kramnik defeated FI...
