Paul Keres was born in Narva, Estonia January 7, 1916 and died June 5, 1975. From the 1930s to the 1970s he was one of the world's best players. After winning the AVRO tournament in 1938 he was to play Alexander Alekhine for the world champion...
Arthur Bisguier was born October 8, 1929. He became an International Grandmaster in 1957. He remembers when "there were so few of us." He was the US Junior Champion in 1948 and 1949. He was the US Open Champion in 1950, 1956, and 1959. Fischer won...
I have long said that chess requires intelligence and character. This is the motto of the Grandmaster Chess School operated by Alexander Khalifman and Gennady Nesis. They express it as a formula, "chess = intellect + character." The school is in S...
Mikhail Tal, the former world champion, and Bent Larsen, the Great Dane, met in a semifinal candidates match in 1965. Larsen was ahead after winning game one. Tal won game two. Games three and four were draws. Larsen won game five and Tal came bac...
Anatoly Karpov was born May 23, 1951 in Zlatoust, Russia. He won the European Junior Championship in 1967. In 1969, he won the World Junior Championship. He was the world champion from 1975 to 1985. He played three matches in for the title from 19...
Alexei Shirov was born on July 4, 1972 in Riga, Latvia. He was World Champion Under 16 in 1988 and became a grandmaster in 1990. He defeated Vladimir Kramnik in a match to play a world championship match against Garry Kasparov. Instead of playing ...
Vyacheslav Osnos has recently passed away at the age of 74. He was born July 24, 1935 and died August 27, 2009. He played in the Soviet Championships 1963-1968. He won the Leningrad Championship twice. He coached world championship contender Vikto...
Mikhail Tal was on his way to the world championship when he faced Milko Bobotsov on his way to beconing the first Bulgarian grandmaster. Tal played the King's Indian Defense which Bobotsov challenged with the Saemisch Variation characterized by f...
Mark Taimanov was born February 7, 1926 in Kharkiv. He became a top Russian chess player and a concert pianist. In 1952, he became a grandmaster. He came in tied for 8th and 9th out of 15 players in the Zurich Candidates Tournament, from which I h...
The great tournament at Moscow 1967 had eighteen strong players, including four world champions. Tal and Smyslov were former champions who tied for places 2-5. Spassky, who would become the next champion tied for places 6-8. The world champion at ...
Machgielis (Max) Euwe was born May 20, 1901 and died November 26, 1981. He was the fifth world champion in 1935 after beating Alexander Alekhine 15.5-14.5, a score that would have been 16-14 if Euwe had not given Alekhine a draw in the last game w...
David Bronstein (1924-2006) was among the world's great grandmasters. In 1951, he missed becoming world champion by one half of a point when he scored 12-12 against Botvinnik. His game was known for beauty, opening ideas, and complications. His ch...
David Bronstein was born February 19, 1924 in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine and died December 5, 2006 in Minsk, Belarus. He earned the Soviet Master title at age 16 for his second place result in the 1940 Ukrainian Championship. He believed he was the you...
Siegbert Tarrasch was born March 5, 1862 and died February 17, 1934. He was close to the best player in the world around 1890. His match with Mikhail Chigorin, a contender for the world championship, resulted in 9 wins for each after 22 games in 1...
Richard Teichmann was born December 24, 1868, which is also true of Emanuel Lasker. He died June 25, 1925. This German player was one of the best in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As late as 1921, he held Alekhine to a draw in a match. Th...
Alexei Shirov was born on July 4, 1972 in Riga, Latvia. He is known as an attacking player. Mikhail Tal said the young Shirov was not inferior to Tal in the calculation of complications. Shirov was the World Champion U-16 in 1988. In 1988, Shirov ...
Paul Keres was born January 7, 1916 in Narva, Estonia and died June 5, 1975 in Helsinki, Finland. He became one of the best players in the world in the 1930s and remained near the top for almost forty years. In 1938, Keres came in first at AVRO, a...
José Raúl Capablanca Y Graupera was born in Cuba on November 19, 1888 and died March 8, 1942. He was a great chess prodigy who learned the game by watching at the age of four. He was the game's greatest natural talent and one of the greatest playe...
The M-Tel Masters is held every year since 2005 in Sofia, Bulgaria with six to grandmasters playing a double round robin. Veselin Topalov won the first three in 2005, 2006, and 2007. In 2008, the winner was Vassily Ivanchuk. Topalov came in second...
In 1988 and 1989 there was a series of six World Cup tournaments organized by the Grandmasters Association. The overall winner was Gary Kasparov, who won two of the tournaments outright and tied for first in two others. The following game between ...
Milko Popchev of Bulgaria was born in 1964. He became an international grandmaster in 1998. Nikola Nestorovic of Serbia was born in 1989. Since this game was played, he became an international master. The tournament was at Stara Pazova in Serbia d...
Tony Miles was the first over the board chess grandmaster born in Britain. For more of his biography see http://www.chess.com/article/view/tony-miles---the-first-native-born-british-grandmaster. His partner in this game is Amador Rodriguez Cespede...
Robert James Fischer was born March 9, 1943 and died January 17, 2008. He learned how to play chess at the age of six. At seven, he began to play in clubs and have instructors. In 1956, at 13, which is the record, he won the United States Junior C...
John Nunn was born April 25, 1955 in London. He won the British Under 14 Championship in 1967 and the London Under 18 Championship two years later. At, 15, he entered college, eventually becoming a doctor of mathematics. In 1975, Nunn was the Euro...
